Letters: Climate disaster

Sir: The latest IPCC study ("Too late to avoid global warming, say scientists", 19.September) is, gratifyingly, more outspoken than its predecessors, but still trails leading opinion.

The reason for policy activists having adopted two degrees centigrade as a target maximum for global warming is that this is the critical threshold beyond which natural systems shift from being carbon sinks to carbon sources. The significance of the 2C threshold is not simply as set out in your table (horrifying though these may be), but the acceleration of global warming out of our control through positive feedback loops, such as polar and glacial ice melt, forest die-back, and methane generation through melting permafrost.

We are witnessing accelerating loss of polar ice at rates an order of magnitude higher than predicted even a few years ago. If these and other alarming trends (all of which lag the underlying changes) are already in train at a "mere" 0.8C rise, imagine the rate of climate forcing at two and a half times this increase. In this context, what can be the scientific justification for the IPCC statement that 2015 is the "last year in which the world could afford a net rise in greenhouse gas emissions"?

There is to such latitude available: we are already experiencing early-stage runaway climate change, and any suggestion otherwise simply fosters a dangerous complacency. Deferral of the necessary action will only make the task harder, the consequences worse, and the probability of reversal more remote.

If the earth had been invaded by an alien aggressor intent on destroying life through toxic gas emissions, all governments would pull together in a global emergency. Because it is humanity that is killing the planet, we prevaricate – almost certainly until it is too late to stop it. Human intelligence was never a greater oxymoron.

Nigel Tuersley

Tisbury, Wiltshire

Standing up to Mugabe at last

Sir: Have we at last got a political leader who is both good and brave enough to speak his mind and act on it? Maybe I am naive, but the independence and courage of Brown to stand up against the thug Mugabe, in whose country I lived for 20 years until 2001, brought tears to my eyes ("It's him or me, says Brown", 20 September).

At last perhaps we have a prime minister of integrity who will hopefully bring all other European leaders in with him for a mass boycott of this summit. If Mugabe thinks he can turn this to his advantage by screaming, yet again, "conspiracy", then so be it; that is not the point. What thinking person cares about what Mugabe thinks or says any longer? The point is that for perhaps 20 years, since the Matebele massacres in 1985, good men have stood around and said nothing. And that has been all it has taken for this evil to prevail.

Jane Tyrer

Montagu, Western Cape, South Africa

Sir: Gordon Brown's strong and principled stance against the attendance of Zimbabwe's President Robert Mugabe at the EU-Africa Summit is to be welcomed. The Prime Minister's firm stand is for Zimbabwe not against it, and his opposition to Mugabe attending the summit is completely consistent with his strong and practical commitment to combating poverty and fostering freedom and opportunity in Africa.

This summit is meant to cement the partnership between our two continents and promote policies on good governance, human rights, democracy and tackling poverty, all of which Mugabe knows little of and cares even less about, as the suffering of the Zimbabwean people demonstrates. Mugabe would only use the summit as an opportunity to grandstand with all the pomposity and noisy bragging for which he has become known in the world and hated in his own country.

A two-day event in Lisbon in December will be a forum for discussion, but the work to fulfil Europe's commitment to genuine partnership with Africa will continue far beyond it and I know that will have the continued strong leadership of Gordon Brown.

Glenys Kinnock MEP

Co-President, African, Caribbean and Pacific States – EU Joint Parliamentary Assembly, Cardiff

Sir: The Prime Minister is engaging in playground politics over the invitation to President Mugabe to attend the EU-AU Summit in December. It demeans him.

Be positive for once. As I understand it – although this issue is seldom discussed here – the UK never delivered its side of the bargain in Zimbabwe. Britain was meant to help to fund the transition away from a white-owned farming system to a more mixed black-white owned one. This would also have required extensive training of black farmers in commercial farming techniques. True, it appears that Mugabe did not actually push this transition as he should have done early on.

Second, the UK supported fierce IMF structural adjustment programmes in Zimbabwe. These created considerable unemployment, fuelling opposition to the regime in the cities, as Mr Mugabe obliged in cutting pubic spending. The economy started spiralling downwards then. To promise "a huge financial package" now only if Mr Mugabe is removed from power looks quite cynical.

This crisis is best resolved by EU and AU leaders of good will or by their intermediaries who are respected by all sides. A small group of such people should go to Harare and camp out there until the crisis is resolved. They should have, as their positive bargaining chip, the commitment of a large UK/EU financial package – money which should have been delivered earlier as promised, to reform the agricultural sector. Mr Mugabe could then retire, as he should, claiming that he had brought benefit to his people – for that was his original intention all those years ago when he starting fighting the Smith regime.

Dave Feickert

sheffield

Dawkins engages with theology

Sir: Professor Bowen (letter, 19 September) is surely wrong to reproach Richard Dawkins for failing to engage with leading academic theological thought. Dawkins actually questions whether theology (as against ancient history , history of religion etc.) is a valid academic subject at all: one could hardly ask for a more frontal engagement than that. It is surely for theologians to demonstrate that they have a contribution to make. Just as it is for those who believe in the existence of supernatural gods to produce the evidence rather than simply denigrate those who suggest there isn't any.

David Shaw

Leeds

Sir: If a background in theology is essential for someone to question the existence of God (letters, 19 September) then why is it unnecessary for those who do believe?

Chris Newell

Dorking, Surrey

Time to heal running sore of Guantanamo

Sir: I was saddened indeed to read of the plight of the Sudanese Al-Jazeera journalist lost in the black hole that is Guantanamo Bay (report, 13 September).

