As Jeremy Clarkson’s editor, I frequently get letters from readers who are interested in his weekly column. “What kind of sick and disturbed person are you,” they typically write, “letting a maniac like Clarkson loose in The Sunday Times? Do you pay him for that rubbish?”

Others are less restrained. Here’s one from Stephen Whitehead of Rotherfield, East Sussex: “Just a brief note to tell you why I have stopped buying The Sunday Times after 40 years of readership. I am disgusted by Jeremy Clarkson’s ignorance of all evidence that our planet is dying and by his reviewing and encouraging the use of cars that will achieve speeds of 170mph and consume fuel at 10, 15 or 20mpg. All is total lunacy.

“PS Why was that idiot [Richard Hammond] driving a jet car at nearly 300mph? 70 is the limit!”

Quite right. Now obviously we welcome this type of free and open debate and we pass the letters to Jeremy for a proper response. He reads them carefully and takes them to a recycling depot where I understand he has them pulped and made into special lavatory paper bearing his monogram.

What’s interesting, however, is that even though the subject of motorists and global warming is arousing so much controversy, almost no elected person or industry figure is talking about it. Politicians have decided already which way the wind is blowing and some have positioned wind turbines on their roofs to take advantage. Car company bosses have been informed by their PR agencies that it is better to stay silent because they are men in suits who no one readily trusts.

So who is left for campaigners to rail against? Clarkson.

Ken Livingstone recently announced that areas of London most prone to flooding because of global warming would be named “Clarkson zones”. How unfair is that? From California to the Turks and Caicos Islands — wherever the Sunday Times website is read — Clarkson is the ecomentalist’s antichrist.

So I’m grateful to Sunday Times reader Dr Steve Cousins, an automotive engineer, for speaking up in defence of the kind of driving that Jeremy champions. That is to say, foot down, hard acceleration and shouting: “This sounds like the God of Thunder gargling with nails.” Surely Cousins must be misguided, you’re thinking; isn’t it self-evident that revving an engine just wastes fuel?

Well, Cousins has discovered — and he has test data to prove it — that accelerating hard can actually be more fuel-efficient. If you don’t believe me you can write to him. He runs an engineering consultancy called Axon Automotive in Wellingborough, Northamptonshire.

“It sounds totally counter-intuitive — and it is,” admits Cousins. The key to saving fuel, he says, is to accelerate hard until the engine reaches 2000rpm, move up a gear, then put your foot down until you reach 2000rpm again. It’s all to do with internal friction. “Put simply, with your right foot down on the accelerator, the engine is working at its most efficient,” says Cousins. Above 2000rpm the benefits diminish and you start using more fuel, not less.

Here’s the really interesting thing: in tests carried out in a Citroën C1, one of the most fuel-efficient cars, Cousins’s driving technique proved 8.5% more efficient than the “eco-safe driving” style promoted by the Department for Transport (www.dsa.gov.uk — search for eco-safe). The government’s official driving method — taught to all learner drivers and now included in the driving test — encourages drivers to save fuel by using the accelerator pedal only lightly.

So if Cousins is right, will the government amend its official advice, and the driving test? Nobody from the Department for Transport was available for comment. I’m assured this has nothing to do with avoiding the issue; it’s because talking can generate wasteful amounts of CO2