I WOULD like to write a reply to Giles Chichester who wrote in Times (September 3).
Giles writes that 'we are all well aware of the issues of climate change' and I beg to differ.
Perhaps the lightbulb directive has been botched, perhaps this government have misinterpreted and messed up the EU directive, but perhaps we are taking it all a little too seriously considering the environmental impact that this proposal is really going to have.
As far as I understand, we have until 2015 to significantly reduce carbon emissions and protect carbon sinks, otherwise we will roll the planet over a tipping point of no return. If and when this happens we are going to be one of a few inhabitable parts of the world; resulting in much higher food prices and an dramatic increase in the numbers of people seeking asylum here.
The very best way to tackle this would be to educate the entire nation to a level where we are indeed 'responsible citizens' with regard to living sustainable lifestyles and holding major corporations to account for their social and environmental practices, here and around the world.
I don't know about you, but I do not believe that a Conservative government would invest sufficiently in this education.
There are so many parts to tackling climate change that must be addressed in so little time that I believe 'nanny state rules' are exactly what we need, but not telling us which lightbulbs to use.
Telling the international corporations, the airlines, the global polluters who dodge tax and continue to ruin our planet, telling them exactly which wood they can and can't use, exactly where they should get their energy from, exactly how much filth they can pump into our oceans . . . etc etc.
Tell me that the Conservatives will take real responsibility for regulating the environmental practices of national and multi-national corporations and maybe I will vote for them. Maybe.
Amy Wilson
Station Road
Okehampton