IT’S easy, even enjoyable, to skip school and go on a climate change march. No doubt the kids are very sincere; certainly many of your correspondents think so.

For example: 'We must take note and act' by Cllr Eamonn Hennesy and 'Top marks for enthusiasm' by Raymond Hall (Letters, June 6) and 'All must look at their lives' by Graham Vincent (Letters, June 13).

Offsetting climate change is a major problem and a reflection will show that vilifying our leaders (as the demonstrators have done) for not passing laws against CO2 emissions is short sighted.

President Macron raised fuel taxes and the country was brought to a standstill by irate demonstrators. Hilary Clinton wanted to scrap coal mines and this gave us Trump, Merkel banned nuclear power and this gave us more fossil fuel.

Stop buying oil and gas and some counties (Iran, Russia, Saudi Arabia) will be bankrupt and sink into chaos.

At the same time many people in our country have no intention of cutting back on their cars, which grow bigger every year, nor on excessive heating and lighting and ridiculous holidays. The Sunday Times was recently promoting a “short break” in Rio de Janeiro and many of the protesting kids probably go on holidays to far-flung places - it was recently reported that the typical family had four holidays a year.

A party passing laws to restrict these excesses will almost certainly be voted out of office if not causing our own French-style street demonstrations.

The drastic action advocated by the Greens is not going to happen.

We must face up to reality. The real cause of global warming is ultimately the burgeoning number of people on the planet. In my lifetime world population has gone from about two billion to more than seven billion and rising, perhaps to nine, 10 or even 12 billion by the middle of the century.

This is where efforts should be directed, although again this will not be acceptable to many. The way forward must be debated, not stated dogmatically by people who do not seem to have considered the matter in depth.

Kent Brooks

Kendal