We are lacking in green alternatives

MR Terry Riordan seems to have been bemused by some of my earlier comments and then uses his misinterpretation as a weapon to try to brow-beat me.

Yes, if there were far fewer people in the world, then there would be less human-created carbon release, etc (I am not necessarily espousing that infinitely but stating a basic fact). Some of the largest populations occur in areas with giant economic progression, so their carbon emissions are rocketing twice-ways. We do indeed have to share our planet!

I disagree about a past ‘responsibility’ for the share of carbon (or methane or any nasty gasses) in the atmosphere presently. That is taking things rather too far.

It’s not about making lots of money in oil and gas (the latter considered green by many leading economies now). Any legitimate business is entitled to make a profit and these no more so than any other

and to cover the necessary transition needs and to provide colossal capital to decommission things too. There’s no ‘artificial rigging’ of prices in such vast quantities of commodities – simply headless chickens all vying against one another.

Prices are fixed by supply and demand and we have been foolish about failing to secure our supplies these last few years (with excessive ‘instant’ green obligations impossible to meet and phenomenal costs to relevant industries) and so ‘green = heat or eat’ for many of the world’s vulnerable in pricing terms presently and that’s unacceptable.

We may have highly cost effective green alternatives but we don’t have anything like enough, and it is impossible to provide them all ‘today’ (or tomorrow, come to that).

It is imperative to be sensible about this and provide transition as well as working towards sensible greening goals. So yes, more licences, more quickly and also other home fossil-fuels please, so that we can transition properly and stop being so naïve about it – and more political and individual influence upon the biggest carbon dumpers in the world too.

Philip J Milton Trimstone, North Devon