AS THE individual arrested for spray-painting the front window of SDC offices last week (‘eco-activist arrested after spray painting council office,’ February 5), I would be very grateful for the chance to explain why I broke the law and sought to be arrested, writes reader David Lambert.

On January 24, the Council announced a climate emergency, and the coalition leadership deserves great praise for this.

I have nothing to do with the Green Party but I am glad they got this idea adopted by the full Council.

But now the Council has a responsibility to tell its citizens what that means and what we need to do.

You wouldn’t announce any other kind of emergency without a campaign of mass public information and that’s what we need now about the climate emergency.

The announcement is not just a politically correct gesture.

The emergency is real and now we need the Council to show leadership and tell the truth: the climate emergency will cause profound changes to our way of life in Stroud.

I took up the spray-paint as a way to get this subject talked about with the urgency it deserves.

It’s too late to be cross about the mess (although we wiped it all off), and it’s too late to stop the climate emergency arriving.

We need to start planning for a very different world that will be with us in years, not decades.

David Lambert

Stroud