YOUR correspondent John Armstrong, if he is indeed being serious in his letter “Green living” (HAS, Nov 21), thinks the only way to live happily is the way that he is currently enjoying.

Actually, only a couple of generations have had access to large, fast cars and frequent flight.

The normalisation of boiler-powered domestic heating is even more recent.

As someone who previously lived in an electric house, I have been shocked at aspects of modern gas central heating, particularly the nasty fumes released at head height. In closely built areas, these fumes attack the nose, throat and chest.

I support the advancement of the Teesside International Airport because it will help the North-East catch up with the South, but I look forward to a day when there is much, much less flying. Personally, I have flown just once. Air travel/freight is exceptionally polluting and fuel-guzzling, and some people, and companies, now avoid it out of a sense of responsibility.

Road traffic kills and maims both by collision and due to inhalation of fumes.

Last year, there were 157,630 casualties of all severities on British roads, including 27,820 people killed or seriously injured.

We should ask ourselves why dashing around at speed is so important as to be worth the loss of so much life and health.

The words conservation and conservative have the same root, obviously, so why does Mr Armstrong assume that young people who desire a non-toxin planet to live and raise their children in are on the “far left”?

Whatever is Conservative about inheriting a nice planet, and passing on a dirty and depleted one?

Helen Kinch, Darlington.