CLIMATE CHANGE: I SHARE much of Dr Glen Reynolds' concern that the growth in air travel is not good for the environment (Echo, Apr 25), but I must protest at the statement "...as carbon dioxide, which causes climate change".

He is wrong, and misleading as it may give people the view that reducing man-made emissions will stop, or even reverse, climate change. That is most unlikely.

The evidence is that the planet has been warming up since the last mini ice-age. Much of climate change is a natural phenomenon.

I accept that the proportion of carbon dioxide emission for which the human race is responsible (about ten per cent of the total carbon dioxide produced on earth - the rest being from Mother Nature) may well be accelerating the rate of that climate change, and therefore I accept we should be doing all we can to reduce pollution.

However, that means everyone, not just 60 million people in Britain, but also the several billion people in China, India and other parts of the world. The several hundred coal-fired power stations China is planning to build in the next few years will produce more carbon dioxide than all the air travel in the world, unless somehow they can be persuaded to use "clean coal" technologies. - Derek Thornton, Stanley Crook.

MINISTER NEEDED

I AM very concerned about the loss of 110 jobs at Boots in Spennymoor.

While local councils are trying to attract new shops to the town, our first priority should be to retain existing shops. Many close due to high business rates and council taxes at a time when families are budgeting on a lower disposable income, due to the loss of good quality international companies.

The decline in living standards hits local shops, pubs and clubs.

The 2004 Earnings Annual Survey shows the average Earnings by Residence in the Sedgefield area for full-time workers as £345.50 gross weekly earnings, against £371.10 in the North-East and £422.90 for Great Britain.

This means that the average household in Sedgefield borough earned £77.40 a week, or 22.4 per cent, less than the average family in Britain during 2004.

In addition, many students have to leave this area to gain suitable employment.

I have asked the Leader of the Liberal Democrats, Menzies Campbell, and MP Alan Beith to consider campaigning for a Minister for the North - a government minister who can divert industrial investment into this area. - Councillor Ben Ord, Liberal Democrat, Spennymoor.

UNFAIR TRADE

NEARLY a year on from the unprecedented Make Poverty History rally in Edinburgh, attended by so many campaigners from the North-East calling for trade justice, leaders of rich countries are on the brink of failing millions of people locked into poverty because of unfair trade rules.

Oxfam's new Recipe for Disaster report shows the chances of a world trade deal being done this year to help reduce poverty are looking increasingly slim. Following the failure by World Trade Organisation (WTO) negotiators to make significant progress in Geneva, EU and US brinkmanship has sidelined development concerns.

Oxfam is calling on MPs and the UK Government to do everything to ensure that WTO talks deliver an outcome that makes a real difference to poor people.

Trade Minister Alan Johnson, Agriculture Minister Margaret Beckett, and officials in the DTI and Defra need to show leadership in confronting the European Union position that is fundamentally destructive to developing country prospects.

The UK Government should be proactive in pushing the European Commission to "rip up" the offer it has put on the negotiating table and go back to the drawing board.

The UK and the Prime Minister will ultimately be judged on the basis of what they deliver in these trade talks. - Kim Tan, Campaigns Officer for Yorkshire and North-East Oxfam.

IRAQ

THE Reverend John Stephenson said that your excellent columnist Peter Mullen and myself are "pro-Iraq war" (HAS, Apr 25).

While I may have agreed with the principles of America and Great Britain on this war, it does not make me out to be a warmonger.

President Bush and his staunch British allies have liberated Iraq from a murdering tyrant, and have helped to bring liberty and free speech to what was once a country governed by despots.

I think that it was only right that we stood up to the Bully of Baghdad and relieved him of his murdering duties by using military force.

Maybe Mr Stephenson should take a closer look at the bigger picture, and pray for those gallant British and American troops who fell in battle in Iraq, instead of trying to belittle those millions of us who totally disagree with his pacifist views. - Christopher Wardell, Darlington.

PACIFISM

CORRESPONDENT C G Farquhar (HAS, Apr 26) describes pacifism as a "flight of fancy". What is really a flight of fancy is the theory that we can resolve conflicts by making war. The entire history of the human race demonstrates that violence only leads to more violence.

This has seldom been so starkly demonstrated than by the current "war on terror", which is based on the absurd notion that there is a finite number of terrorists, and if we could only kill them all, we would be free of them.

This, of course, ignores the fact that the more innocent people we kill, maim, torture and incarcerate in the pursuit of terrorists, the more terrorists we create.

This strategy was aptly described by the journalist Isabel Hilton as "like trying to shoot mosquitoes with a machine gun". If we want to get rid of the mosquitoes, we have to drain the swamp where they breed - the swamp of injustice, poverty and oppression. - Pete Winstanley, Durham.

CHINESE CURRENCY

PRESIDENT George Bush seems typically ill-advised in pressing for revaluation of the Chinese currency.

Our own experience of problem solving through the adjustment of exchange rates is that it can cause worse problems than it cures.

In this case, greater Chinese purchasing power on international oil and raw material markets would hurt the US badly.

Mr Bush could reduce his trade deficit if, instead of borrowing dollars from the Chinese, he took them in tax from Americans, or simply spent less.

As a second-term president he has a valuable opportunity to flout the unpopularity this would bring. - John Riseley, Harrogate.

CHUCKLING

I HAD to have a little chuckle to myself when reading Wellock's World (Echo Sport, Apr 28). He suggests that Alan Shearer should cut his teeth in management at Hartlepool as the great Brian Clough did.

Shortly after Clough's death your writer bemoaned the fact that Clough had never managed a team in his native North-East.

Stick to cricket Tim, lad. - Dave French, Hartlepool.