I very much hope that your correspondent John Driver (Letters, September 10) managed to get his head out of the sand and watch Sunday’s chilling programme on BBC1, Extinction: The Facts, with Sir David Attenborough.

The programme includes serious warnings from several eminent scientists, academics and researchers from different parts of the world, all saying the same thing.

We are definitely at a tipping point and we must all act now to avert catastrophic extinction of large parts of our ecosystem.

Yes, we have always had cyclical changes but never at the rate and frequency that we are experiencing: floods, drought, fires and now Covid-19.

What further proof do we need? Neither the words “catastrophe” or “emergency” are too strong a word to describe the situation that we may soon be in if we don’t wake up and start doing something positive.

Yes, eliminating our carbon emissions in the UK might be seen to have an entirely insignificant effect on the global total but have we forgotten that we have conveniently outsourced most of our polluting manufacturing needs to China and others – so it is us who are partly responsible for “their” emissions?

We are also one of the main consumers of products, such as soya for poultry, growing in cleared rainforests.

So yes, we are definitely responsible and do expect and demand that our government wakes up and takes action “at huge expense and great inconvenience to tax payers” (to quote Mr Driver) before it is too late.

Melodie Winch
Checkley