Madam,

In your 12 September issue we challenged the organisers of Rali Bae Ceredigion to offset the carbon emissions created by their event by planting four acres of broad-leaved trees.

While many believe that offsetting in this way is little more than a form of greenwash, it would at least be a recognition by rally organisers that their event was responsible for roughly 12 tonnes of carbon dioxide being emitted to the atmosphere.

The silence from rally organisers since then has been deafening, and this has not gone unnoticed by those opposed to the rally.

We will make sure that its supporters and sponsors are made fully aware of their unwillingness to respond should there be an attempt to repeat the rally next year.

Speaking personally and in full agreement with Sarah Jane Morgan’s letter in the Cambrian News (3 October) I was absolutely furious on the morning of the rally. It was a beautiful, calm, sunny morning until about 9.45am when the first rally car roared, hacking and spitting, up the narrow lane in the remote valley below my house. And that continued for two and a half hours and then again for two and a half hours more during the afternoon. As well as the closure of many miles of public roads, many more miles of public footpaths were closed. I wonder if that was made clear to the local authority at the planning stage?

Having just returned from London myself, I would like to pay tribute to those other brave and selfless people I met there from the Aberystwyth, Machynlleth and Lampeter areas – and from all over the UK – at the Extinction Rebellion protests. They are doing so much to bring the attention of the authorities and corporations to the grave challenges faced by humanity and the planet thanks to the twin threats of species extinction and the climate emergency. Often at great cost to themselves, too; their belongings lost or confiscated by the police and their liberty curtailed by arrests and court cases. We, the rest of the population, owe them so much.

Yours etc, Jeremy Moore, Extinction Rebellion, Aberystwyth

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