Dear Sir/Madam,

According to today's Guardian, the environment secretary, Margaret Beckett, . . . was delighted that the government would meet its 17% national target [for the recycling of municipal waste] for the first time, praising "a fantastic response from the public" ("Recycling hits 17% national target").

More than 30 years after publication of the Club of Rome's "Limits to Growth", when the finiteness and vulnerability of our planet and the impossibility of ever increasing numbers of people placing ever greater demands on it, first entered public awareness, it is shameful and depressing that Britain should only be recycling 17 percent of its municipal waste; and even more shameful that the minister responsible should hide the truth (no doubt from herself as well) by calling it "a fantastic response from the public". 

By now we should be recycling more than 90 percent of our waste (which should also be a fraction of what it is) and be well on the way to ending our dependency on fossil fuels. Instead, we are hopelessly behind schedule for achieving sustainability before the depletion of natural resources, decimation of Earth's biodiversity, and disruption to its climate and ecosystems results in catastrophe, the consequences of which do not bear thinking about - which is one reason why we are not doing so, but instead burying our heads in the sand.

The terrible truth is that we are NOT on course for achieving sustainability, but for global catastrophe and possible extinction.

Why? Because of a simple case of mistaken priorities. And because of a general blindness to it. Our leaders lack the insight (or the courage) to face up to the fact that they are leading us towards catastrophe. And an overwhelming amount of short-sighted (economic) self-interest keeps us in denial while encouraging us to keep to the course we are on.

The mistake is simply this: we give greater priority to the economy (the household of man) than to ecology (the household of nature), when our medium and long-term survival demands that it be the other way around. 

There is a clear explanation, which needs to be understood. It will provide a basis for the revolution that must ensue: the most rapid and radical changes to human society (to our economy and lifestyles and many of the values, attitudes and aspirations on which they rest) that has ever occurred.

So far, few have been capable or willing to face up to the extreme peril we are in, preferring to see me, and those like me, as crackpots. And time is rapidly running out.

For more information go to www.spaceship-earth.org