Why on earth does Barbara Mullarney think “we, the ordinary public, [are] helpless as we face a terrible climate crisis” (“It’s the ordinary public who are tricked by Big Oil”, Letters, May 9)?

The whole point of a liberal capitalist society is that the system seeks to respond to the needs and wants of individual citizens, so responsibility lies with us, the consumers, to reduce our fossil fuel usage if we think it is excessive.

The queues on garage forecourts in the autumn of 2021 showed us very clearly that simply restricting supply does not work.

Robin Cooke-Hurle
London SW11, UK