Flawed thinking from the 20mph and climate ‘cults’

In response to Francis King (Letters LTT 29 Mar), having walked 4,315km in 2018 according to my fitness watch, I have no need to stand on corners. 

It is obviously ridiculous to claim that cyclists shouldn’t be overtaken. Cyclists, including myself, will inevitably be overtaken in 20mph limits, particularly when they aren’t cycling at 20mph. 

Others can of course cycle faster than 20mph, so I presume Mr King would support speed limit enforcement against cyclists in enforced 20mph limits? 

Is Mr King suggesting a national speed limit of 20mph everywhere, or does he accept that cyclists will inevitably encounter much higher speed limits on many roads? 

As a cyclist I have experienced some poor driving and as a driver I have witnessed some very poor cycling, so problems lie with individuals rather than their mode of transport.

I pointed out in my letter that there is no hard evidence for 20mph limits increasing levels of cycling even when the survey questionnaire bar is set very low at ten minutes. 

The simple fact is that very few people see cycling as a viable mode of transport regardless of the speed limit, but a much larger minority see it as an enjoyable leisure activity. 

Moving on from the 20mph cult to the climate cult, Mayer Hillman (Viewpoint LTT 29 Mar) provides a typical example of the political agenda behind climate alarmism – only totalitarian undemocratic socialism can save us. 

Swedish school girl Greta Thunberg is evidence that climate scare stories are producing a generation of climate bed wetters. 

The green left using the vulnerable minds of children to front weak or erroneous arguments is a form of child abuse in my opinion. 

Without the huge economic, technological and social benefits that fossil fuels have brought us, I doubt that Greta Thunberg would have ever been born. I wonder if she cycled to Davos to speak at the World Economic Forum, or to Paris where she led a student protest? 

The future of everyone is dependent on reliable, affordable energy driving successful economies. 

A peer reviewed paper by Bjorn Lomborg revealed that if the Paris Climate policies were fulfilled, global temperatures would be reduced by less than 0.05C by 2100. 

Only 17 of the 200 countries are meeting the very small commitments they made anyway. 

Anyone who thinks that spending up to 46 trillion Euros to make no noticeable impact on global temperatures is clearly on a world financial suicide mission.

Instead of promoting panic along with ruinously expensive, ineffective policies, young minds should focus on world problems that can be solved at a small fraction of the cost of trying to tweak the non-existent global temperature control knob.