From the start, I have believed that this running sore on the body of freedom and democracy was wrong, but now this latest report makes me believe earnestly that the camp must be closed and the inmates repatriated whence they were seized illegally those years ago, but not before they have been counselled properly, and not by Americans.

We must find a way of ending this and ending it now. It is not right, it is not legal and if these "very bad men" are so very bad, why has no shred of evidence been produced or any trial commenced? The Americans have made a mistake and cannot admit it and it seems that the only way the camp will close is when all the people there have died through old age, through torture or at their own hands.

In the name of humanity, the UN must consider a resolution to declare it contrary to international law – and that resolution should be proposed by the United Kingdom. Perhaps then, and as a very much less important aside, we might regain some of our international reputation lost by following the most reactionary, illiberal, paranoid and frankly stupid American administration of all time in its imperial adventures.

Ian Maule

Ballasalla, Isle of Man

Confused orders in foreign languages

Sir: Making use of your fingers to indicate your choice in a foreign country is indeed a splendid idea (letter, 20 September). Alternatively, you could just shout very loudly in English whilst carefully adding the suffix "o" to each word. This is sure to endear you to the locals and is so much more fun than simply buying yourself a phrase book.

Steve Dodding

Peterborough

Sir: In Graham Chapman's autobiography, he recounts the time the Python team visited New Zealand. There was some confusion with the waitress when a three-egg omelette was ordered as to what it actually was. When it finally arrived there was the omelette with three fried eggs on top. Always be careful what and how you order.

David R Pollard

Heckmondwike, West Yorkshire

Crowded ground for the Lib Dems

Sir: I have to agree with Steve Richards ("A change in leader won't help the Lib Dems", 18 September) in asserting that replacing Ming Campbell with a younger leader is irrelevant to the party's current low poll plight. He's also right with his analysis that there are now three mainstream political parties vying with each other for the same overcongested centre-right ground.

What he fails to go on to say is that this ideological gridlock spells disaster for democratic choice in Britain. The electorate are no longer able to go into the ballot box and vote for a genuinely radical left-of-centre party. There isn't, at present, a political party with a countrywide electoral base which is prepared to challenge the obscene inequalities in society.

For a brief moment the Liberal Democrats, with their 2005 manifesto commitment to raising income tax on incomes over £100,000 to 50p in the pound, showed their willingness to step up to the plate; but dropping that laudable ambition and characterising themselves recently as a low-taxation party has blown that hope completely out of the water.

There is vast disillusionment with mainstream politics today, fertile ground for a new political movement, with a green action packed agenda, which is "none of the above three". The political reality is that creating that exciting pluralism is only likely to happen when first-past-the-post is replaced by a fair and proportional voting system. To that extent the Liberal Democrats are right.

Richard Denton-White

Portland, Dorset

Sir: Seriously, what is it you don't understand? Whether it's Simon Carr's withering sneering or Steve Richards' incomprehension, how is it that some of your writers find it so difficult to get what the Liberal Democrats are about?

And the suggestion from Michael Brown (20 September) that our opposition to ID cards or our call for tax cuts to be replaced by green taxes "puts us on the same side" as the Tories not only puts the cart before the horse in terms of whose ideas these were but seriously overestimates the Tory commitment in these areas, shown very clearly by their prior record. We've been consistent and clear. The Tories are just trying to borrow our clothes.

More to the point, why is it that a paper which has stood up for so much of what we believe in – civil liberties, the rule of international law, the environment, Europe, constitutional reform – cannot understand the philosophy of the party that has done far, far more than any other to champion the very causes that it has stood for itself? Sorry, but I just don't get it.

Julian Tisi

Maidenhead, Berkshire

Briefly...

Don't bet on it

Sir: I was interested to read your article on "The Big Question – Is gambling a problem that is spinning out of control in Britain?" (20 September). I would offer 6-4 it's not.

Dr Paul Williams

Walton-on-Thames, Surrey

European future

Sir: I was cheered to read two of the most truthful and sensible letters that you have published for some time: those of Richard Corbett MEP and John Brisbourne (18 September). We can give our grand-children one of two choices: to live in a country playing a major role in European affairs for the good of the world; or existing as an insignificant satellite of the Unite States of America.

Bob Hoggarth

London SW3

Oldest cinema

Sir: Further to the exchange of letters between Mr Kevin Rawlings and Ms Marjorie Willcocks (8, 13 September) regarding the oldest purpose-built cinema in the UK, I can answer to Mr Rawlings that indeed the Duke of York's was purpose built as a cinema, has continuously shown films since 1910 without any substantial breaks beyond a few days closure for repairs and has always been a cinema. We celebrate our 97th birthday on Saturday 22 September with a special showing of Brighton Rock.

Jon Barrenechea

General Manager, Duke of York's Picturehouse, Brighton

Banking hazard

Sir: Mervyn King has presided over the first full-scale bank run in the UK since the 1860s. I hope that when it comes to awarding the usual peerage for retired governors of the Bank of England, his name will not go forward. That would be a serious case of moral hazard and would only encourage future governors to take dangerous risks with depositors' money.

Donald A R George

Edinburgh

No honour

Sir: I think it's time to stop referring to murder as "honour killing" (report, 20 September). It gives the murders a distinction that they do not deserve, and gives honour a bad name. Putting the words in quotation marks doesn't quite remove the bad taste in the mouth.

Simon Rayner

Newcastle-under-Lyme, Staffordshire

Unreformed

Sir: The Sex Pistols reforming (Janet Street-Porter, 20 September)? Surely not. They are re-forming.

Andrew Belsey

Cardiff