Storms should be named after fossil fuel companies

‘Cutting through the marketing devices that keep greenwashing potent is a crucial step on the long road to the necessary reforms.’ Photograph: Carl Recine/Reuters

Instead of naming storms after “those who work to keep people safe in times of severe weather”, thereby making these severe disruptions sound innocuous, it would be more appropriate to use the names of fossil fuel companies and the manufacturers of SUVs. Cutting through the marketing devices that keep greenwashing potent is a crucial step on the long road to the necessary reforms.

Making direct links between the polluters and the impact they cause is an urgent next step – as in “tomorrow’s terrible weather is Storm Esso, Storm Shell, Storm Range Rover” and so on. There are lots of them, so we wouldn’t run out of names and if we did, we could repeat and compare the severity of Storm Esso 2024 with the even more devastating Storm Esso 2028.
John Uden
London

• Do you have a photograph you’d like to share with Guardian readers? If so, please click here to upload it. A selection will be published in our Readers’ best photographs galleries and in the print edition on Saturdays.