From Chris Rose
Your editorial about climate change hits the proverbial nail on the head when it says “there is something wrong with conventional economics” (11 February, p 5). But the biggest problem is that politicians have adopted conventional economics as their highest authority, as an operating system and a belief system. This stops them from doing what is obviously needed.
Only in times of war does bean-counting go out of the window in favour of directed activity. We now need a global war on climate change, or else the conventional economic machinery is going to cook this planet.
From Nick Reeves, Chartered Institution of Water and Environmental Management
Your editorial deals with only part of a complex equation. Whether governments can afford to mitigate the worst effects of global warming through technical fixes is not just a matter of economics and cost/benefit analysis. There is also the infinitely more tricky issue of ethics and doing what is morally right.
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For example, to save London, its environs and its people from flooding would come at a significant financial cost. At some point a decision might have to be made about the extent to which we are prepared to make sacrifices for one of the world’s greatest cities beyond what would be conventionally economic. This would be a real test of the value we place on a city’s people, history, culture and institutions. The UK government, the Environment Agency and local councils are already grappling with these issues as parts of the country’s coastline retreat as a result of rising sea levels.
London, UK
Wells Next The Sea, Norfolk, UK
