When the jobs go, or the children of the original immigrants cannot get work, hostility and chaos follow.The economic justifications for immigration are false. Our own riots in northern industrial towns stem from this same mistake made in the Sixties to try to prop up the textile industry.Importing immigrants who only came for the money leads to huge numbers of unassimilated people who do not share the same values as the host society, and who do not even like that society. Each country needs a population target to be achieved by birth control and female emancipation, which will deliver higher standards of living for all without trashing our only home.PETER SHARRATTKNUTSFORD, CHESHIRESir: Unless Leandra Briggs sprinkles coal on her cereal or crude oil in her coffee she need not worry about contributing to global warming by her breathing (letter, 2 November).On the contrary, the vast biomass contained in the human population must surely be regarded as one of the most valuable and rapidly-growing carbon sinks available on our planet. The more the merrier to save the planet ! Now why hadn't I thought of that before ?JOHN BARNEOXFORD Riots show folly of importing labour Sir: The riots in France are the result of the folly of importing immigrant labour to prop up French industry. Any substantial drop in human numbers will release millions of tonnes of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, with possibly disastrous effects on the global environment. If we weren't human, a gamekeeper would have culled us years ago.Two to three billion is about the carrying capacity of our planet.
Why can't politicians and green activists be upfront about too many people and our deteriorating world?There is no chance of our planet supporting Western levels of consumption which some have already achieved and the rest aspire to. Human population pressures have consistently undone our efforts to reduce consumption of oil and energy - and a six-year-old could make that link. Yet you do not mention nuclear energy, although it and large-scale hydro are the only proven very-low-carbon methods of generating electricity on a large scale.Good intentions must be matched by a recognition of reality if we are to do anything about the enormous threat of climate change.MALCOLM GRIMSTONASSOCIATE FELLOW CHATHAM HOUSE LONDON SW1Sir: Yes and yes 10 times over to your 10 ways to save the world, but there is more than one elephant in the room. (On the other hand, an increase in the cost of energy, by switching taxation away from, say, employment and towards energy, would be more effective though difficult politically.)The most worrying aspect is the idea that untested renewables can be relied upon to generate the 75 per cent plus of British electricity that currently comes from fossil fuels (or indeed the more than 20 per cent that comes from nuclear energy). The "technical and financial difficulties" that you rightly acknowledge have slowed investment in windpower are not because of a lack of subsidy but because of their basic economics and problems with intermittency. If we have to spend less on energy then the savings will be spent on something else which will itself require energy somewhere along the way - after all, we've been getting much more energy efficient for years but energy demand still continues to grow.
The French generate 60 per cent of their electricity from nuclear power (and sell us the excess), but we do not hear anything about any decommissioning or waste disposal problems. But the cause is not best served by some of the vague and uncosted suggestions that make up your 10 ways to save the world (1 November).You talk of improving energy efficiency in light bulbs, homes and cars without recognising that the benefits of improving energy efficiency are at least in part taken in increased economic activity. They have also built tidal generating stations (as opposed to endlessly discussing them).In Germany, wind turbines are sited on field boundaries in developed agricultural areas, close to centres of population, saving both transmission costs and areas of outstanding natural beauty. There is plenty of room for wind turbines in the central belt of Scotland - and plenty of wind too.FRANK DONALDEDINBURGHSir: The Independent is to be congratulated for keeping the climate change debate at the top of its agenda. If there is no understanding of how an "alternative capitalism" might work; how co-ordination and co-operation must be sought; then the "old capitalism" will continue to play a game of brinkmanship with the environment.JANE GREENCOVENTRYSir: I was interested to see that EDF, the French state power company, is interested in building nuclear power stations in the UK (Business, 2 November).This is not before time, as a missing feature of the debates on nuclear and wind power is an attempt to learn from other nations' arrangements. The forces of production unleashed by capitalism are matched only by the need to create waste on an ever grander scale.I was disappointed that our leading spokesperson on the environment should leave us with the impression that "enlightened self-interest" will save the day. The rest was a vague wish-list of "outlawing irresponsible wealth creation" or "less keeping up with the Joneses".He did not address the problem that in a competitive private market system only ever-increasing consumption can keep the system afloat.