LETTER: Our obsession with fossil fuels

Whatever the reasons for their recent rejection of proposed solar farms (County Times 17 April), I do hope HDC councillors have not closed their minds to the urgent need for alternative – ie. renewable – sources of energy.
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Storrington’s disgraceful air quality demonstrates just one of the many downsides of burning hydrocarbons.

Our uncomfortable relationship with Russia, a major gas supplier with its hand on the tap, provides another.

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But the fact is we are energy addicts – and there’s a price to be paid for our craving. At present we are doing great harm to ourselves and the environment by polluting the atmosphere so heavily.

As we show few signs of reducing consumption we must find less damaging means of production.

The sun is something of an expert in these matters. It is generously offering us its services.

It isn’t asking us to mine, frack or pour millions of tonnes of CO2 into the atmosphere.

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Why, then, don’t we invest wholeheartedly in maximising the efficiency and use of solar technology: harnessing the sun’s bounty at a hugely reduced cost to the environment?

As for concerns that solar panels spoil the countryside, a conventional power station hardly enhances the local scenery. And its ugliness is only part of the price it demands to satisfy our energy hunger.

No - what is really spoiling and threatening the future of our environment is our obsession with fossil fuels.

Too many of us are stuck in our ways, unwilling to grasp the opportunities offered by a move to modern, green technology.

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What would the great inventors and entrepreneurs who fill our history books make of our timidity? I should add that I have absolutely no connection with the solar energy industry.

But I do have grandchildren. I want to leave them a world fit to live in.

PHILIP TAPSFIELD

Garden Wood Close, West Chiltington

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