From Elliott Spiker
Fred Pearce’s excellent article (17 November, p 34) does not mention that energy is a commodity, whose price fluctuates with supply and demand. In simplistic terms, conservation leads to a drop in demand which is then reflected in a lower price.
This reduced price then drives demand in other areas and other sectors, locally and globally. Free markets will continue to act to spur consumption of fossil fuels and other natural-resource commodities. This is why I believe that, regrettably, governments must act to reduce the use of fossil fuel energy.
I hope another reader can point out the flaw in this argument.
As someone who believes in shouldering a high level of personal responsibility for reducing carbon emissions I find it comforting to know that I can potentially make a difference. However, what seems to me to be the most obvious way of reducing carbon emissions has been missed off Pearce’s list: limiting the number of children one has.
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I recognise the economic problems that population limitation or reduction lead to, but if the population reaches the point that Earth cannot support it, economies will collapse anyway.
I also know the human rights arguments against population limitation. But just how different is the right to have as many children as one likes from the rights to fly as often as one likes or to eat intensively farmed and imported food?
We could ignore the problems of climate change, and thus trade the welfare of other current and future individuals for our own welfare today. Alternatively, we could aim for social equity between and within generations and choose either a low carbon quota for each of a large number of individuals, or a larger quota – and greater welfare – for everyone within a smaller population. Given the difficulties of nations decreeing limits to family size, this is by necessity an extension of one’s personal responsibilities.
Rugby, Warwickshire, UK
Is the UK’s per capita emission of CO2 9.4 tonnes, as stated in one of your diagrams (17 November, p 36), or 12 tonnes, as stated in another (same issue, p 37)?
• The UN statistics division publishes a national per capita emission of 9.4 tonnes; 12 tonnes is your personal quota if you include things that the UN leaves out, like flights.
West Tremont, Maine, US
