If we’re to avoid catastrophes like Mozambique’s Cyclone Idai, the west must take climate change seriously

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According to Mozambique’s president, Filipe Nyusi, as many as 1,000 people may have been killed by Cyclone Idai, which hit the southeast African nation on Friday 15 March. Mozambique’s environment minister, Celso Correia, has described it as “the biggest natural disaster Mozambique has ever faced”.

At least 2.6 million people could be affected across Mozambique, Malawi and Zimbabwe, with 100,000 people at risk due to severe flooding. Cyclone Idai may be the worst ever disaster to strike the southern hemisphere, according to the UN.

The devastation will continue long beyond the life of the cyclone.

Agriculturalists in Mozambique were preparing to harvest their maize crop when the cyclone struck and, with significant areas of land now destroyed, widespread hunger is likely to ensue.

Mozambique is already in a debt crisis following the lending of $2bn in illegal loans by UK-based banks. Resulting inflation and cuts to vital public services will incapacitate the country’s ability to recover from such a catastrophe.

This latest disaster should remind all governments, especially those of rich nations like the UK, of their responsibility to enact comprehensive policies to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in line with the call of many millions of climate scientists, civil society organisations and concerned citizens who have long warned of the dangers of human-made climate change.

These citizens include hundreds of thousands of children in 128 countries participating in the ongoing climate strike, protesting the complicity of their governments and global corporate greed in the creation of a climate catastrophe which will hit impoverished nations, like Mozambique, the hardest.

Michael Buraimoh, director, Action for Southern Africa
John Sauven, executive director, Greenpeace UK
Asad Rehman, executive director, War on Want
Nick Dearden, director, Global Justice Now
Martin Drewry, director, Health Poverty Action
Sarah-Jayne Clifton, director, Jubilee Debt Campaign
Chi Onwurah MP, chair, All-Party Parliamentary Group for Africa

Deja vu?

So Theresa May offers to step down and leave everybody else to clear up the mess that she’s created. Where have I heard that before?

Sarah Pegg
Seaford

Comic timing

Once a comic parody of the muddled, mismanaged and immoral machinations of Westminster, Yes, Prime Minister is now what British politics aspires to.

Matt Minshall
King’s Lynn

Three points to consider over Brexit

To prevent the Commons Brexit referendum debate from turning into a mere formality, one hopes a few points will be taken into account.

First, because the first referendum was held without providing the public with sufficient, dependable information, the result cannot be said to reflect an informed decision by the electorate, hence it does not constitute a legitimate mandate.

Secondly, it is fallacious to claim that a second referendum would undermine democracy or betray public trust. Democracy evolves around the citizens’ right to choose, take responsibility for the choice, and make a different choice when circumstances change (hence repeated plebiscites, sometimes at short intervals as in the UK elections of 2015 and 2017).

Finally, because the normal channel of institutional decision-making has failed to resolve the Brexit deadlock, it is mandatory to refer the issue to the public as the ultimate source of authority, rather than rush the country into the unknown for political advantage or convenience .

Hamid Elyassi
London E14

Have we been living with unnecessary discomfort for decades?

In today’s Independent, an intriguing headline led with “No pain, scarring or fear – how a mutant gene turned pensioner ‘superhuman’”.

It went into how a case study of a then 65-year-old (now 71), reported in the British Journal of Anaesthesia, could herald exciting new pain relief and anxiety disorder remedies.

However, the question needs to be asked, has the human race missed out on 50 years of unnecessary discomfort and anguish?

The hippie culture of the 1960s was not only the avant-garde of early “jean” editing, namely acceptable rips and tears, obvious denim patches and flower power embroidered imagery. The movement also collectively coined a phrase extolling the “laid-back” acknowledgement of the cognition and comprehension of the profound. All this in an insightful, torpor-inducing “far out, man”.

Nigel Plevin
Ilminster