Re: We can do it, Rees Sutcliffe (Times, June 8).
Rees Sutcliffe exhorts us to let the rest of the world go mad, believing sustainable carbon-neutral development is claptrap.
Sadly New Zealand is part of the madness. Earth simply cannot sustain the 8 billion humans on it now at the present rate of consumption and we are galloping headlong into climate disruption far worse than the droughts, heat waves, fires, hurricanes and floods we have witnessed already.
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which governments and scientific institutions around the world accept as the authority, warns we have 10 years to change our ways. After that, we may be powerless to regain the climate that has nurtured our civilisation.
I don’t suppose anyone likes change, but it’s coming – ready or not. Earth is a complex planetary system not a private school playground – it will respond to forces as it always has, whether we are here or not.
Dennis Horne
Howick
