Don’t stick your heads in the sand

Sir, – It has been accepted for many years that with individual choice comes individual responsibility for those choices.

Mr Loneskie (Letters, June 20 – Green extremists want to take away individual choice) states that green extremists want no cars, no meat, wash less and use less laundry.

This is not generally correct. Green activists are a broad church but most want reductions or changes, not elimination.

No mention of air travel, cruises or importing foods from far-off lands that damage their environments and economies, or other such frivolities.

The claims made by Professor Ian Plimer, cited by Mr Loneskie, have been examined by the American Geophysical Union.

They stated the opposite view, in that anthropogenic CO2 is 135 times greater than volcanic CO2.

Mr Loneskie takes umbrage at being labelled a “climate change denier”, but stating that the climate has always been changing and will continue to is a body-swerve worthy of the late Jinky Johnstone, and it ignores reality.

The reality we all must face is that society and the space which homo sapiens (all eight billion of us) inhabit, the atmosphere and the oceans are the systems which transfer and store heat and a myriad of other chemicals, organisms, around our only world.

It also includes the rest of the world’s ecosystem occupants that support our existence.

Mr Cole’s letter (June 20 – We need to curb our energy consumption) indicates that the longer-term trend on population is stability then decline, which seems a positive amongst a lot of negatives.

I don’t blame people that want to hold on to the lifestyles that they have “worked hard all their days for”.

It is a natural effect of the long days working hard yet keeping an eye on the money ahead.

But not taking on board the changing circumstances is veritable ostrich behaviour, or perhaps a dodo is a more appropriate example, as doing nothing about climate change will result in significantly greater costs than the trillions that are worrying the recent letter-writers.

Populations of humans and animals, both land and seadwelling, will die.

So long as it is not them, it is OK then?

Is individual choice valid in these circumstances, where experts advise change is necessary? Alistair Ballantyne. Birkhill, Angus.

GREEN THINKING: Individual choice can come into conflict with the issue of climate change.