Letters to the Editor | 21 October 2006

Green realism

From George Monbiot

Sir: I realised long ago that we environmentalists cannot win. When we draw attention to the problem, we are told we are doom-mongers who refuse to accept that markets and human ingenuity can solve any difficulties caused by the overuse of resources. When we propose solutions, we are accused of being utopians who refuse to accept that nothing can be done.

In reviewing my book Heat (Books, 14 October) Tom Fort agrees that the changes I propose are necessary to prevent runaway climate change, but claims there is no chance they will be adopted. He sees bus lanes on motorways, offshore wind farms and stronger building regulations as the stuff of science fiction. To me, they seem rather mundane.

Mr Fort appears to believe that governments are incapable of pursuing policies that are costly, contentious and technologically demanding. So how does he explain the Iraq war?

George Monbiot
Oxford

Freedom vs equality

From Helen Johns

Most popular

Ameer Kotecha

Lindt has cheapened itself

Sir: If David Miliband’s observation that we humans are ‘interdependent’ and co-operate with others to achieve our ends is the ne plus ultra of British political philosophy, then God help us (‘Cameron has substance — but it’s nonsense’, 14 October). He is also wrong to imply that New Labour has neutralised the trade-off between freedom and equality. This trade-off will always exist, because the reduction of inequalities requires the diversion of resources and the limitation of individual freedom of choice.

For example, as a Londoner I enjoy far poorer air quality than a resident of the Isle of Mull. Would the Secretary of State for the Environment argue that this inequality, which exists through neither merit nor need nor desert, should be ‘curtailed’? This would require such a hugely unnecessary, wasteful and dictatorial disruption of people’s lives that, on balance, we live with the inequality.