As your editorial (Green shoots, 6 January) points out, perhaps the greenest aspect of Gordon Brown's announcement on "new" green jobs is the recycled policy it is based on. With the right approach the government could simultaneously green the economy and insulate it from the worst impact of recession. At present, there is a lack of ambition and coherence.
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change stated that retrofitting and replacing obsolete equipment in buildings has huge potential for reducing emissions of greenhouse gases. Many such measures pay for themselves through energy savings. They are largely offset by higher tax revenue and lower contributions to social security. In Germany from 2001 to 2006, $5.2bn of public subsidies stimulated a total investment of $20.9bn. This then led to the retrofitting of 350,000 apartments, simultaneously creating or maintaining 140,000 jobs, and reduced annual emissions from buildings by 2%. Of the amount spent, $4bn was recovered through tax and lowering the need for unemployment benefit. Measures such as insulating homes also disproportionally benefit the poorest - an objective that Gordon Brown has long championed both globally and in the UK.
Out of times of great crisis come great opportunities. But the government's approach does not match the scale of the problem. If he is lacking inspiration, Brown could do worse than look to Al Gore's campaign to "Repower America" - a bold plan for 100% clean electricity within 10 years, fast gathering momentum. The vision outlined at next Monday's jobs summit needs to set us on a path to rapidly repower Britain. Not doing so will be a failure of vision, and also leave the country much more vulnerable.
Colin Hines Convener, Green New Deal Group, Andrew Simms Policy director, New Economics Foundation, Ann Pettifor, Tony Juniper, Caroline Lucas MEP, Richard Murphy (all founder members of the Green New Deal Group)
David Adam praises plans by Blue-NG for a power plant in east London because it intends to use geo-pressure (Report, 6 January). But about 95% of the power won't come from geo-pressure at all - it will come from burning vegetable oil. Biofuel power plants are far from sustainable or climate-friendly, as the German example shows: Germany now has 1,800 vegetable oil power plants and nearly all of them run on palm oil. Scientists have shown that palm oil is linked to such large-scale rainforest and peatland destruction that it can be hundreds of times worse for the climate than burning fossil fuels.
In Beckton, where the plant is to be built, more than 1,000 people have signed a petition against the plans. Many of them are worried about the impact on air pollution in an already heavily polluted part of London. The UK must learn from the mistakes of Germany and halt these plans before it's too late.
Maryla Hart
Hornchurch, Essex