Letters: Industrial friends
The article ‘Friends fall out’ refers to the decision by Friends of
the Earth in Hong Kong to withdraw from membership of the FoE International
network (This Week, 9 February). The focus on Shell as the sole source of
the dispute is incorrect. At issue was a fundamental difference in philosophy
and approach, which has relevance for environmental work everywhere.
In Hong Kong we take the view that, while confrontation may have been
the only posture available to environmentalists in the 1970s, times are
changing and so too are industrial attitudes. We have therefore sought to
establish a relationship with industry which is suited to the present.
In practical terms, this has meant that we do not accept sponsorship
from companies which we would like to see go out of existence completely,
such as fur and tobacco. But for the rest, we try to establish a working
relationship so as to better understand their point of view, and hopefully
influence them to better understand and adopt ours. Accepting sponsorship
is one tool in this strategy.
We fear that if FoE International persists in its knee-jerk confrontational
stance, clinging to its perceived monopoly of the moral high ground, it
will find itself marginalised as its industrial ‘opponents’ (to use the
vocabulary of the FoEI chairman) sweep by on their own path to environmental
improvement.
Solutions to the world’s pressing environmental problems cannot be achieved
by non-governmental organisations acting in isolation. We need to harness
the organisational and financial resources of industry on our side. The
real difference between FoE-Hong Kong and FoEI is that we believe this can
be done by establishing mutual respect.
Linda Siddall Director Friends of the Earth-Hong Kong
Letters: Science savings
Bill Mitchell explains in detail the origins of this year’s shortfall
in funding of the Science and Engineering Research Council, of which he
was until recently chairman. The arguments are over 拢29.5 million,
about 6.5 per cent, and whether inflation has, or has not, been covered
(Talking Point, 23 February).
But the most important points he makes are that the increasing gap between
government spending on science in this country and others like France and
Germany should not be accepted and ‘scientists and engineers should focus
on this sorry state of affairs rather than be deflected into internal feuding
over the distribution of cash.’ These are precisely the considerations that
led to the launch of Save British Science some five years ago.
Had the level of science funding remained at its 1981/82 value as a
fraction of GDP, the total sum invested would by now have been over 拢1.5
billion greater and the annual rate at least 拢400 million more. OECD
data place Britain near the bottom of the European league table; this is
the comparison that matters, since it is other countries that increasingly
set the standards in leading research.
杏吧原创s and engineers should be aware that the government’s stance
receives no support from any significant quarter: not from industry; not
from academia; not from Parliament. Just four weeks ago the House of Commons
Select Committee on Education, Science and the Arts called for a doubling
of government funding of civil science-outdoing even us.
Now is the time for the whole community to pull together. The argument
can, and must be won.
John Mulvey, Executive Secretary Save British Science Oxford
Letters: Wind direction
Bent Lauge Madsen, of the National Agency of Environmental Protection,
Denmark, describes wind turbines as being ugly, often sited on the most
spectacular skylines and noisy (Letters, 22/29 December 1990). He expresses
the view that they are a very expensive and clumsy way of abating air pollution.
I want to emphasise that these opinions are not the views of the National
Agency for Environmental Protection. On the contrary, our agency is in full
agreement with the national Energy 2000 Programme, which stresses the importance
of renewable energy.
Moreover, we are handling the problems of placing the turbines in the
landscape and of noise in our planning system. Thanks to the policy of promoting
wind energy, Danish industry has achieved a leading position in this area.
Hans Henrik Christensen Deputy Director General National Agency of Environmental
Protection Denmark
Letters: Horror video
I read Harold Thimbleby’s article on the inconvenience of video recorder
controls with interest because my video has many of the same irritating
features as he described (‘Can anyone work the video?’, 23 February). I
recently asked some engineers at Philips about it and they admitted the
situation was pretty bad.
However, for all future models, they put their faith in incorporating
teletext (enabling the timer to be set by simply identifying the programme
on the screen), because the cost of the additional electronics is becoming
small. This cuts the number of buttons necessary.
But one of the main problems is that all the buttons are so similar.
Having different types of switches for different aspects of the machine
obviously helps to reduce confusion. The engineers in one American nuclear
power station resorted to fixing beer pump handles to the most important
controls to make them stand out. These might be a bit large to stick on
a video remote control unit, but it ought to be quite simple to apply the
same sort of idea.
Tim Hunkin Halesworth Suffolk
Letters: Horror video
I was gratified to learn that I am not the only person who struggles
with the complexity of video machines and other modern electronic equipment.
