Sir, – The Government, responding to the recent report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, said that raising the carbon tax would be difficult for people to handle at a time when fuel prices are rising.
But that is the whole point: we have to make changes, now, which are bound to be painful because we have to radically change our way of living.
By putting off these hard decisions all that we ensure is that eventually the pain will be greater, either because the weather will hurt us or because when the politicians do wake up the changes they will have to make will be even harder to manage.
Responding to climate change is probably the only decision in the world which cannot be delayed without causing irreparable damage, not only to us but to the world.
We need, desperately, a government of courageous leaders; instead we get one which is only able to do nothing more than pander to short-term selfishness. – Yours, etc,
PATRICK DAVEY,
Shankill,
Dublin 18.