Sir, – Anybody who watched David Attenborough’s programme Extinction: The Facts on RTÉ 1 on Sunday would have been shocked but possibly not surprised by the level of threat that our planet, our biodiversity and our people are under. We still appear relentlessly intent on “growth” and the accumulation of wealth when we have already depleted so much of the natural world.
Ireland is not above such criticism. We are beginning to wake up to climate change but nature and biodiversity appear to me to be less high on the agenda. If it is a choice of using land to make money or using it to improve the environment and biodiversity, money usually wins.
It therefore struck me as regrettable that entrepreneur Richard Branson, and other super-rich stalwarts, are intent on a race to see who can create commercial flights into space for yet more very rich people. If he and they directed their passion and their wealth into tackling the loss of life here on Earth, it would be so much more beneficial. – Yours, etc,
CAROL SCOTT,
Shankill,
Co Dublin.