IN REPEATING the environmentalist lobby spin Michael Young has obviously failed to think out the full implications of what he is saying. Though no fan of flying, I have not even been near a plane for more than 12 years, the consequences of his ideas woul

IN REPEATING the environmentalist lobby spin Michael Young has obviously failed to think out the full implications of what he is saying.

Though no fan of flying, I have not even been near a plane for more than 12 years, the consequences of his ideas would be economically damaging.

Should this country unilaterally impose tax on aviation fuel the obvious consequence would be a reduction in passenger numbers but also a relocation of many airlines to Europe.

This would mean that those areas, mainly in Southern Europe, which depend upon tourism from this country, would be economically damaged.

The result would be that they demand a compensatory subsidy i.e. we would pay an additional tax to compensate for another tax. This is real original thinking!

With surface travel already highly subsidised and high speed rail lines costing £24,000 a foot we would not afford the time or the cost.

In the longer term with the growth of electronic means of communication it would be reasonable to assume that business travel will stabilise or even decrease and this country would become a backwater.

The largest single source of carbon dioxide is animal respiration and the human population of this planet has increased by around 50 per cent since 1945.

Most of this increase is in the third world who are still being allowed, indeed encouraged, to continue in their profligate ways.

Examples are SE Asia increased fourfold, sub-Saharan Africa doubled and S America increasing by two and one half per cent per year compound.

In this context our total output is peanuts.

Before clobbering us attention should be given to the major problem not chipping away at the rim.

T Rumble, Walden Road, Sewards End