SIR – For Jason Smith’s benefit (“No green solution”, Letters May 10), I never stated that extreme weather is linked to increased atmospheric CO2. Some, possibly.

I find UKIP’s Nigel Farage not dissimilar to one Margaret Thatcher in speaking positively and in strident terms. Some people believe anything spoken in this way. Perhaps that’s why I don’t trust or like UKIP. Mr Smith states that: “Windmills are neither reliable nor cost-effective”.

They are very effective, especially in countries like Denmark with few other energy resources (and were historically right across Europe). Windmills are reliable. The wind maybe not.

Cost-effective, Mr Smith? Wind power is clean. Have you counted all the costs associated with other energy sources including:

  • public subsidies in developing and building nuclear power stations?
  • disposing of many thousands of tons of waste from sites around the country?
  • acid rain from burning fossil fuels killing forests and lakes here and downwind in Scandanavia?
  • public health and respiratory problems from fossil fuel pollutants and smog-related deaths?
  • probable climate change from CO2 emissions (you can deny it all you like)?

UKIP gets lower in my estimation the more I hear of its “solutions” to our problems – economic and otherwise.

John Hall, Pennithorne Avenue, Baildon