Carbon budget:

John Hunwick writes: Re. “Commission’s call for carbon budget beyond political belief” (yesterday, item 4). At last, a succinct summary of the science, the political dilemma and the moral position of dealing with carbon emissions. There is nothing in this summary that is news to anyone seriously following the climate change challenge.

We can either go through a period of upheavals, having experienced an unprecedented standard of living greater than any other humans on earth, or we can continue “business as usual” and leave a planet so bereft of biodiversity that whoever remains will be “imprisoned” for life wondering about what might have been.

At some point, soon, we will have to pay the high cost of living that  has been our lot. We can turn things around for the better, the question is — do we really want to? At present our so-called leaders show no indication that they are prepared to forgo short term popularity for a commitment to everyone’s future well-being.

Will the passengers on the Titanic sing and dance their way to oblivion or will there be an uprising that sweeps aside a non-functioning democracy for a system that at least recognizes that humans and the environment are inseparably intertwined — that the fight against nature producers only losers.

Pakistan:

Niall Clugston writes: Re. “My enemy’s enemy is my friend: fragile US-Pakistani relations“(yesterday, item 10). Damien Kingsbury’s argument seems to be an upside-down pyramid balancing on the unproven premise that the Pakistani government knew Osama bin Laden was hiding on their territory.

As he constructs the edifice, the conclusions become more outlandish: “Pakistan needs to retain a strong alliance with Afghanistan, no matter who is in power, more than it needs the US”.

So Pakistan was prepared to antagonise the world’s sole superpower, pushing it towards an alliance with its arch-enemy India, and give away $7.5 billion in aid, for the sake of an alliance with a poor, war-torn country that hasn’t had a stable government for 30 years?

And how did it foster such an alliance? By giving sanctuary to a volatile Arab terrorist who was allied with an extremist faction who had temporarily held power in Afghanistan!

Maybe Pakistan is run by complete dingbats, but I’d use Ockham’s Razor to cut the premise.

Honest John:

Matthew Brennan writes: Perhaps John Crowe (yesterday, comments) is a little younger than me. A few of us with grey hair and long memories would suggest that the term “Honest John” always carried a tinge of irony. So the term did not become redundant after March 2 1996.