The Greens should be focusing on long-term advances

Firstly, unlike the Greens in England who actually made advances in the EU elections this year (yet are still prepared to enter into a Remain alliance), the Scottish Greens did not do well. There is no basis for contending that the Greens would win even one seat. Only that they would help the Unionists. This is also a different situation to previous elections, such as in 1979, when SNP were genuine contenders.

READ MORE: Asking the Scottish Greens to stand aside in this election is absurd

Polls do not show that the Greens would come near winning a seat, although their vote might increase from that in the EU elections.

Secondly, the SNP policy of achieving an independent Scotland is compatible with what the Greens too seek to achieve. Personally I also support many if not all Green policies, as do lots of other SNP members.

Thirdly, I would want to have a frank but respectful debate in an independent Scotland. This would start with having a sense of perspective where we do not use phrases like “save the planet”, which is impossible for humans to achieve. Life on this planet is finite. We move inexorably towards a new Ice Age. There are wheels operating within wheels. The planet operates within a solar system of external influences over and above the damage that we humans cause. The Polar Ice cap, currently melting, with the possibility of creating catastrophic flooding, is in its origins geologically a recent development.

Our aims should be to conserve resources, as far as is equitable, for the benefit of life on the planet, for as long as we have any control over this. And we shall all have to make sacrifices, including the young people whom I saw merrily catching trains to Glasgow during their day off school to join the Extinction Rebellion protest, complete with glossy hair, coloured streaks, make-up and iPhones. Conserving resources isn’t all about stopping people commuting by car and reducing flight transport, although these things are vital. It’s also about not washing clothes after every wear; reducing the use of shampoo, hair colouring and make-up; ditto washing-up liquid; ditto IT hardware created to become obsolete.

By all means let’s have a frank debate about this in an independent Scotland. First, let’s get independence. Meanwhile I will keep restricting my use of the hoover to whenever my solar panels are working. But not my washing machine! Not in our climate!

Interestingly I read at Kilmartin that archaeologists have established that Scotland had a warmer climate at the time of the Battle of Bannockburn than it does now. I suppose that’s one good thing about those far-gone days ... but not the lack of antibiotics!

Joan Savage
via thenational.scot

I READ the fairly lengthy article by the Scottish Greens co-convener Lorna Slater defending the Greens’ decision to field candidates in marginal SNP seats and setting out the party’s policy on climate change in detail. There was a lot of interesting information in the article about climate change and not a single mention of independence for Scotland.

Douglas Turner
Edinburgh

LORNA Slater’s article begs one simple question: why are the Liberal Democrats worth standing aside for in England and Wales but the SNP in Scotland are not?

I merely ask so that when the next Holyrood election swings around and the Greens ask for SNP voters to “lend them their vote” on the list, I will be fully informed to know exactly what the Greens have done to deserve such generosity on my part.

Henry Malcolm
Dundee

I COULD not agree more with Colin Stuart (Letters, November 7) regarding Green candidates standing against SNP ones. There must be many non-Green party members like me who still feel the prime importance of tackling climate change with the greatest urgency.Right now, however, this is a priority of thought, foresight, and ambition. Within the UK it can never become a priority of action. That can happen only in an independent Scotland, which sets the example and leads the world to implementation. To my mind therefore, in order to turn ambition into action, the priority must temporarily become the clear demonstration of the Scottish will in the coming election, and thereafter the achievement of the independence which can facilitate the implementation of Green policy.

For that reason alone, anything that dilutes the drive towards achieving independence, such as a Green candidate risking depriving the likes of Pete Wishart of his seat at Westminster, inevitably delays the day when the Greens’ priority of ambition becomes one of action, and relegates it to a back burner.

L McGregor
Falkirk