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Dear Editor,

In response to Simon Marsh’s piece ‘Hot, hot and hotter still’ in September’s en, it is disturbing to see another article in the Christian press about a coming climate disaster. This seems to be a prevailing view today, but it is not universally held despite claims to the contrary. It is important for the sake of journalistic balance that different opinions are presented.

Dear Editor,

In making the case for the creation of the first new deep-mined coal mine in 30 years, in Cumbria, Roland Morris criticised those who have ‘the least understanding of’ the principles underlying climate science. Unhappily, he himself obviously doesn’t understand that the ‘Case for Cumbrian mine [is] undermined by doubt over UK market for coking coal. Sulphur content of the coal could mean British companies are unable to use it’ (Emma Gatten, The Daily Telegraph, 1 March 2021). As a result the Telegraph concluded (8 December 2022), that ‘The case for the Woodhouse Colliery to be allowed to start production isn’t just flimsy, it’s non-existent’. The Conservative peer, Lord Deben, Chair of the government’s own Climate Change Committee, has described the proposal as ‘absolutely indefensible’.

Dear Editor,

I was rather disappointed by the ‘Earth Watch’ article in the February edition of en. The whole question of climate change involves complex scientific principles. And sadly those who make the most noise in the media have the least understanding of these principles. The result is that money is wasted on projects which have minimal effect on the planet as a whole.

Dear Editor,

‘How should we respond to the world’s poorest?’, asked Justin Hall (en September). We should ‘give and continue to give’ was his answer, and he has a point, since, as Jim Wallace, put it in relation to Matthew 25.31-46: ‘People will be stunned to discover they will be judged, not on the basis of right doctrine, personal piety or sexual ethics, but on how they treat the poor.’ But unhappily, as I stated when Tearfund took me to Tanzania and Zambia in 2011: ‘We have these great injustices, that are grinding down entire generations, across whole continents. The idea that we can rectify [extreme poverty, etc.] without getting major ‘structural’ changes, is delusion.’