I was surprised that Bob Dylan’s A Hard Rain’s a-Gonna Fall was not in your list of the best songs about the climate crisis (28 October). Although Dylan’s poetic tour de force channelled the fears of a generation living with the threat of nuclear war, the lyrics’ apocalyptic imagery vividly captures today’s concerns about environmental calamity. The song was actually adopted by the UN as its unofficial anthem for Cop15 in 2009.
Mike Pender
Cardiff
• I was sorry that Cliff Richard’s 1971 Silvery Rain didn’t make the cut. Its atmospheric – almost Hitchcockian – production, especially the post-apocalyptic fade, still gives me the shivers.
Peter Higginbotham
Ilkley, West Yorkshire
• I would have thought someone as catholic in his appreciation of music as Alexis Petridis might have been aware of Tom Paxton’s 1970 song Whose Garden Was This? It was chillingly prophetic of where we were headed if we did not take care of our environment.
Danny Sullivan
Basingstoke, Hampshire
• John Mayall’s 1970 song Nature’s Disappearing was a masterly, atmospheric combination of potent climate warning and musicianship.
Rob Hodgson
Holmfirth, West Yorkshire
• World leaders attending Cop26 should be played Louis Armstrong’s What a Wonderful World on a loop until they achieve total unanimity.
Toby Wood
Peterborough, Cambridgeshire
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