SCOTLAND so far has made great strides in wind power – so much so that when you can hear the wind blow today, you can say that Scotland is generating sufficient power for all our needs.
To achieve this required vision by engineers and the courage of politicians to believe and enact legislation to make it happen. We have much to thank Denmark for. They were the pioneers of wind power and began back in the 70s when Opec raised the oil price.
Scotland, however, has an additional advantage over Denmark and that is our geography. We are a mountainous country, which gives us the answer to the question “What about when there is no wind?” Rarely, about 60 days a year, but it does happen and that’s where our mountains come in.
Hydro power is the answer. Scotland could be self-sufficient in electrical power all the time, in spite of all. We have the potential to unlock masses of power, enough to power all the electrical vehicles such as trains, cars and trams that we want as well as exporting power through our “smart grid”. Hydro power would ensure that Scotland met its commitments to the carbon-free Scotland we all dream of now.
How much hydro power do we need? Enough to cope with Scotland’s forecast of increasing load, so if we match wind and hydro we can be self-sufficient and more every day. Pricing is for others.
We need independence to ensure this is possible.
J B Clark
Dunfermline
YOUR article on the recently discovered Pictish standing stone was most informative, but may I point out a misleading detail (Standing stone crowdfunder, October 15)? The reference to “the Ogham language” is erroneous: Ogham is not a language but a writing system, identical in principle to the Greek and Roman alphabets, with very simple “letters” designed to be carved on stone.
READ MORE: £20k funding bid launched to conserve Pictish stone
It was originally devised for Irish, and is the medium for the earliest inscriptions in that language (the first European language to be put into written form after Greek and Latin). Some of the Ogham carvings found in Scotland are certainly in Old Irish, but others have not been deciphered: a possibility is that they are not linguistic at all but random jumbles carved by artisans who knew the shapes of the letters but not their sound-values.
As to the language the Picts spoke, the reason little is known about it is simply that it had no written form, so that there is no body of literature in Pictish as there is in Old Irish or Old English. In a parallel universe, the union of the Scots and Picts might have led to the literate Gaelic-speaking Scots instructing their new neighbours in the use of the Roman alphabet to write their language; but in reality the Pictish language simply disappeared. The evidence of place-names, however, points strongly to the conclusion that the Picts spoke a Celtic language closely related to Old Welsh.
Derrick McClure
Aberdeen
Yesterday, when I was in the pit of despair about the hell being unleashed on Northern Syria, it was a Kurdish refugee friend who had to cheer me up. He remined me of that Kurdish saying, which I have quoted so often, “resistance is life”.
The Kurds have been resisting oppression for 100 years, and it is this resistance that gives them strength and gives life its purpose. This is not just a “no” to oppression, it is a drive to create something better.
READ MORE: Four Corners: Turkish war with Syria and Japanese floods
In Northern Syria, the Kurds have created a grassroots democracy that promotes women’s rights, ecology and inter-ethnic harmony, as I was able to see for myself when I visited last year. The Turkish invasion is an assault both on a people and on the hope of a better world.
Northern Syria is the front line of the fight against fascism and for social justice, and it is a fight that affects us all. We urge everyone to join the immediate demand for a no-fly zone, to boycott Turkey, and to learn more about the Kurdish struggle and join the resistance!
Sarah Glynn
Co-convenor of Scottish Solidarity for Kurdistan
IT comes as no surprise that the Andrew Marr show refused to have the Sunday National in their review of the papers, even if it did have an exclusive by the First Minister (BBC defends refusal to feature Sunday National, October 15).
READ MORE: BBC defends refusal to feature Sunday National in papers review
The BBC does not even attempt to provide fair or equal treatment of the news agenda in Scotland. It is a London-centric organisation whose purpose is to maintain the “British” political establishment, and by “British” we know they mean English.
Scotland is poorly served by the BBC and it is no wonder that more and more people are refusing to pay the licence fee.
Cllr Kenny Maclaren
Paisley
A POST-INDY public inquiry into the iniquities of the “Scottish” news media wouldn’t go amiss.
Derek Bryce
via email
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