I HOPE everyone has taken on board the rather stark messages contained in Mr/Ms Carver's letter "Rethink needed" and Geoff Brewer's letter "Heed wake-up call" in the November 2 and 9 issues of the Gazette.

They reinforce the effect of our recent climate changes, through pollution, which we have largely brought upon ourselves, and are an attempt to persuade us to be less self-indulgent.

I go along with most of their suggestions. Doing without luxury imports such as exotic foods for instance (though what about the producers at the other end of the line? It's their livelihood presumably.)

Producing more home grown food and cooking it ourselves and even more urgent cutting down on fuel consumption.

If this cannot be achieved voluntarily then the only solution surely must be some sort of rationing.

These measures are very reminiscent of Second World War restrictions and, although there are fewer and fewer who remember the wartime, I believe the food rationing introduced then, relying on imported food as little as possible and encouraging people to grow their own fruit/vegetables and keep hens/pigs, resulted in bonny babies and fitter adults than today.

Fuel consumption is a very complex issue. I can't envisage a bus service satisfactorily fulfiling the shopping needs of country folk particularly the elderly or those with large families.

However, I do think we could cut down on pollution by rationing "fun" of the energy consuming sort anyway.

Motor racing is not exactly necessary. One cannot but admire the consummate skill of the racing drivers. But it's only a danger so why go on aiming for higher and higher speeds which can have no practical use and must add considerably to the pollution? The same is true of speedboats too.

Is banger racing still practised? You can't get less environmentally friendly than that. And planes, narrowly missing each other because of the congestion in the sky, are carrying holidaymakers as far away from their homeland as possible.

We should certainly cut down on packaging and paper in the form of junk mail, And we should be recycling a wider range of containers etc.

On Remembrance Sunday I did wonder whether any of the survivors (or for that matter the non-survivors up above) were thinking "We went through all that for freedom and just look where it's got us."

MURIEL CLARK

St John's Close, Marlborough