Dear editor, 

Many are currently worried about global warming and the possibility of humans becoming extinct. While I agree with the idea of burning less carbon, I must remind the current generation of previous extinction possibilities. Global nuclear war!

The Cold War became very close to being an extremely hot war on several occasions, the closest being the Cuban missile crisis.

I was at secondary school at the time and remember the day that could have ended the world.

Twenty megaton nuclear bombs could well have landed on the UK, and we would have had a four minute warning given by a siren sounding from the top of the Lily's building.

What you were supposed to do in four minutes before you were roasted in a nuclear holocaust we never knew. It was a mad existence, MAD meaning mutually assured destruction, the policy upheld by both sides at the time.

So yes, we need to be greener, but don't get too concerned, life has to go on and it will. Nuclear war could still end the world.

So while you eat less meat and cycle to work, don't forget that we have a nuclear missile submarine out there somewhere waiting to obliterate our enemy who will have already fried the UK (its called a deterrent). Mad isn't?

Brian Simmonds, Hatch Warren, Basingstoke