The other side of fracking
Sir: Peter Lilley’s article on fracking (‘The only way is shale’, 11 May) is right to outline the role that shale can play in addressing Britain’s energy crisis, creating jobs, and generating tax revenues. But he is guilty of several errors and omissions.
First, he ignores the concerns of local communities in opposing drilling and extraction. Second, he fails to address questions around methane leakage which are concerning US legislators and executive agencies. Third, he does not set out a role for carbon capture and storage technology, which would reduce the carbon emissions of shale. Fourth, he fails to acknowledge the body of evidence which predicts that onshore wind will become cheaper than gas by 2020.
Fifth, he claims that ‘global temperatures have failed to rise for 16 years’ without acknowledging that the last decade was the hottest on record or that the Met Office claims the current pause is consistent with ‘a trend of continued long-term warming’. Sixth, he claims that China and the US will not decarbonise, when both have started piloting EU-style cap-and-trade schemes this year.
Finally, and perhaps most bizarrely, he claims that Cuadrilla were excluded from an inquiry on shale gas conducted by the select committee of which he is a member. In fact, Cuadrilla’s chief executive, Francis Egan, was a witness at a meeting which Mr Lilley attended. Mr Egan’s evidence was cited nine times in the committee’s report, which Mr Lilley signed off.
If Peter Lilley cannot even remember whose evidence he has heard, why should we trust a word he writes?
Will Straw
Institute for Public Policy Research,
London WC2
Sir: Peter Lilley is incorrect when he implies in his recent article that WWF-UK receives funding from the UK government for public lobbying — the funding we receive is used to undertake projects overseas. In addition, his claim that Whitehall is in the thrall of ‘Big Green’ is frankly ludicrous. In addition, for him to say that global temperatures are not rising and that China, India, the USA and others are doing nothing to address climate change is plain wrong.
On shale gas, WWF is raising legitimate concerns guided by scientific evidence on both the potential local environmental impact of fracking and the climate impact of chasing more fossil fuels. On the first point, most of the concerned residents are not green zealots but ordinary people. On the second point, the notion that a large proportion of fossil fuels need to stay in the ground for us to have any hope of tackling climate change is not a niche view: the International Energy Agency, the London School of Economics, HSBC and others are saying the same. Perhaps Mr Lilley thinks they’re in the thrall of ‘Big Green’, too?
David Nussbaum, CEO WWF-UK
Godalming, Surrey
Cameron’s ticking clock
Sir: Your main leader (11 May) stated: ‘All Cameron is doing is asking Brussels to make its best offer … Four years is a generous amount of time…’ And later: ‘If David Cameron is re-elected and sets off around Europe to begin his attempted renegotiation…’. The connotation is that David Cameron only has to kill four carefree years before offering the British people a final consultation on their destiny, with his midterm reappointment to do so more or less a foregone conclusion. Gentlemen, this is not prescience; this is cloud cuckoo land. In fact his next two years, with the vote-splitting menace of Ukip and the perpetual treachery of Clegg, will be a time of unremitting struggle. If you doubt the above, rescreen the film High Noon. It is all about a ticking clock.
Frederick Forsyth
Buckinghamshire
Cheese platform
Sir: Tanya Gold writes, ‘I know several people who want to stand for elected office on a platform of more cheese for everyone, funded by the state’ and challenges readers to write in if they can think of a rational objection (Food, 4 May). I should like to take up her challenge. Dairy products are unhealthy and unnatural. It is worse than irrational for humans to consume cheese; it is sheer madness. We bemoan the ever-increasing rise in obesity, especially in children, yet we encourage them to consume dairy products, even though these are very possibly the main cause of obesity.
Sandra Busell
Edinburgh
Half a name
Sir: Entirely through my own error, I left a word out of last week’s review of ‘The Springtime of the Renaissance’ at the Palazzo Strozzi in Florence. The artist I referred to as ‘Benedetto da’ is really called ‘Benedetto da Maiano’. My apologies.
Harry Mount
London NW5
Hove letter
Sir: William Cook (Arts, 4 May) is not the first to confuse Brighton and Hove. Until 1997 Hove was a separate borough with its own mayor, and it still has its own MP. Just because Kensington and Chelsea are one borough, we do not locate Holland Park in Chelsea. No more should Brunswick Terrace be located in Brighton. It is in Hove. Hove’s residents got so used to correcting those who thought they lived in Brighton that the saying ‘Hove actually’ became a catchphrase.
Timothy Sainsbury
Hove MP 1993-1997
Could deterrence fail?
Sir: Anthony Horowitz (Diary, 4 May) asks if a nation with nuclear weapons at its heart can be civilised. Prompted by David Cameron’s recent praise of Trident, and wishing to register a preference for long life over posthumous vengeance, I wrote to my MP about the other side of this coin; what if deterrence fails, and a radioactive cloud spreads across the UK — what am I to do? Back came the reply: ‘Pray.’
Iain Crawford
Monmouth
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