Can Attenborough’s Extinction series change the public's mind on the climate crisis?

Sir David Attenborough’s brilliant programme Extinction: The Facts was a deeply disturbing wake-up call to us all. 

Sadly, it’s unlikely the Trumps and Bolsonaros of this world will take much notice.

But how much do we really care, I wonder? A visit to a local supermarket yesterday revealed no caged pangolins but an amazing cornucopia of fruit and vegetables, much of it from distant countries: beans and broccoli from Kenya, asparagus from Peru, apples from Chile and New Zealand. September is harvest season, but there wasn’t an English apple in sight.

“It’s consumer-driven”, we are told, in the jargon of commerce. And I’m sure the farmers in Peru, Chile and Kenya rely on global commerce, despite the production of these foods robbing their land of valuable resources. 

Thanks to the chaos of Brexit, we are now promised “oven-ready” trade deals with countries which may well leave those lands oven-ready indeed.

We don’t need to return to the victory digging of the 40s or the restricted diets of the 50s, but we can survive quite happily without strawberries and asparagus in the winter.

Sue Breadner

Douglas, Isle of Man

Now that we are all too painfully aware that Boris Johnson is prepared to break international law with insouciance, I wonder what the legal position would be if any member of the public were to endeavour to place our miscreant prime minister under a citizen’s arrest. For him to continue in the highest office of the land is a travesty and, to be perfectly honest, I’m not sure what else he would need to do to deserve a spell incarcerated in the Tower of London.

Julian Self

Milton Keynes

Kit Malthouse, MP for North West Hampshire and minister of state in the Home Office, has suggested that people consider reporting neighbours for breaking lockdown rules. Mr Malthouse also appears to have chosen to remain part of a government which is attempting to override parts of the Brexit withdrawal agreement. Doing so would breach international law in a "specific and limited way" - so that's all right then.

As so often with this government, it seems there are rules that ordinary people are expected to follow, but members of the government and their advisors can decide for themselves whether to ignore them.

Dr Audrey Boucher

Oakley, Basingstoke

Thank you for printing the letters from John Barstow and Jim Whitelaw. It is always good to hear voices from outside the Independent’s target readership.

However, am I really to believe that these two contributors are typical examples of those who have decided to support the Johnson position? They do seem somewhat extreme.

It would be good to believe that there are those who still believe we should all be putting our backs into supporting the best possible outcome from Brexit, but who nonetheless are willing to accept that Britain has created for itself what might yet prove to be an insurmountable problem. These folks must surely exist, and must surely accept that if we fail, it will be the fault of the Tory government, not those who campaigned and voted as Remainers. It must be remembered that none of these individuals now have any position of power.

If Brexit fails, if Britain ends up being an international “Billy no mates” because of policies and decisions taken by this Tory government with its overwhelming majority, it will only ever be the fault of that same Tory government.

David Curran

Feltham, Middlesex

The government has now given every lockdown breaker, every traffic offender, every felon, arsonist and murderer a plausible defence: "But officer, I was only doing it in a very limited and specific way!"

Rodney Wood

Whitstable, Kent

Do we really want to become a pariah state? International respect is one of the few valuable things we have left to us here in the UK.  However, one wonders how much of this will remain if the disputed UK Internal Market Bill becomes law.

The proposals need to be fought doggedly, line by line if we are to protect our standing as a law abiding nation, and one supportive of a rules-based world community.

Rev Andrew McLuskey

Ashford, Middlesex