The Scottish Environment Protection Agency held a conference in Edinburgh on October 2 and 3 which brought together environmental experts to discuss the impact of global warming on Scotland. Among those experts was Dr James Curran, formerly head of environmental strategy at Sepa, a fellow of the Royal Meteorological Society and an honorary professor at the University of Stirling.
Professor Curran said that greenhouse gases released from moorlands could make climate change irreversible. He said that moorland soil, which contains massive amounts of stored carbon, was drying up and eroding as temperatures rose, causing the release of carbon dioxide. “Potentially, over future decades, the peat itself will release as much carbon dioxide into the atmosphere as we do in Scotland through our own human activities,” he said.
If Professor Curran is correct, it is the utmost lunacy wilfully to rip up and expose the peat of the Lewis moorland, when it is one of the world’s largest expanses of blanket bog and acts as a sink that stores carbon. Disturb the peatlands substantially and you release all that stored carbon back into the atmosphere as CO2. If this is “greenness” and “saving the planet” and “tackling climate change” in the eyes of developers and politicians, Lord help us.
Colin N Maclean, 17 South Bragar, Isle of Lewis
I sometimes find quite stunning the gall of some of your letter writers.
Mr Sage, who it would appear works for one of the biggest wind-turbine companies in the world, proclaims how well the rest of Europe is doing in blighting their landscapes with these expensive and inefficient monstrosities ““ and more importantly how the UK must catch up. He highlights the horrors of our greenhouse gas emissions ““ which are a mere fraction in Europe by comparison to Asia, the Far East and China in particular.
So why does his company not focus its efforts to those countries ““ as he is obviously driven solely by concern for the environment? Surely it is nothing to do with the outrageous public-money subsidies being thrown recklessly at this “industry” by our ever-squandering government ““ so neatly highlighted in the same letters page by Nick Dekker?
Rob Morton, 71 Hughenden Gardens, Glasgow
URL to article: https://www.wind-watch.org/news/2006/10/12/wind-farms-and-mass-release-of-carbon-dioxide/