What a pleasure to read the letter from N. Horter (May 5).

Someone else who can clearly see just how very serious and dangerous the global warming phenomenon, which is putting the survival of mankind at such risk, truly is.

The importance of addressing our problem can no longer be left in the hands of governments, global industries and people in power who are not able or willing to take due regard of the circumstances.

No matter colour, creed, religious belief or so-called position in society, we all share and rely upon the planet we live upon as the provider of our needs and that is all we have, never bite the hand that feeds you may be a useful saying to keep in mind.

The time has come to put people before profit, these people who are manipulating true facts, not simply convincing more brainwashing us into believing they know what they are doing, so short sighted putting their self-interest for money and power before all else, they have not the foresight to see when our planet fails, they will indeed suffer the same fate.

Easter Island of yesteryear should be a lesson, not a blueprint to follow like lemmings.

Time to get real, I would suggest the planet we all share has due to poor husbandry become critically ill, it will take every man to help nurse it back to health.

Time to demand a change in mind set of the likes of Tesco, Wal-Mart, along with the banking, oil industry and power-crazy governments, who I feel will put the well-being of shareholders and self- interest before anything else, allowing the health of our planet to become terminal.

What will be more important I askthe world government plans to control the movements of each and every person on the planet, with the new Galileo Satellite system that is absorbing so much money and resources?

Or am I wrong in thinking it would be better to make it a preference to assure man will have food on his table?

I wonder what the space race is all about, our planet has been developing over millions of years, surely the time of these scientists would be better spent learning about and understanding the planet we depend upon, devising ways to live in harmony.

I can see a benefit from that for all of us, I guess that nature provides without expecting more than our love and respect in return, no profit to be made out of that, so I got that one wrong.

Our planet's surface is 70 per cent water, so it would be logical to first concentrate on caring for our oceans.

We expect the oceans to accept and deal with ever-increasing amounts of rubbish and chemicals. Nature will not fail us as the plankton works away at breaking down the nocuous substances, increasing in numbers to deal with the task in hand on our behalf.

In nature's balance plankton numbers are controlled to avoid saturation by krill, then in turn more plankton will result in more krill.

Nature has everything under control so it seems, to avoid hot spots in our oceans created by saturation in numbers of krill, the good ole whale and basking shark comes to the rescue, containing the numbers.

My point is to show an example of how nature is finely balanced; it comes to the wicket, deals with our waste problem on our behalf.

Instead of being grateful we interfere, break the chain by killing whales and even killing basking sharks for sport, so who failed who man or nature.

Common sense should be screaming out to us all, the powers that be are only interested in short-term profits.

GRAHAM COTTON, Bitterne Park, Southampton.