Dr Julian Salt, of the Loss Prevention Council, said in 2000: “The insurance system that operates today is fatally flawed. The system relies on the claims data from the past to underwrite in the present for the future's unknown claims.”

The entire shooting match is in dire peril because of global warming, he says.

The insurance industry itself is at risk of bankruptcy. Pensions are at risk. Banks could fall. Global capital markets could collapse.

The only answer, Salt concludes, is full-scale retreat from the fossil-fuel burning that poses the risk of unmanageable claims in a changing climate.

Douglas Mills (Echo, February 21) reassures us that apparently we have ‘greater reserves of fuel than ever before. Huge reserves… are turning up at depths and places where the fossil fuel theory predicts they cannot be.’ Chris Huhne, UK Secretary of State for Energy and Climate Change, tells us: ‘The age of cheap energy is over. We need to go further and faster in getting ourselves off the oil hook and on to clean, green growth.’ He says this is the way to protect our consumers and our country from energy shocks to come.

Dirtier and more expensive extraction rates and the use of biofuels from tropical deforestation are possible, but both belong to the manifesto of the Super Silly Party.

Anyone else want to join the Monster Raving Sensible Party to call for the sane use of diminishing resources?

SUSAN CHAPMAN, Parkwood Road, Southbourne