Letter: We know what needs to be done for the climate is to stop using fossil fuel
By all means let us focus on adaptation (Jon Pearce, Advertiser 13/8/26). Yes, there has been too much focus on debate. Since Thatcher in 1989 and beyond, we have known that what needs to be done for the climate is to stop using fossil fuel.
'Adaptation' is music to the ears of the oil and gas industries. The snail's pace towards renewables means that remedial work incurs substantial amounts of fossil fuel use - for helicopters and vehicles, health treatments and the restoring of buildings and infrastructure.
So, fossil fuel drives climate change which results in wildfires.
Wildfire smoke and destruction necessitate remedy - firefighting, medical treatment, air filters, concrete, steel etc.
Remedy means burning fossil fuel which makes more emissions.
More emissions equal further stoking of the heating and burning of the planet.
There is worse. Wildfires cause a catastrophic loss of Earth's natural storage infrastructure, its repair system: trees take decades to grow back to what they were and peat hundreds to thousands of years. For our 2026 fires the long-term climate cost far exceeds the immediate cost.
Ruth Clancy
Whaley Bridge