SOME time ago I gave up reading articles written by Michael Fry. His offering in Tuesday’s National (Are we really going to choose climate action over higher living standards?, June 18) was among those which I ignored. In the last few days, however, letters from several readers alerted me to his most recent offering on the topic of global climate change (GCC).

So I dug out the relevant issue and forced myself to read it. I did not enjoy the experience.

Allow me please to explain the problem in terms which he might understand. GCC began about 200 years ago at the start of the industrial age but was drawn to most people’s attention about three decades ago. The point is, it has been going on for a long time and it is accelerating. There is now a great deal of greenhouse gas in the Earth’s atmosphere, so that even if we stop pumping it out, it will take about 100 years to dissipate. The effect of greenhouse gases is to prevent heat from escaping from the Earth into empty space. Heat can still enter, however, because the greenhouse gas effect only affects heat that is escaping (because it has a lower frequency).

Therefore, allowing these gases to accumulate in the atmosphere is like placing insulation round a constant heat source. That heat source just gets hotter and hotter. So even if we stop putting more greenhouse gases into the atmosphere there will still be a significant effect – about which there is little we can do. We can do certain things, but once the effect has reached beyond what can be controlled easily, that would be extremely expensive and would probably not be done in time before serious – indeed disastrous – effects become obvious.

Furthermore there are methane deposits lodged at the bottoms of the oceans. If the temperature of these oceans increases by only a small amount, these deposits will be released – and methane has a very much stronger greenhouse effect than CO2.

This problem is with us today, it is growing, and it is potentially a world disaster on a scale compatible with an asteroid impact. It is a slower effect, of course, but just as bad in the long run. It is also not reversible once it has reached a certain point.

It is not entirely clear yet, but we may indeed have passed beyond that point.

Nevertheless, there is still a chance of improving the situation, so the “too late” argument is not a valid argument for doing nothing. We must act. And we must ALL act together.

I ask Michael Fry to reflect on how we would be able to deal, not with a few thousands or even millions of people, fleeing a war zone, seeking safety for their families, but with several hundred millions of people fleeing their homeland because it is under water. They would be seeking not only a place to live, but seeking land on which to grow crops to feed themselves. What would he have us do? Throw them back into the sea? Commit mass murder?

I put it to him that the only way we can or could deal with that in a way that is compatible with compassion and humanity is to prevent it from happening at all.

And to prevent that we MUST act with extreme urgency – right now.

Hugh Noble
Appin

I DO hope that Michael Fry doesn’t get discouraged from the frequent criticism he has to take from some subscribers. Do we not need lots of different viewpoints to be aired in The National? Michael’s opinions deserve consideration like everybody else’s. The Yes movement surely has to contain independence supporters of many different shades. All – well, almost all! – deserve a hearing.

Julian Rudd
Forres, Moray

I FEEL I must congratulate the Scottish women’s football team on an outstanding effort in the current World Cup. They were the victims of some of the worst refereeing decisions I’ve seen after closely following the game for over 60 years. And I used to think Willie Collum was useless!

If VAR had been used in the Japan game, Scotland could and should have had two penalties while the Japan player could have been booked for diving for their penalty. I will also be watching closely for any goalkeeper moving slightly forward at a penalty kick and not being penalised!

Ian Baillie
Alexandria

PLEASE be consistent, Iain Maclean (Letters, June 21). If you are going to call the Scottish women’s football team the Scottish ladies’ team, call the Scottish men’s team the Scottish gentlemen’s team!

Alison Fraser
Inverness

I WATCHED a programme on BBC by Brian Cox on the planets. He was full of himself and was full of praise for Nasa and its probes to Saturn. He stated that the probes found out what the rings of Saturn were made of. More than 100 years ago a young James Clerk Maxwell, using only the laws of physics and mathematics, created an equation to show what the rings were made of. All the probes did was show he was correct,which we knew anyway.

Ronald Livingstone McNeill
Strachur