IoS letters, emails and online postings (18 October 2015)

I read “The racism threat behind ‘right to rent’” (11 October) with alarm and agree that this kind of draconian action will result in landlords not renting to immigrants.

Our country’s ethos has been one of welcoming people and now that the world’s situation has made this an imperative, this Government’s attitude appears to be one of battening down the hatches and promoting a hostile environment. The rental housing market is a minefield at the best of times, so a Bill that encourages a divisive mind-set is one to be avoided.

The Home Secretary has a duty of care to protect the country’s inhabitants from terrorists, but it seems she is endeavouring to foster a suspicious and inward thinking country which is counter-productive to the society we actually want: a forward, proactive and liberal one where we can all pursue our full potential.

Judith A Daniels

Great Yarmouth, Norfolk

The UK housing market is already racist. There’s a practice known as “red-lining” where people of colour are directed towards certain areas.

Any person of colour will be able to tell you of encounters with racism. For example, I popped into a branch of Winkworth in south London only to be directed to a black estate agents down the road, while a friend who turned up for a property viewing with an estate agent was refused entry by the homeowner. Such experiences are not uncommon.

Alice Charles

Ilford, Essex

There is already a modern equivalent of the offensive “no dogs, no blacks, no Irish” notices. I refer to the “no DSS” references that appear in adverts. This to me is equally wrong, though I’ve yet to see anyone take up the cudgels on behalf of those condemned to live on benefits.

Tim Mickleburgh

Grimsby, Lincolnshire

It may be reassuring to learn that Professor Rockstrom is cautiously optimistic, but the reality is rather different (“Climate change measures paying off, says scientist”, 11 October). The 1992 Rio declaration committed all nations to the “stabilisation of greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere” and the prevention of “dangerous anthropogenic interference with the climate system”. Since then, annual emissions of carbon dioxide have risen by 60 per cent, atmospheric levels have passed 400 parts per million, and our current trajectory will use our entire remaining carbon budget by 2040. Renewable energy represents only 2 per cent of global primary energy production.

Anything agreed at Paris will not become operative until 2020 and will be voluntary. Professor Rockstrom points to the banning of CFCs as an exemplar of how to solve an environmental problem. But they were replaced by HCFCs and HFCs, which are powerful greenhouse gases. I pointed this out in an editorial for The Lancet in 1989. Sadly they are still in widespread use.

Dr Robin Russell-Jones

Stoke Poges, Buckinghamshire

No doubt the European Union In Campaign will rely on reason but there is an emotional argument it should not overlook. In a history of the London Schools Symphony Orchestra, founded in 1951 as a symbol of postwar hope, a young player travelling with it on tour was struck by the panorama of wartime destruction across northern Europe. “Rotterdam was still in a bad way... we saw a practically flattened Hamburg.” In Denmark, his hosts took him to the site where resistance fighters were executed. London was pockmarked with bombsites for a generation. Images of destruction are prevalent today in regions where there is no political union or accord.

The LSSO still flourishes and continues to make friends as well as music at home and abroad.

Chris crowcroft

London W1

Your leader (11 October) mentions all the benefits of the EU but dismisses the growing population in a paragraph. I am the biggest believer in the EU but this country is full and we need to react to that.

Rob Edwards

Harrogate, North Yorkshire