Madam,

Our children see a bleak future growling apparently unstoppable towards them, because we are not taking climate change seriously. That is why so many came out of school on 15 February to demonstrate.

Within their lifetimes their world could be a chaos of displaced millions, as sea-levels inexorably rise.

It is already certain that all Arctic sea ice will have melted within their lifetimes – the fate of the Greenland ice-cap and the miles-thick Antarctic ice-caps hangs in the balance. If those melt, most major coastal cities in the world will effectively disappear, along with a huge area of agricultural land.

This is not merely ‘serious’. It is catastrophic! And what does the government do? It sets targets for carbon reduction by 2050 etc. Highly commendable – but too late. We may well be under water by then. Much of the remaining farmable land will suffer violent extremes of weather, as the immense energy trapped within the earth’s air and water expresses itself. Crops will be unreliable and food supplies will become ever more precarious.

Why, oh why, do we not take courage and follow the inspiring example of our desperate children and fight to stop the crazy dash for ever-greater consumption, for unending ‘economic growth’?

We must force our government to protect us. We must also accept that we all have the responsibility to accept new ways of life – healthier, slower, less reliant on energy and exploitation, more in touch with our true needs.

The human race needs to be on a war footing, united to preserve the wonderful world which nourishes us. We have very few years left before civilisation becomes a golden memory, unless we stand up and are counted. Nothing else is worth doing if we do not fight to prevent that.

Yours etc, Carol Nixon, Penuwch, Tregaron.