Our shared home planet – bathed in solar energy. At last, some ‘data’ I can agree with, from fellow chartered engineer Roderick Taylor (Letters, August 22).

Our planet is indeed bathed in solar energy. We both inhabit the same “real world” – the same “pale blue dot” – of planet Earth – home. A planet which, Roderick rightly observes, receives an abundance of solar energy. How cool is that?! Enough to power all humanity, all year, from just an hour’s worth of sun! I’d call that an ample sufficiency.

Here’s what Thomas Edison (another Engineer) had to say on the topic of energy policy. He was talking with Henry Ford and Harvey Firestone at the time; back in 1931: “We are like tenant farmers chopping down the fence around our house for fuel when we should be using nature’s inexhaustible sources of energy – sun, wind and tide. I’d put my money on solar energy. What a source of power! I hope we don’t have to wait until oil and coal run out before we tackle that.”

Edison died 83 years ago. A decade or two later, scientists first discovered the greenhouse effect from combustion of oil, gas and coal would be a real problem.

Welcome, at last, if a bit late, to the solar century. — David Hampton, Chartered Engineer and Chartered Environmentalist