With self-righteous zeal, we can purchase variously useless, overpriced, and
overpackaged gifts.
In her article last week, Councillor Rixson was right to decry "fast fashion",
but this is part of a wider problem.
Long before Christianity, pagans worshipped the return of the sun at the winter
solstice.
Their festival in honour of Sol Invictus was hijacked by Christians.
Many older religions also worshipped a sun god.
A few required gruesome sacrifices.
Today, our lifestyles may well be sacrificing the earth systems on which we all
depend.
In the last 150 years, humans have despoiled much of the natural world and
killed most wildlife.
Paganism was based on a reverence for nature.
Their rituals were harmless enough.
Their beliefs were akin to modern-day environmentalism.
Nowadays, most wealthy people think nothing of flying—often as an annual
ritual—halfway across the world to stare at a waterfall or some trees in their
autumn colours.
Others take a cruise at up to £7,000 per day.
These liners are so polluting that they have been calculated to be worse than
flying.
Born into Catholic South African family, Carter died by suicide in July 1994:
"The pain of life overrides the joy to the point that joy does not exist."
Modern Western lifestyles are grossly energy profligate. The replacement of fossil fuels with "clean energy" will come too late to prevent probably catastrophic climate change.
It is the world's poor who may suffer most. In the short term, this may not matter too much, as long as we can prevent many of them from fleeing to Europe.
Governments have become fixated on false promises, the latest of which is carbon capture. A recent report by Goldman Sachs Research analysed its likely impact. Most of the schemes seem the stuff of dreams, and again could come too late.
Decades ago, I contributed to a major government report that identified waste of energy in buildings as a key factor for the UK. It remains true today. A couple of your recent correspondents have advocated the use of water power. Its potential in the UK is minuscule.
We must tackle waste of both energy and other raw materials, in buildings and transport especially, and with the same zeal that, even today, some people devote to worship of various gods.
I could explain in a longer letter why your regular correspondent Ken Warren is incorrect in his various denunciations of climate science.
Dr Stephen J Wozniak
Sidmouth