Madam, - Like Fr Seán McDonagh (December 27th), I too enjoyed Martyn Turner's cartoon of December 15th, in which he compared carbon trading to moving illegal dumps from Wicklow to Kildare.
A better analogy might be two neighbours living side by side, one of whom lives such a hedonistic, gluttonous life that he produces too much waste for his rubbish bin, so he makes a pact with his more moderate neighbour to dump his excess rubbish in the latter's bin.
But should we be surprised that the Government has chosen the soft option of carbon trading rather than the hard one of sticking to the Kyoto agreement? Don't we already export a good deal of our rubbish for incineration abroad? Carbon trading is just another manifestation of our irresponsible attitude to waste disposal and the environment. The main priority is to keep the good ship Celtic Tiger surging ahead at full steam, and to hell with the environment and anything else that impedes economic growth.
Future generations will not thank us for our greed and profligacy. - Yours, etc,
JOE PATTON, Chapelizod Court, Chapelizod, Dublin 20.