IT strikes me that the green agenda rests upon some very questionable science: more upon sentiment than hard science. 

Born a farmer’s daughter and living on the fringes of conservation all my life, I have learnt that much conservation activity actually makes little difference to the underlying tide of events. We now have many examples.

Flooding on the Somerset levels has always been a problem but is compounded by the deliberate policy of the Environment Agency not to dredge but “re-wild” the area. 

This was exacerbated by EU directives. 

The same group of quangocrats are now moving with their ignorance and mistaken ideas into charities such as the National Trust (“wilding” the Lake District) and the RSPCA (anti-hunting – the field sports groups are the best wild life fauna conservationists in action – they understand how the countryside works).

Then we have the diesel scandal. Despite the known downside of damaging emissions, the scandal was the result of the state-incentivised, EU-wide drive, from the early 1990s onwards, to replace petrol engines with diesel ones in the belief that it would reduce CO2 levels, and with it, man-made global warming. 

The figure for this is infinitesimal but, that for the more harmful Nitrous Oxide and soot articles (viz Coal and the Clean Air Act) is high and was known to be harmful. 

Carrying on from this flight from petrol is the next scandal; bio-fuels. Good hard wood forests are being felled and imported to feed Drax and other power stations. Swathes of primary rain forest are being replaced by palm-oil plantations. 

Wind turbines, though they have a role, are not the answer where there are variable wind forces (compare Denmark).

What about those most hit by these policies and the anti-GM foods war on golden rice etc? i.e. Food shortages and poverty caused by the diversion of agricultural land to bio-fuels, lower living standards created by the enforced rejection of cheap fossil fuel in favour of “renewable energy”, fuel poverty deaths caused by artificially inflated “clean” energy policies.

It can be argued that leaving aside population pressures, the main environmental problems facing us are the result of sentiment rather than science driven environmental policies. 

As for us, the quick answer is a simpler life, less material, more tuned in to the natural rhythm of life and more people based – more challenging too!

D BRADLEY
Kingston St Mary