AS a retired academic scientist who is still keeping up-to-date on environmental matters, I feel a bit sorry for local governments.

They do not have the scientific backing of Whitehall, although that is often quite dubious.

There are two areas of pollution.

I think the message has got across the we need to try to ameliorate global warming by cutting down on emission of carbon dioxide and other infra-red absorbing gases.

The risk of our not doing so is so horrendous that we contemplate the planet becoming uninhabitable.

Some scientists want more evidence, but unlike engineers often don’t understand risks.

Then there is local pollution which affects health.

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The risks here are not easily calculated and an American expert has cast doubt on the way numbers of deaths caused by such pollution are bandied about.

Notoriously Mayor Khan quotes Imperial College studies on London.

The American expert who is a US government adviser writes such figures are nonsense.

I am afraid Essex County Council with its cycle lanes and all the bus lanes, are contributing to global warming and so environmentally NOT friendly, since that risk is more important than local pollution.

In any case Westminster Council carried out a study some years ago showing that buildings were the major cause of local pollution.

Wood stoves are great contributors to that!

I suppose they won’t listen, but my plea is “get traffic moving”!

Electric vehicles could be a solution, but when the wind doesn’t blow or the sun is behind clouds and night, most mains electricity is made by dirty means and the grid is already nearing overload!

Dr David Greenslade MA, CChem, FRSC

St John’s, Colchester