FOR decades, scientists have been telling us that we are in danger of destroying our planet. The burning of fossil fuels was breaking up the protective ozone layer causing global warming.

For most of us, this was too much to comprehend. It was sci-fi, something out of Star Wars.

But now, the reality of the problem is here for us all to see.

The freak weather that we are 'enjoying' is, we are told, a direct result of global warming.

And things are going to get worse. Oceans will rise as the ice caps melt. Low-lying regions will become flooded. Hurricanes, tornados and storms will form an ever increasing part of our weather here in the UK if we continue to burn fossil fuel at the rate we do now.

Yet people are protesting at the high fuel tax. Farmers and hauliers are demanding cuts. Their short-sightedness is a real danger to us all.

I remember reading in the BEN in 1996 about a firm who wanted to erect wind turbines on Turton Moor. Cllr Critchley, leader of the Bolton Tories, and the BEN, agreed that wind power was a sensible and almost inevitable alternative or supplement to the fossil fuel produced energy, but neither wanted windmills on Turton Moor. Cllr Critchley thought they were ugly and noisy.

I wrote to the BEN to say that we had long endured far uglier, noisier and far more polluting structures which were necessary for the production of electricity. I asked if the BEN and the councillor perhaps preferred these windmills to be built in someone else's back yard?

Maybe now, in the light of these terrible floods and the realisation of worse to come in the future, it is time for a re-think.

Wind, wave, tidal, river and solar power, which is free and in constant supply, should be supplementing some of our energy needs now, and perhaps in the future be used to generate all the electricity we need.

The moors around Bolton should be covered with wind turbines and we should be proud of the part we are playing in protecting the environment for ourselves, our children and our children's children.

Brian Derbyshire

Ribchester Grove,

Bolton.