### Reader’s letter to The Observer, 15th October 2024 ###
Dear Editor,
I read your editorial last Sunday (The Observer, Sunday 13th October, link below) and agree with most of the points that you make. But I strongly disagree that Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS) should be viewed as a viable solution: This technology is a “false-friend” which will lull us into a dangerous and deceptive sense of security and prevent much simpler and far more effective measures.
For example why bother with electric cars at all? We should instead be using our legs, bicycles and public transport. Why truck/ship/air-freight things around over such ridiculous distances? We should be developing more localised economies (growing crops; manufacturing things; returning, refilling and reusing containers; and repairing clothes, tools and appliances). And why generate renewable energy for that power to be squandered on massively electricity-hungry gadgets, pampering and, now, (absolutely ravenous) data-centres to support AI & Co?
On top of this, we should be planting trees: Lots and lots of them. Everywhere!
This seems like a no-brainer but every day I experience glaring exposure to our denial and our monstrous lack of will: I see enormous video-boards advertising cheap flights and oversized cars; my choice in the shops is limited to tacky, low-quality, wage-slave-produced items from the other side of the planet; and the world is engaged in multiple wars: Which is a sure-fire way to trash the climate!
Then, to cap it all, this year’s COP/IPCC gathering will (once again!) be held in an oil-producing country (Azerbaijan). That let’s us know how the agenda will be set, doesn’t it?
I despair!
Yours,
Alan Mitcham
Link to original article: https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2024/oct/13/the-observer-view-on-climate-change-hurricane-milton-is-a-portent-but-its-not-too-late
Leave a Reply