Sir, – It is disappointing to see Mandy Boylett repeating the same tired old fables and half-truths about wind farms being environmentally unsound and inefficient (D&S Times letters, November 28).

The fact is that there are now over two hundred thousand wind turbines operating worldwide, with a quadrupling of world wind generation capacity between 2000 and 2006 and further increases since then. Some countries in Europe already generate a sizeable slice of their electricity from wind: 33 per cent for Denmark and 19 per cent for Spain, for example. The Chinese, who are no strangers to the modernisation of industry and infrastructure, have almost as much wind generation capacity as the rest of the world

put together – clearly, they don't think it's inefficient!

Ms Boylett's argument about the environmental impact of wind farms is, frankly, nonsensical: here is a direct quote from the Department for Energy and Climate Change website: "onshore wind power has a relatively very small carbon footprint range of between 8 and 20g CO2eq/kWh, taking into account not only emissions from generation of electricity but those incurred during the manufacture, construction and decommissioning phases (my italics). By comparison, the average emissions from fossil-fuelled power generation in the UK was around 500g CO2/kWh".

If (heaven forbid) UKIP were ever to be in a position to implement its policy of abolishing green taxes it would be a disaster for the UK as well as for the world's climate overall. As the secretary-general of the United Nations has said recently about climate change: "Science has spoken; there is no ambiguity in the message. Leaders must act. Time is not on our side."

ROGER A FISKEN

Burneston, Bedale.