Readers’ Letters: Scottish Greens should go global with climate complaints

However, there could be a role for him to play on the world stage. He and his MSPs could go to Russia and explain in detail to Vladmimir Putin how the war with Ukraine is creating so much greenhouse gas that the planet will soon melt. Once they have solved that problem with Russia, they could all go to China and tell President Xi Jinping that manufacturing wind turbines, solar panels, EVs and other goods is creating far too much greenhouse gas and China must stop doing so or face the wrath of the Green brigade.

It is certain that Putin and Xi Jinping will be able to find comfortable accommodation for them on their visit.

Clark Cross, Linlithgow, West Lothian

Hardly giants

Tim Cox’s letter of 6 December is an odd perversion of history. Can he really be serious in naming Boris Yeltsin and Angela Merkel “titanic figures who made Europe mightier and the world a safer place”?

Yes, Yeltsin bravely stood up to the communist old-guard zealots who opposed perestroika and glasnost and attempted a coup, but he then wiped Mikhail Gorbachev in the dust, drank too much, changed his prime ministers repeatedly, and finally, inexcusably, effectively reversed Gorbachev’s fledgling democratic norms by handing over the Kremlin to the rump-KGB and Vladimir Putin, not surprisingly resulting in the tragedy of Ukraine.

Merkel threw open the EU borders to over two million immigrants overnight from very different cultural backgrounds, with no debate in her cabinet or with her EU “partners”, and reversed Germany’s nuclear power development, also overnight with no debate, in favour of dependence on Russian oil and gas – thus funding Putin’s authoritarian regime and then his war – while refusing to increase her own defence budget to Nato’s two per cent of GDP “until the early 2030s”.

Finally, she was the prime non-UK cause of our small 2 per cent majority for Brexit due to that open-border declaration just months before the referendum, along with her “thin gruel” limits on any concessions to the UK in David Cameron’s so-called negotiations or sensible EU-wide reforms; coupled with the EU’s refusal to discuss the UK’s vital security and intelligence contributions, or any acknowledgement of our service sector’s importance to counterbalance the clear advantages in the EU of German industry and French agriculture.

Mightier and safer? Hardly.

John Birkett, St Andrews, Fife

Refuge in Egypt

Peter Hopkins claims Cameron Wyllie does not know his Bible (Letters, 6 December).

It is Mr Hopkins who does not know his Bible. In Matthew 2,13-15 it is stated an angel told Joseph to take Jesus and Mary to Egypt because Herod wanted to kill Jesus. They stayed for two years until Herod died.

Colin McAllister, St Andrews, Fife

Squirrel wars

Your report “Red Squirrel range increases 25% across Highlands” (5 December) is welcome news for Scotland’s most endearing and endangered mammals. Ten years of hard work has paid off for charities like Trees for Life, but also for the Scottish Wildlife Trust, which has virtually eliminated grey squirrels from Aberdeen and Aberdeenshire. Reds are now flourishing in woods and forests north of the Highland Boundary fault which extends from Helensburgh to Stonehaven.

The key battleground is against grey squirrels that carry the squirrelpox virus which is deadly to reds. Frontier towns near the fault line like Brechin, Kirriemuir, Perth, Stirling and Helensburgh have a mix of both species. Work has been undertaken to encourage pine martens to nest along the boundary fault, martens kill greys but fail to catch the more agile reds. This natural control method is also being developed in the Borders through relocation of pine martens from the Highlands.

All of this will be for nothing, however, if red squirrel habitats are not protected and extended. The work in the West Highlands was highly localised as only pockets of these habitats remain. Wildlife corridors are needed to join up woods and forests so that red squirrels can share gene pools or they will be susceptible to disease and may die out.

The Scottish Wildlife Trust has just launched an appeal, “Red Squirrels: a tail as old as time”, to push back grey squirrels from the boundary fault line and build on its success in Aberdeen. They need help from the public to continue their Saving Scotland’s Red Squirrels project.

Neil Anderson, Edinburgh

Street of shame

Stephen Jardine makes an impassioned plea for the appearance of Edinburgh’s Princes Street after the loss of so many shops (Perspective, 6 December).

Unfortunately, the rot set in when permission was given in previous years for the demolition of the original buildings for shops to replace them. That fine facade as you walked along Princes Street that was in keeping with the architecture of the New Town has completely gone. How is it that cities on the continent can keep the appearance for which they are famous but we seem bent on destroying ours?

Charles Lowson, Fareham, Hants

Apology

On Saturday 6 December we published a letter from Brian Forsyth attributing comments to Martin O’Gorman that were in fact made by another correspondent, Robert Menzies. We would like to apologise to Mr O’Gorman and Mr Menzies for the mistake.