An enormous blind spot obscures the argument between George Monbiot and Paul Kingsnorth (Is there any point in fighting to stave off industrial apocalypse? 19 August). Both argue for the need for a huge social change to tackle or survive climate change. Monbiot talks of the need to fight for a sustainable future, while Kingsnorth decries our "all-consuming culture" and calls for new "founding myths" to create a new world from the ashes of the old. The question arises: how do we achieve change? Who do we fight?

But neither writer talks about the elite few who are willing to destroy the earth to preserve capitalism. Kings–north calls for a "saner world" while Monbiot sees salvation in being "well informed" – but sanity and information are not enough. As with any movement for social change, environmentalism must identify and face up to its enemy: the people destroying the earth in a relentless drive for profit.

The ongoing protests at the Vestas wind turbine factories demonstrate one thing – the fight for sustainability can, and must, be a fight pursued by workers and ordinary people against those who seek profit over sustainability. In short, the struggle must be a class struggle. Kingsnorth points out that "our" civilisation is based on the exploitation of natural resources. However, "our" civilisation is also based on the exploitation of people, and unless we fight both of these as one battle, a grim future surely beckons.

Patrick Rolfe

Workers' Climate Action

• Paul Kingsnorth and George Monbiot miss the point. If we are to make progress towards as good a world as possible, we need to learn how to do it. This, in turn, requires that our institutions of learning are rationally devoted to that task. But at present they are not.

Universities seek knowledge, but do not devote themselves to helping humanity learn how to create a better world. Judged from this standpoint, they are a disaster. As a matter of urgency, we need to bring about a revolution in our institutions of learning so that they come to help humanity tackle the immense global problems that lie before us in more intelligent, effective and humane ways than we are doing at present.

Nicholas Maxwell

Emeritus reader in philosophy of science, University College London

• Sometimes it's hard to navigate around the issues of climate change because of the noise and the shouting. But Paul Kingsnorth articulates the human dilemma with pinpoint accuracy. In doing so he forces us to retreat from the state of denial that George Monbiot frequently chastises us for, and makes us face the reality of a "crumbling empire" that's had its day.

We've been here before. Conventional democratic politics and economic structures have failed us at times of crisis. They simply don't work. Attempts, so far, to tackle climate change have been too little, too late, and negotiations too protracted. Action to deal with population growth and consumption, which is the underlying cause of all our environmental problems, has been non-existent because we've barely begun the discussion. Craven politicians continue to regard people as economic units contributing to gross domestic product, and because large numbers give them the power that fuels their ambitions, the challenge is not the rush to wind, wave or nuclear but to consider how we can manage the transition from a failing civilsation to a new geological era.

Nick Reeves

Chartered Institution of Water and Environmental Management

• Ditlev Engel, CEO of Vestas, recently blamed UK homeowners and the plight of Nimbyism for the recent closure of the wind turbine factory on the Isle of Wight (Vestas expands wind turbine manufacturing in China and US as British demand collapses, 19 August). The blame does, to an extent, rest with nimbys – the people who want all the benefits of the modern world with none of the perceived inconveniences. However, the government is ultimately to blame for this mess. It has been warned these last 10 years that the planning system for wind energy is not fit for purpose.

The current planning systems are the biggest threat to the government's 2020 targets, our hopes of abating climate change and our hopes of creating new green jobs (another government mantra). The House of Lords made this known to the government last year when it took evidence from Ecotricity on current planning systems and included it in its report to ministers.

Wind energy is the only energy source that has its planning consent "granted" by district councils. This is an absurd anomaly – especially given that on-shore wind energy will have to contribute the lion's share of the government's renewable energy targets. Meanwhile, nuclear energy recently had its own planning process simplified. It's hard to square all this. The outcome of the UK having no wind turbine factories is inevitable – if we don't use wind turbines here we won't make them here.

Dale Vince

Ecotricity

• Paul Kingsnorth and George Monbiot are right in saying that humanity is heading towards a crisis, but they should remember that a crisis is the point where things can go either way – to disaster or success. The future is always uncertain and humanity is hugely resourceful – the world may well be a better place a century from now.

I'm not counselling complacency: Monbiot is surely right that we should fear the worst and be doing all we can to avert it. All I am saying is that having done that we should remember that the world has always been a pretty desperate place and cheer ourselves up with the thought that the most unexpected things have a habit of turning up.

Joe Morison

London