Bypassing sanity on road to black-out Scotland

THAT wee green elf has been chirping away again in Holyrood. You know the guy. He's the one who threatened Alex Salmond's budget till he was bought off with a bag of magic beans.

Anyway, he was back on his pantomime horse, complaining that the decision to press ahead with the Aberdeen city bypass was another missed opportunity to pursue climate-friendly policies by having us all walk to work.

Now, I lived in the Silver City by the Golden Sands in the swinging Sixties and, even back then, to commute from Cults to King's College was a dreary slog. More roundabouts than East Kilbride, as I remember. So, I back any attempt to relieve the poor motorists suffering daily on North and South Anderson Drives.

Next on the list should be a motorway link between the northbound M77 and the westbound M8. The people of Dumbreck pay generous council taxes, yet have to tolerate the Ibrox parking contingent blocking their leafy suburban roads every second week. They don't need daily heavy Greenock traffic clogging their arteries.

And how about a Princes Street Gardens Parkway to reduce the congestion those damn trams are going to generate? Or just complete the city bypass so you can get to Leith.

Pick your own local example and start demanding that politicians keep building roads. Travel by car is comfortable, entertaining (less so without Wogan) and educational – great for talking back in French or Spanish to your DVD. From your driveway to a meter outside your office or the shopping car park, public transport can never be as convenient. And what effect will the extra emissions have on the environment? None. Rien. Nada.

I am not a climate denier. On the available evidence, I accept that it appears the planet is warming and that man's efforts to improve his lot has had an impact.

I hold to this view even although the cold snap has raised serious doubt. The difference between weather and climate is not the point. What the analysis of both weather and climate share is prediction. If the Met Office, with all the reliable data it feeds into its well-tried models, can't see a cold winter coming at four weeks' notice, what chance of an accurate 30-year forecast of Scottish temperatures based on incomplete data stuffed into untested models on the Norfolk Broads? I only ask.

But even that's not the most significant point for Scots. Let's accept the direst predictions. The fact is that our carbon consumption forms such a small part of the UK's, never mind Europe's or the world's, that we can do what we like in terms of car usage.

I drove 1,600 gas-guzzling miles in my Mercury Grand Marquis sedan around New Mexico and Texas this autumn, ending up in Houston.

Not a place you'd want to live, but a city said to boast three and a half cars per registered voter. A city that has freeways flyovers piled five high. A city with subterranean multi-storey car parks under every office block and hotel. A city built on oil and determined to enjoy using every last drop. You really have to drive among them to realise Americans' commitment to the automobile.

And Houston is only the fourth-largest city in the United States. In fact, there are four times as many people in America's ten largest cities than there are in Scotland. And they all drive. We're going to make a difference by not building 28 miles of road?

Then there's China and the one new coal-fired power station it builds every week. So, without even looking at India, or Indonesia, or Brazil, you might begin to get an inkling that, however often we motor across on our two-lane M8, it will make not a blind bit of difference to global warming. Of course, the moralists say, we should be setting an example. And feeling good about following politically correct energy policies seems to be the best return we're going to get from them.

Because what naive fool thinks the leaders of the People's Republic of China are sitting in their praesidium noting how responsible Scotland is being and guiltily voting to follow suit?

If you believe that, then go ahead and support policies that are leading to the ugly wind farms and power lines destroying our natural assets as we tie ourselves to high-cost and unreliable sources of energy.

These policies threaten future growth. Not that that bothers the green lobby. It doesn't like growth, preferring sandals to Guccis. Maybe you do, too. But it is economic growth that has given you the choice.

Pursuing these policies, we will run short of energy; and all the quicker because, for emotional not rational reasons, we have turned our backs on the safest, surest source, nuclear power – a source under our control, not that of mad mullahs or Russian oligarchs.

The canny French – our auld allies – caught on to this decades ago. Now, 80 per cent of their energy comes from nuclear. They have no problems with accidents or security or storing the waste. Their only difficulty is deciding to whom to export the surplus power they generate.

By phasing out our nuclear power stations, we are guaranteeing that the occasional power cuts we find so irritating in winter will be facts of everyday life. I'm all in favour of windmills as part of the mix. But, even in Scotland, the wind doesn't blow just because you need to put the kettle on.

Of course, the English, pursuing sensibly balanced policies, will be nice and warm. If we're still lucky enough to be part of the UK, we can cadge off them as we play Grasshopper to their Ant. We will have enjoyed a summer basking in the warmth of righteous self-congratulation, while they'll have had to slog it out with the unpopularity of tough planning decisions. They'll love us for that.

But if we've been cut loose to join the bankrupt Arc of Absurdity – Ireland, Iceland and Norway – what price will we then have to pay per gigawatt?

Unless we abandon the arrogance that claims tiny, powerless Scotland can lead international opinion by example, we're going to end up as the Cinderellas – and our fires will be well and truly out.