THE economies of the developed world have lived on fresh air since the late 1980s, when credit cards arrived and made it possible for everyone to live on fantasy money and when all manufacturing slipped away from developed nations.

Nations such as ours spend money they haven’t earned, borrowing cash by selling government bonds to nations that still manufacture things.

Developed economies rely on energy supplies for heating buildings, transport, manufacturing, etc.

In oil, we are locked in a fantasy of believing there can be an infinite source of anything on a finite world.

The new frontier for plundering oil reserves is the Arctic.

The BP Gulf of Mexico catastrophe last year should have taught all of us the dangers of deep sea drilling.

The American Geological Society has assessed the total amount of oil under the Arctic as representing, at current global consumption levels, only two years’ supply.

Confused in a changing world, angry residents tilt at wind turbines, like latter day Don Quixotes, hoping life can continue as usual.

To emerge from this crisis we must embrace fundamental change. The future will come; it is simply a question of whether we walk purposefully towards it or whether we are dragged kicking and screaming.

Christian Vassie, Blake Court, Wheldrake, York.