Your editorial (13 May) correctly states that Britain needs a Green New Deal now, and indeed in your letters page last autumn (10 September) our report detailing what form such a “jobs in every constituency” Green New Deal could take, and how to pay for it, was supported by a cross-party group of MPs, NGO leaders and academics. Since then the idea has gained international traction thanks to the likes of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and the support of grassroots movements. The US approach also includes the need to improve economic security for the majority, which has widened its support base. Finally, the scientific data underscoring the need to act in the next 10 years to tackle climate change and biodiversity loss has resulted in unprecedented activist pressure on politicians to respond.

As a result, all opposition parties are calling for the declaration of a climate emergency, but the government’s actual policies – from fracking to the rollback of support for renewables and energy efficiency – are making things worse. Yet all is not lost. At the end of last year more than 60 Tory MPs signed an all-party letter calling on the prime minister to back a net zero-emissions target ahead of 2050. Clearly the disconnect here is the lack of necessary political will. MPs should take inspiration from President Kennedy’s call in 1961 to put a man on the moon within a decade, but this time the priority must be to save the planet, rather than leave it.

Colin Hines

Convener, UK Green New Deal Group

• Orthodox economic theory is a spent force because it is based on a false premise: the wealth creation delusion. What is termed wealth creation is actually a process that destroys our planet’s natural wealth. Monetary wealth in the form of GDP is attributed to the destructive process to create the delusion of wealth creation. The consequences for our life-giving planetary systems, and ultimately our survival, are fast becoming apparent. We cannot tinker with such a drastically flawed system; we need a new philosophy of the meaning of life and living if we are to sustain human life. Sustainability necessitates extracting utility from nature without destroying it, and sharing out the proceeds.

John Stone

Thames Ditton, Surrey

• “Britain needs something like Ms Ocasio-Cortez’s Green New Deal. And we need it now – before it is too late,” says your editorial. We have it. Labour’s Green Transformation plan meets the IPCC’s targets for 2030, and in a better world it would be a political consensus.

Paul Atkin

London

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