Dear Sir,

When it comes to any kind of policy that has a chance of keeping Bermuda around for more than 50 to 100 years, such policy has to be cognisant of the number one threat facing Bermuda right now. Climate change.

The biggest threat Bermuda faces is a rising ocean. If the ocean rises five to ten feet, the impact will be devastating. The issue being, as an island of 65,000 or so, we have little impact in comparison to the other (x-billion) people on the planet.

What we do may not matter that much in the grand scheme of things; if the rest of the world doesn’t change its ways, we are screwed.

Yet we cannot slip beneath the waves without trying to have some sort of impact. We have a responsibility to be a shining light to the world, a glowing example of what a green economy can look like. We have a responsibility to come up with an economic system that is both self-reliant and self-sustainable, one that benefits the larger ecological system.

We have set our sights way too low. We need to create an economic system whose waste products can then be fed into the ecological system in a way that benefits instead of hurts. The point is not to be carbon-neutral but to reintegrate into the ecological system.

We need to grow and catch our own food and produce our own energy in a way that not only doesn’t hurt the environment, but actually helps it. Doing so would be hugely beneficial not only because it is the only sane thing to do, but it also would make us much more capable of dealing with any kind of major global upheaval.

We have to remember we are one of the most isolated islands on the planet. If global commerce is interrupted, we are screwed. Anything could happen: a ship gets stuck in the Suez Canal, a global pandemic that is much more lethal than Covid, the situation in Ukraine gets out of hand, and we could be left high and dry.

We need to become more self-reliant. I am not saying stop bringing the ship; I am saying it would be sensible to become more food and energy self-reliant. We need to grow and catch our own food and produce our own electricity. We also need to figure out a way of disposing of our waste that will help the ocean, air and earth, as opposed to simply not hurting it.

A method of fishing or farming fish that helps all the non-farmed fish — a type of farming that can be done without destroying marshland, forest and plain. We live on one of the most beautiful places on the planet; put a price on Horseshoe Bay! How much is the beauty of shining sea crashing on to pink sand worth? Because even five more feet of water will destroy it and that water is coming sooner than later if we don't do something about it.

On a final note, there is one more very important thing we must do; in fact, it is probably the most important thing we can do to help protect ourselves from the rising sea levels, and that is remain British. If the British sailed thousands of miles to retake the Falklands, surely they will give us safe harbour on their shores when the ocean inevitably swallows us. By remaining British we give ourselves, our children and great-grandchildren somewhere to go when the sea swallows this tiny rock back into her murky maw.

MATTHEW JONES

Sandys