IN your article of August 17 (“We need to take climate change very seriously, warns astronaut Tim Peake”) we are advised that “the

important thing is to understand how we can prevent (climate change) from causing catastrophic events”. This dangerously addresses the symptoms while ignoring the causes.

With respect to Major Peake, I believe that while doing our best to mitigate the inevitably catastrophic nature of the effects we are already experiencing and will continue to experience, it is more important that we apprise ourselves of the magnitude of the problem, and seek to slow down and reduce the levels of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere.

We have the technology to do so, we have the means at our disposal, but the last 50 years indicates that we may not have the will.

Any resolve is undermined by successful corporate attempts to discredit climate change, arguments government has tacitly accepted in withdrawing subsidies for renewables and in promoting a new national fossil fuel development policy.

The very first imperatives for a government and an industry dedicated to the common good must be to eschew the fracking agenda and invest massively in renewables. Without this, both abandon the appearance of working for humanity and forfeit our respect. The “race of our lives” will be lost.

David Cragg-James,

Stonegrave, York