Readers' letters - March 19

Re: Climate Change (LP Letters, March 12). Your letter writer, Derek Rogerson, is apparently convinced that there is no point in doing anything about climate change.

This seems rather a defeatist attitude.

Yes, maybe it won’t make any difference but how can we explain to future generations – who may suffer the effects of increasing natural disasters – that we didn’t bother doing anything as we felt it wouldn’t work?

Surely we should at least try?

And besides, even the hardline climate change deniers can’t deny that, thanks to humans, the world is in a mess.

Rainforest deforestation, habitat loss for animals, endangered species heading to extinction, air pollution, water pollution, ground pollution... the list goes on.

Now, are we still going to sit back and say, well, there’s no point?

Shall we just watch the world get worse, while we think to ourselves, “Our generation will be okay, we have enough money and enough fuel for our cars?”

Maybe some individuals don’t care about animals (goodness knows, we live in a society indoctrinated by a humans-only thinking, so no wonder).

But do we really want our children or grandchildren to live in a polluted, dirty world?

Now, I’m no pessimist.

Nor do I subscribe to the ‘religion’ of extreme capitalism (worshipping the economy at all costs), the prevalent ideology of this country it often seems. But I do believe we have a duty to ourselves, our fellow species, other animals – and to future generations – to try to clean up our world a little.

At least we can try.

Molly Clare

via email

poverty

‘Why punish schoolchildren?’

It was sad but unfortunately not surprising to see that local MPs Seema Kennedy, Ben Wallace, Nigel Evans and Mark Menzies have voted against giving school children a free meal.

I would love to ask these people to justify their vote.

Apart from being ‘blind sheep’ desperate to ‘kowtow’ to their party superiors, what made them seemingly want to punish the children of our country even more?

According to the Child Poverty Action Group, 30 per cent of British children live in poverty.

This is Great Britain, not Gambia or Guatemala, and we have allowed four million (yes, 4,000,000) children to get to the point where a free meal at school might be the only proper meal they get.

One thing I know is the majority of MPs will never vote to get rid of the millions of pounds of tax payers’ money that goes straight in their pockets each year in the form of expenses.

It’s strange how the Tories are desperate to get rid of their ‘nasty party’ image but will happily go along and take food away from the children of England, Scotland and Wales.

But notice how the DUP won’t let them punish the children of Northern Ireland.

I guess we know who is really running this country.

Steven Nicholson

Preston

roads

Lower speeds, fewer potholes

The picture on the front page of the Lancashire Post said it all (LP March 7).

The image perfectly illustrated how Preston’s thoroughfares with its solid cobbled and granite set surfaces – designed to stand the test of time, and which served me so well as a younger person, travelling on two and four wheels –are now being revealed again. Solid as ever, they have been ruined.

Countless billions have been wasted on applying, repairing, re-applying etc the nonsense asphalt. All in the name of?

Well, you name it, higher speeds needing regulation?

Protecting sensitive bodies in and on motor vehicles?

Saving careless cyclists from themselves, compounded by the growth of the compo culture which bedevils this country?

Clearly vested interests have been driving (no pun...) these developments.

Let me be perfectly clear, nobody appreciates a fast road more than me, in the right place.

But driving ‘in city,’ an average of 20 is fine. And there are still treats, a gentle rumble of tyres on granite sets, to be enjoyed in ‘protected’ zones around Ribbleton Lane and similar.

Grandad George

Bred Prestonian and bored with all this stuff about potholes

nostalgia

Thank you for the memories

I am the Jim Bland from your Looking Back (LP March 13, pictured inset, courtesy of Preston Digital Archive). Wow! Memories.

I am now 88 years of age, and it seems like yesterday. Thanks. A wonderful time from my younger days.

You also did an article on my trip around the USA, I think it was in 1996/7. I think a lady called Valerie did it.

I also had a mention of a book I had published in America. My, how time flies.

My grateful thanks for old memories, which make an old man smile and very happy. All the very best to you and my undying thanks for your contribution to an old man’s happiness.

Jim Bland via email