IN Saturday’s paper, Caroline Rance welcomes the Scottish Government’s shift away from climate technologies such as carbon capture and storage (CCS), in its recent Climate Change Plan (Scotland can join world leaders in tackling climate change – if we act faster, The National, March 17).
Actually, this is incorrect. The plan explicitly mentions CCS and its importance for reducing greenhouse gas emissions across Scotland, underlining that carbon capture is the only way to decarbonise many industries, and is the most probable method for providing low-carbon heat rapidly and at acceptable cost, particularly for the 30 per cent of households that are fuel-poor.
The document sets out the Scottish Government’s plans for CCS, including funding for the Acorn CCS project in the north-east of Scotland and funding for Scottish Carbon Capture & Storage to assess opportunities for delivering demonstration facilities for CCS and CO2 utilisation on the ground in Scotland. The government is also encouraging further work to develop the Caledonia project for low-carbon electricity and heat at Grangemouth.
And, as importantly, the government continues to exert pressure on the UK Government to put in place the right policy and framework to support CCS in the UK. To that end, Scottish Government officials and academics are participating in the UK’s Ministerial-led Carbon Capture Utilisation Storage Council and the CCUS Cost Reduction Taskforce.
To my mind, this does not reflect a Scottish Government backing away from a technology, which will provide the “faster action” Ms Rance is calling for. Scotland is amongst world leaders in tackling climate change with an ambitious, rational and socially just set of actions. And we can all celebrate that.
Indira Mann
Communications and Knowledge Exchange Executive, Scottish Carbon Capture & Storage
SCOTTISH YouTuber Count Dankula has been found guilty of offensive communication and awaits sentencing. He may yet go to prison for filming his dog acting as a Nazi – obviously as a joke. Anyone actually intending to promote Nazi ideology might be advised that mocking Nazism with a pet is counterproductive. Ridiculing evil can be a powerful antidote.
When he brought the phrase “gas the Jews” into the joke he overstepped the mark, as the Holocaust does not have a funny side. But, however insensitive or offensive that is, there was no incitement to break the law, nor even any attempt to stir up hatred. It was ill-judged humour. If anyone can produce evidence that Count Dankula actually intends harm towards Jewish people, then prosecute him on that basis. But no-one can produce such evidence.
Making a sick, offensive or insensitive joke should not be a criminal offence. Once freedom of speech can be curtailed by subjective judgements such as “offence”, the door is open to the suppression of views that those in power would rather not hear.
This legal action has propelled Count Dankula from Coatbridge obscurity to international fame. His ordeal will have been stressful, but, in a few months’ time he might look at the whole incident as a personal breakthrough. Creating martyrs has a dubious record when it comes to suppressing undesired speech.
While the internet buzzes with the Count Dankula drama, MSPs ignore it, and the gulf between popular opinion and mainstream politics widens.
Richard Lucas
Scottish Family Party
AS I found the video in the “saluting dog” case amusing and not remotely offensive, I must assume the sheriff went barking mad.
R Mill Irving
Gifford, East Lothian
SAD proof of the notion that vehement opposition to homosexuality is sometimes borne of gay self-repression, the late Cardinal Keith O’Brien was a tragic figure.
He missed out on a life of love and relationships and opted instead, at least publicly, for protestations of Catholic dogma.
It is not for us to dictate the mores of the Catholic Church or any other organised religious groups, but we must think very carefully about their involvement in the education of so many of our children.
Neil Barber
Edinburgh Secular Society
CONGRATULATIONS to Tommy Sheppard on the 20th anniversary of the Stand Comedy Club (applause at The Stand turns twenty, The National, March 21), not just surviving but spreading its wings to envelope those stand-ups but mostly sit-downs at the Westminster venue.
Richard Easson
Dornoch
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