Dear Editor,
I read the various letters responding to George Monbiot's frustration at the lack of movement on climate issues and empathise deeply with the views expressed. Here I feel that we have reached an impasse and that, however logical the arguments, everyone involved (governments, academia, corporations and, yes, also the public) has become expert at side-stepping, excusing and fudging the issues.
So we need to bypass the log-jam and, just as the FBI got Al Capone, not through his criminal activities but rather his tax-record, we need to nail climate change from another platform.
My suggestion would be to home-in on a number of "damaging factors" which have the potential to pull the rug out from under our consumerist society. My favourite of these is the topic of "tyre dust": On the surface this has nothing whatsoever to do with climate change but, in order to fix the immensely serious issue of toxic, microplastic particulates from tyre abrasion (hundreds of thousands of tonnes of which contaminate the air, soil and oceans every year), we would have to dramatically cut road transport and then live, work, farm and manufacture locally, seasonally and sustainably. Such a change would be massive but would bring untold benefits both for the environment and the climate.
I am sure that there are many other "damaging factors" (e.g. pesticides, plastics, air-conditioning, flying, electricity-consumption, etc.), the tackling of which could be turned to benefiting the climate but let's start with "tyre dust". Or we can simply continue to ignore it and let this poison (and many others) progressively permeate the whole planet.
Regards
