IoS letters, emails and online postings (17 January 2016)

Government could start to fulfil Horatio Clare’s wish of doing more to help flood victims (“How one town rose to the flood’s challenge”, 10 January) by starting with an admission that recent flooding is a predictable consequence of climate change, which in turn, is man-made thanks to an economic system that equates reality with numbers (money, GDP, deficits, etc).

Where Mammon is worshipped, anything that leads to its increase, usually and perversely via more debt, is deemed good: another runway, more cars, increased consumer spending, more of everything that will worsen climate instability. The stupidity of this position is starkly portrayed on seeing people wading through 5ft of sewage water in their homes, infrastructure collapsing, and the once simple expectation that homes and land were not going to go under water become an increasingly forlorn hope in some areas.

Any government that is serious about dealing with one of the many emerging problems of climate change has to call time on limitless growth and greed, and aim for a sane way of life that works within the Earth’s limits to comfortably sustain a rich and diverse community of living beings.

Derek Robertson

Gateshead, Tyne and Wear

To tackle flooding, we should re-introduce beavers into river catchments (ignorant landowners hunted and poisoned them to extinction). Then let them do what beavers do best... dam streams and rivers. This geo-engineering on a massive scale by a small but determined mammal would create thousands of ponds and lakes, at no cost to the taxpayer, and so hold back millions of gallons of rainwater.

By investing in the reforestation of uplands and stopping the destruction of peat bogs, which both act as giant sponges, we could ensure that the deluge is held back, and allowed to trickle down the hillsides over weeks and months instead of minutes and hours. We must learn to live with nature and not against her.

Rob Curtis

Barry, Vale of Glamorgan

It is 12 years since the passing of the ground-breaking Gender Recognition Act 2004 (GRA). Now the women and equality select committee urges moving beyond the cautious measures achievable back then.

As former campaigners who helped usher Britain’s first steps to provide NHS access and legal recognition for trans people and to outlaw employment discrimination, we welcome the recent report by Maria Miller MP and her committee.

The GRA ended the UK’s status as almost the last European country without legal recognition of trans people. It set a new gold standard as the first such law with no pre-condition for genital surgery. However, in hindsight we note that the GRA has gone on to meet the needs of less than half those who should be able to benefit from it. Too many people who need legal recognition are impeded by a process that lost sight of its purpose in use, becoming a costly, humiliating inquisition rather than the simple recognition described on the tin. The UK should cut the red tape, and provide gender recognition based on the Irish model of sworn self-declaration.

Christine Burns MBE

Manchester

Claire McNab MBE

Bradford

As a member of a party – being first a Liberal, latterly a Lib Dem – that has been without the benefits of the big-business millions that go to the Conservatives, or the trade union millions that benefit Labour, I find it hard to feel sympathy for the latter (“Labour faces loss of vital union funds”, 10 January). Why should the large parties be so advantaged rather than having to raise funds from subscriptions and events?

The situation is exacerbated by the unions’ disdain for members who do not support Labour. During my time in Parliament, the then T&GWU used regularly to state that it had 29 MPs who were union members, and I would equally regularly write to the general secretary to make the point that it had 30 members and to ask why my subscription, which included the political levy, was apparently worth less than that of other members.

Michael Meadowcroft

Liberal MP, Leeds West, 1983-87, Leeds