To: et.letters@telegraph.co.uk Re: Putting ecology before the economy Date: Mon, 11 Oct 1999

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SIR - In response to your report on the Prime Minister's plans to disband the UK Panel on Sustainable Development (Protests as Blair sacks 'green' team, 11 October 1999), I would like to comment that if in the coming years we should send a manned spacecraft to Mar, NOTHING will be more important than maintaining that spaceship's life-support systems. Exactly the same applies to SPACESHIP EARTH. We and our government must get our priorities right if we are to survive, let alone prosper, into the next century: we must put ecology (the household of the Earth, comprising our life-support systems) before the economy (man's national or international household). Otherwise we are doomed.