Renewable Energy

Readers respond to an article by Simon Jenkins about a proposed windfarm in the Pennines

Re Simon Jenkins’ article (Ed Miliband would let a turbine farm destroy Brontë country. We need net zero, but at what cost?, 14 July), there might be good reasons for opposing a windfarm on the Yorkshire moors, but Emily Brontë isn’t one of them. Nor is the “turbulent romance” of Wuthering Heights an appropriate filter through which to view the Pennines. The Brontës’ local landscape would have changed considerably in their lifetime. They would have seen the rapid industrialisation of nearby towns such as Bradford and Halifax, and the mills that sprang up along the river in Haworth.

They would have recognised the benefits of the expansion of the railways despite the impact on the countryside (their brother, Branwell, worked as a railway clerk). The “historic Brontë village of Haworth” where they grew up was not a rural idyll, but a breeding ground for cholera and typhoid. The Brontë sisters must have applauded the campaign by their father, Patrick, for improved sanitation there, leading to the creation of a local reservoir that doubtless affected the countryside but also saved lives.

This blog is now closed, you can read more on this story here

In an interview with LBC Ben Wallace, the former Tory defence secretary, hit back at his former ministerial colleague Johnny Mercer rather more forcefully than he did on the Today programme (see 8.09am) over Mercer’s comments about the Afghan resettlement programme.

Tom Swarbrick, the presenter, quoted what Mercer said about how this “whole farcical process has been the most hapless display of ineptitude by successive ministers and officials that I saw in my time in government”.

No, I don’t agree with it. I think my record would show the opposite. It was me and Priti Patel, before the collapse of Kabul, who decided we were going to accelerate bringing people back who were under threat …

People hadn’t come out before. And we made sure that we did this. I think what Johnny, you know, fails to grasp, is quite the massive scale of collapse that happened very quickly in Afghanistan, leaving people at risk, and we had to do our very best.

The energy secretary framed environmental action as practical and patriotic, not in terms of wordy ideological pieties. But holding the line won’t be easy

Ed Miliband is a target for the political right; not because he’s irrelevant, but because he’s effective. The bacon sandwich gags and “Red Ed” jokes mask a deeper unease: that Mr Miliband, with his dogged insistence on science, public investment and long-term thinking, is right. Now, as energy secretary, he has delivered what he calls an exercise in “radical truth-telling” and a stark warning to MPs that rejecting climate action is a betrayal of future generations. The language, for once, isn’t overblown. It’s belated.

By highlighting the Met Office’s annual State of the UK Climate report, Mr Miliband shows that the hotter, wetter and more arduous future we feared has already arrived. Extremes are becoming the norm: the number of very hot days has quadrupled; in the last 250 years, six of the 10 wettest winter half-years have occurred in the 21st century. Britons experience this in cancelled hospital appointments, flooded homes and hosepipe bans.

Do you have an opinion on the issues raised in this article? If you would like to submit a response of up to 300 words by email to be considered for publication in our letters section, please click here.

UK’s energy system operator forecasts emissions a third over target by 2035, in second official warning in a month

Britain is expected to fall short of the progress needed to meet its climate targets over the next decade because it is not growing its supply of clean electricity quickly enough, according to the government’s energy system operator.

The latest 10-year forecast of Britain’s carbon emissions by the government-owned body has revealed that by 2035 the UK will be producing almost a third more carbon emissions than in scenarios where it is on track to meet its legally binding climate targets by 2050.

Of course the climate crisis must be confronted, but history, tranquility and beauty must also count for something

• Report: Ed Miliband to tell MPs who reject net zero policies they are betraying future generations

Nowhere does landscape marry passion quite so much as in Yorkshire’s Wuthering Heights. The tempestuous Pennine contours and tumbling streams perfectly frame Emily Brontë’s turbulent romance. Wild storms and dark gullies echo the cries of Heathcliff, Cathy and sexual jealousy. From moorland peaks to the historic Brontë village of Haworth below, the scene is unspoilt.

I cannot think of any British government for half a century that would have dreamed of destroying this place. Yet the energy secretary, Ed Miliband, apparently wants to do so, with the largest onshore windfarm in England, the Calderdale Energy Park. He clearly regards this unique landscape as the perfect spot for 41 giant wind turbines, each no less than 200m tall. Their height would top Blackpool Tower by 40m.