Windpower problems
8:54am Friday 17th May 2013 in Readers' letters By Telegraph & Argus
Sir – Mr John Hall suggests windmills are very effective and reliable (Letters, May 15).
Whatever planet Mr Hall is living on must have a constant wind that never fluctuates because on this planet the wind varies and amazingly sometimes never blows at all.
Mr Hall’s windmills will therefore not work if the wind is (a) not blowing fast enough (b) is blowing too fast or (c) is not blowing at all. Whichever way you ‘spin it’, the windmill is ineffective most of the time.
Mr Hall claims windmills are ‘clean’ yet each windmill needs approximately 30,000 tonnes of concrete in its base to stop it falling over and environmentalists can provide evidence that turbines affect wildlife, specifically birds.
Like most windmill enthusiasts, Mr Hall seemed to ignore my comment that they drive down house prices, by an estimated 40 per cent! I wonder has Mr Hall got a windmill in his back garden?
Jason Smith, UKIP Bradford Chairman, Woodlands Avenue, Queensbury
Missing the point
9:06am Thursday 16th May 2013 in Readers' letters
SIR – John Appleyard is very far off the mark when he claims ‘Parties so similar’ (Letters, May 13) in regard to UKIP and the Tory party.
While the Tories are only for tax cuts for the rich, UKIP supports tax cuts for everybody, our flat tax and abolition of NI will see everybody pay less tax, our no tax on minimum wage will see all low wage earners pay no tax at all.
He claims both parties want to exit the EU, well that is true of UKIP, but the Tories want to ‘renegotiate our relationship’ and Cameron has stated his intention to stay in the EU at all costs.
While UKIP oppose windfarms, this is certainly not the policy of the Tories; a cursory glance at the horrific Tory manifesto will confirm this.
In fact, Mr Appleyard is so far off the mark, you can only hope he never takes up archery!
Jason Smith, UKIP Bradford chairman, Woodlands Avenue, Queensbury, Bradford
Climate debate fears?
8:37am Tuesday 14th May 2013 in Readers' letters By Telegraph & Argus
SIR – Ron Harding wades in (T&A April 30) on the big ‘global warming’, ‘climate change’– or whatever it’s called this week – discussion, suggesting that myself and colleagues always come to the conclusion that ‘experts’ are wrong.
This is, of course, not the case; while I disagree with most ‘official scientists’ who support the theory of man-made global warming, there are many thousands of independent scientists who are sceptical of this and who I more often than not tend to agree with, but as they do not fit in to the mainstream political climate agenda, you never seem to hear of them, at least not in the mainstream media.
People might remember environmental TV personality David Bellamy, who in 2004 famously suggested the theory of man-made global warming was “poppycock”, very soon after he mysteriously disappeared from our TV screens altogether. I wonder are the establishment afraid of a proper debate on this issue?
Jason Smith, Ukip Bradford chairman, Woodlands Avenue, Queensbury, Bradford
Lose-lose situation
8:33am Monday 13th May 2013 in Readers' letters By Telegraph & Argus
SIR – Ashley Forsyth (T&A, May 7) rightly highlights the Tories’ devastating plot to concrete over our district’s countryside, mentioning that David Cameron made a comment about our ‘lovely countryside’.
What I think David Cameron was thinking when he looked at all the lovely green belt area was, ‘look at all that potential space for more nice windmills!’.
Cameron’s family have ‘history’ with windmills – his father-in-law earns almost £350k a year from a publicly-subsidised wind farm on his 3,000-acre estate.
When we see windmills popping up in our back gardens, ruining the landscape and driving down our house prices, we must remember that, as they’re massively subsided, we’re effectively paying towards the destruction of our green belt!
So it’s a lose-lose situation, that’s unless you’re a Tory landowner!
Jason Smith, UKIP Bradford chairman, Woodlands Avenue, Queensbury
No green solution
12:40pm Friday 10th May 2013 in Readers' letters
SIR – Thanks for John Hall’s response to ‘Facing Facts’ (T&A, April 25) where Mr Hall actually faced the fact that ‘extreme weather cannot reliably be linked to increased CO2 in the atmosphere’.
A few more weeks of debate and Mr Hall could well be transformed from Camberwick Green’s Windy Miller to The Simpson’s Mr Burns!
That brings me on to our potential energy crisis – Mr Hall’s party of choice chooses to promote windmills, which are neither reliable nor cost-effective.
I would suggest his solution of concreting over our green belt with heavily-subsidised windmills will not only lead to an energy shortage down the power line, but will also see even larger increases in our energy bills as consumers indirectly subsidise this unreliable energy.
For our future energy security should we look to include shale gas in our energy plan? The US has and has seen consumer bills reduced dramatically.
Jason Smith, UKIP Bradford chairman, Woodlands Avenue, Queensbury
Ban this testing
8:35am Tuesday 30th April 2013 in Readers' letters By Telegraph & Argus
SIR – I fully support everything Ashley Owen of Animal Aid says (Letters, April 23). I personally find any animal experimentation disgusting and believe animal testing is no better than animal torture.
One of the biggest increases in animal testing is due to the EU’s REACh (Registration, Evaluation, Authorisation and Restriction of Chemicals) Directive, which mandates that all chemical substances must be tested to ensure they are safe, even substances that might have been used for years without any problems.
In an 2009 article by Thomas Hartung and Constanza Rovida in the Nature journal, they estimated that 54 million vertebrate animals would be used under REACh.
I’d like to see a national referendum on the question of banning animal testing, I am confident when people see the kind of ‘experiments’ animals have to endure then I believe most will support a ban.
Jason Smith, UKIP Bradford chairman, Woodlands Avenue, Queensbury
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