Letters: Let’s aim for bowling green shoots of recovery for game

Lawn Bowls is one of the competition sports in the forthcoming Commonwealth Games, and is one of the five sports registered for disabled participation. In Glasgow the local authority has been investing in its public bowling greens, as part of the preparations for 2014.

Norma Austin-Hart wrote passionately (News, October 6)of the aspiration of the council to support Paralympic athletes. But how will we be supporting that with regard to lawn bowls, as greens and clubs close?

Bowling clubs may indeed be struggling for members, but let’s look together at how to better use those resources, in the interests of a healthier, active population. Let’s see how the city council could give the clubs and Bowls Scotland a hand, before the 2013 season starts in the spring.

When the Scotland lawn bowls team in 2014 is inspiring others to try the sport, let’s hope that Edinburgh City Council hasn’t closed down all its own bowling greens, and watched houses being built on the rest.

Ann Henderson, Gilmour Road, Edinburgh

Vulnerable get less attention

I AM concerned that, in many of the discussions around assisted dying, including in your report (November 3), complex issues are sometimes confused, and in all of this the needs of the vulnerable are lost.

The Church of Scotland is closely involved with caring, at a practical level, for many vulnerable people. We are concerned that while the self-confident and articulate push for a change in the law to allow assisted suicide, less attention is paid to the danger such legislation could pose to those whom society does not hear as readily: the elderly, the poor and the disabled.

While we agree that there are times when it’s necessary to stop intervening, this differs fundamentally from actively inducing death.

Rev Sally Foster-Fulton, convener, Church and Society Council, Church of Scotland, Edinburgh

Huge gamble by ‘global warmers’

CLARK Cross and other global warmers are gambling with life on planet Earth (Letters, November 1).

Our over-consumption has caused the disaster in the United States and is melting the Arctic ice cap, moving south the British jet stream, flooding Queensland and drying out lakes in Africa and India.

I am not an SNP supporter, but Alex Salmond is right to sponsor green energy. It will bring work to Britain. Last year the Scottish grid did not use carbon fuels for 116 days.

This could have been reported by the expert advising the PM, but was not what David Cameron wanted to hear when trying to cut Alex down to size.

In 1971, the MIT in Boston published a report, The Limits to Growth, based on the data and computers available.

It forecast a population catastrophe in 1995 with US greed a major cause. That catastrophe was the start of the East African droughts.

Since 1960, many nations have tried to copy the American lifestyle and increased the strain on our ecosystem. Remember, if the Gulf Stream changes, Linlithgow is on the same latitude as Kodiak Island, Alaska.

Bob Dalgleish, Granton

We need to know causes of disease

YOU reported that singer Mike Peters, who is in remission from leukaemia, raises money for his Love Hope Strength Foundation (News, November 5).

There should be more information given out on the causes of such diseases. Researcher Edward Priestley contracted severe aplastic anaemia (bone marrow destruction) from workplace toxic chemicals and doctors didn’t think he would survive – but decades later his blood count is normal.

He found the causes of leukaemia include toxic chemicals, radiation and certain medical drugs. Benzene is a proven cause of leukaemia yet is widely used by industry. By avoiding chemical causes he survived and helps others.

The EU now admits that many chemicals were allowed into common use without proper safety testing. Preventing the disease in the first place would save so much suffering.

A Wills, Ruislip, Middlesex