Sir, The Government is coming under intense pressure to scrap the 2p rise in fuel duty. However, it would be wrong for ministers to give in. With both the oil economy and the climate showing alarming signs of instability, the last thing the Government should be doing is encouraging us to burn our oil supplies even faster.

A better answer is to link fuel tax rises to spending on sustainable transport solutions and improving people’s quality of life. There is strong public support for measures to encourage more walking, cycling and public transport use. Linking motoring taxes in the public mind to measures such as improving rural buses, or retaining local post offices, would improve the image of green taxes as well as reducing the demand for oil consumption, and easing the long-term issue of car dependency.

Now is not an easy time to encourage the Government to be bold in facing down its critics. But it is the right thing to do, for the sake of both the environment and the economy.

David Norman
Director of Campaigns, WWF-UK

John Sauven
Executive Director, Greenpeace UK

Tony Juniper
Executive Director, Friends of the Earth

Duncan McLaren
Chief Executive, Friends of the Earth Scotland

Paul Lincoln
Chief Executive, National Heart Forum

Malcolm Shepherd
Chief Executive Officer Designate, Sustrans

Neil Sinden
Director of Policy, Campaign to Protect Rural England

Jason Torrance
Campaigns Director, Campaign for Better Transport

Kevin Mayne
Director, CTC the national cyclists’ organization

Tony Armstrong
Chief Executive, Living Streets

Sir, Anatole Kaletsky (Comment, May 29) talks about “freezing energy taxes”. But motor fuel duty is not an energy tax; it’s a revenue raiser. Kaletsky should be aware that penal taxation on fuel alone produces distortions and does not reduce overall energy consumption.

Motor manufacturers have achieved a phenomenal improvement in fuel consumption, much of it in the 20 years from 1973 when there was no great increase in motor fuel taxes. He also seems unaware that hauliers and industry have a permanent incentive to improve fuel efficiency even without ever-increasing taxation: it is called competition.

Thomas Gillan
Inverness

Sir, Every time one sees a picture of an operating oilrig one sees the discharge of inflammable gases burning with huge clouds of smoke. Disregarding the obvious contribution to global warming, this pyrogenous dissipation of energy, especially if taken collectively with all such worldwide operations, represents a huge waste of valuable energy when considering escalating oil prices along with the associated rise in commodity prices. It must surely not be beyond the wit of Man to find means to harness these wasteful emissions.

Rodney Drake
Swadlincote, Derbyshire

Sir, Once again in these pages I note cries to return freight to the railways (letters, May 29). The people advocating such a move are either too young or have forgotten the huge infrastructure that is required to support such a policy: freight yards large and small in our already overcrowded towns and cities, thousands of staff, plus large numbers of vehicles to make the final delivery to the end user. All this belongs to a forgotten age and would be uneconomic and inefficient. The railways are already demanding massive subsidies: God knows how much more they would want to carry freight.

Brian Wylie
Bicester, Oxon

Sir, If we are to increase our dependence on nuclear power, Gordon Brown might consider telling the oil companies to start looking for uranium in the North Sea since without supplies that we control it is a fair assumption that the price of the glowing stuff will go the same way as that of the black stuff.

Keith Matthews
West Bromwich, West Midlands

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