SIR - The negotiators' failure to reach agreement in the Hague will have little influence, one way or the other, on the fatal course we are currently steering our planet [Prescott's race to save deal on climate change, 27 November 2000].

 If the negotiators had reached an agreement they would have returned home waving a piece of paper just like Neville Chamberlain did on his return from Munich in 1938, providing a brief illusion of "peace in our time".

 In the1930s most people failed completely to recognise the threat posed by Nazi Germany. Others recognised a threat, but completely misjudged its certainty and magnitude. And an ineffectual few saw that the threat was huge and demanded our undivided attention.

 We are in a similar situation today, only now the threat is posed not by a fascist dictator, but by our own non-sustainable economic activity and lifestyles and their impact on our planet's life-supporting ecosystems and climate.

 Our politicians tell us that they are facing up to the issue of sustainability, but they are not. In reality we continue to behave like bandits, literally plundering our planet of its natural resources and placing an ever increasing strain on the robust but not indestructible natural systems on which all life - including our own - depend.