LETTER AS SUBMITTED TO CAMBRIDGE ALUMNI MAGAZINE (CAM)

Dear Peter Richards,

In your editorial in the Michaelmas Term issue of CAM you write about the Cambridge tradition of scepticism. But your interview with John Browne, chief executive of BP, reads like something out of Hello! magazine: a curious blend of blandness and flattery, with the briefest of references to anything controversial.

BP, like the other large oil companies, must have a major part to play in combating the threat of climate change, a threat that Sir David King has described as greater than international terrorism, that Sir John Houghton has called a "weapon of mass destruction", and that Tony Blair has described as "very critical indeed".

By all means give praise where it is due: John Browne has indeed spoken out about the need for action on climate change and BP's record is less disgraceful than that of some other oil companies, most notably Esso.

But for a sceptical audience it would have been good to see answers to questions like "What exactly are you doing to combat the threat of climate change?", "What possible case can there be for building the Baku-T'bilisi-Ceyhan pipeline when it is clear that the world must stop burning fossil fuels, and soon?" and "Is the slogan 'Beyond Petroleum' anything more than greenwash?".

Gerry Wolff