ON May 25 you published letters from Dr Martin Rodger and Susan Chapman responding to mine of 15th. They are trotting out the same old arguments about global warming and a Green Utopia just around the corner.

I was born before there were TVs and jet engines and global population was half the present level.

The technological changes which have taken place since, are beyond science fiction.

In our country alone, for example, we developed the first computer (Bletchley Park), led the world in the development of jet aircraft for 20 years after World War II and introduced the first nuclear power plant (Windscale).

During this time, the demand for power has grown exponentially and it is possible, by the end of the century, the only serious source of power will be from electricity when economically accessible supplies of oil and natural gas are exhausted.

You could festoon the whole of the continental shelf around the UK with forests of wind turbines and cover our green and pleasant land with solar panels, but the one stops producing in calm weather and the other switches off at night.

So, in a period of time, no more than double my lifespan, so far, and with the global population probably doubling again, unless a truly sustainable power source is introduced on a mass scale, the lights really will go out.

The genius of homosapiens is that, more often than not, it is able to design self correcting mechanisms to balance mankind’s profligacy. And there you have it – the nuclear power station – compact, safe (if suitably sited), zero carbon and we are now clever enough to dispose of its waste products.

In context the Navitus Wind Farm is but a feather in the wind and, if approved, I cannot imagine the disaster of a derelict industrial site in full sight of Bournemouth in 20/25 years when the turbines come to the end of their life.

As for the Green Utopia, control the continuing global population explosion and I may begin to believe in it.

ARTHUR MAY

Wollstonecraft Road, Boscombe