Madam, - Last Saturday, as people around the world demonstrated to highlight the urgent need for action to fight climate change, your paper carried an advertisement for the Chrysler 300C which trumpeted the virtues of "3L of raw muscle toned by a V6 diesel powerplant". The headline was "powerful individuals lead from the front". A more crass expression of the "size-is-everything" attitude, which has brought Mother Nature to her knees, you could not devise. A more flawed notion of leadership you would struggle to come by.
It is disturbing to see advertisers continuing to spin this kind of bunkum. But they do so in the belief that their work will speak to your readers and prompt a purchase. It is their brief. The problem rests with consumers - otherwise intelligent people who routinely confuse attention-seeking materialism with success and achievement. These are the same sophisticates who fly thousands of miles for a shopping trip, blissfully ignoring the environmental consequences of their self-indulgent lifestyles.
In an era when the future of our planet is threatened by rising carbon emissions and fatuous consumerism, I would like to think advertisers like the one in question are misjudging your readership. Alas, the regularity with which these kinds of ads appear in your pages suggests otherwise.
Given the current talks in Bali on this planet's future, the need for a proliferation of self-effacing car drivers, who have under-powered little cars which they leave at home whenever possible, has never been more obvious. - Yours, etc,
PETER A. O'SULLIVAN, Coleraine, Co Derry.