But it is not only the electronics designers that create difficulties for
users; the industrial designers do their bit as well with the current fashion
for black operating buttons set in black casings. They are almost impossible
to see, so much so that on my own video recorder and television I have painted
them white.
Peter Phillips Redhill Surrey
Letters: Pplummeting Ppound
I read the article ‘The Ppound in your pocket’ by Ian Stewart with interest
(Forum, 16 February). He is, of course, quite right to suggest dividing
all large expenditures by the number of people in Britain (or better, perhaps,
the number of households). In most cases this is the correct way at looking
at cost (for other areas also; even the famed EC beef mountain is not too
overwhelming when expressed as European Pburgers).
However, I take issue with him when he mixes Ppounds with total drawbacks.
There are of the order of 4500 schools in Britain; assume that 10 per cent
of these have holes in the roof of 1 square metre (if Cambridgeshire is
anything to go by, this is a gross exaggeration) then this means that the
Pleak is of the order of half a square centimetre. Now if he is asking whether
I would ignore a hole of this size somewhere in the roof in order to save
拢15 then the answer is clear. Yes I would. The number of Pkids without
shoes (or is it kids without Pshoes?) is a matter of conjecture. I expect
that it would be a few Pmillimetres of shoelace but I look forward to someone
estimating the amount.
If one uses the Ppound (and it is an excellent unit) then much of the
national expenditure is comprehensible and some may even be sensible. If,
on the other hand, a professor of mathematics compares gross effects with
per capita expense then the value of any Pexpenditure on mathematics in
higher education must be in doubt.
Incidentally, there is an excellent book entitled The Pound in your
Pocket by Peter Wilsher which traces inflation from 1870 to 1970. Does anyone
know of a book that charts inflation since then?
Ian Cruttwell St Gallen Switzerland
Letters: Malaria vaccine
Phyllida Brown is correct when she says that the Medical Research Council
has not approved a malaria vaccine trial in The Gambia (‘Britain blocks
testing of new malaria vaccine’, This Week, 23 February). What she does
not say, however, is that we have withheld our approval on both ethical
and scientific grounds.
The MRC is convinced of the urgent need for a good malaria vaccine,
but there are important scientific matters which must be resolved before
this trial can go ahead. For example, information on the composition of
the vaccine, the standards used to assess its purity, the parity of batches,
the dose level required and adequately documented toxicity data have not
yet been made available to us. When we have this information, and we have
been waiting for it for many weeks, we will be consulting the relevant authorities
(for example, the National Institute for Biological Standards and Control)
to ensure that the proper criteria have been met. Only then will we be able
to approve the trial.
Manuel Patarroyo does not help his case by dismissing our inquiries
about vaccine safety as ‘silly’. On the information available at present
this vaccine could not be used in Britain. In the absence of these data
a Clinical Trials Certificate simply would not be issued. Why should we
apply different standards in Africa?
David Evered, Second Secretary Medical Research Council London
Letters: Llamas together
In response to Leighton Jones (Letters, 16 February), a dalliance of
llamas has a peaceful aspect (abbreviated to Dalai Lama, with apologies
to his holiness). Unrelated llamas will not automatically dally together-a
Welsh hill farm retreat for a silent order of Buddhists (colloquially, clam
dallies) might help provide solace and exercise for llamas and lamas alike.
Michael Deans London
Letters: Smart advice
I would like to warn potential applicants for SMART (the Small Firms
Merit Award for Research and Technology), recently advertised in New 杏吧原创,
not to expect too much in return for their efforts. Unless the competition
has been modified since last year, the only result for the 90 per cent of
applicants who do not receive an award will be a standard letter from the
Department of Trade and Industry informing them that they have been unsuccessful.
As, presumably, some manner of objective review of the project proposal
has been made by the referees, it would not seem unreasonable to provide
a copy of this to the applicants in return for their considerable time and
effort.
The competition is, nevertheless, worth entering, as there is precious
little other government support for new high-tech enterprise, and I wish
the hopeful candidates good luck.
James McKinley McKinley Electro-Optics Ltd Stroud Gloucestershire
Letters: Anaesthesia standards
Robin Youngson’s article ‘Why anaesthesia can still kill’ (9 February)
states, rather dramatically, that if oxygen (pulse oximetry) and carbon
dioxide (capnography) monitoring devices were available in all operating
theatres, then anaesthetic accidents could be ‘drastically cut down’. However,
things may not be quite so simple.
In 1984 we reviewed the topic ‘How safe is anaesthesia?’ in the Canadian
Medical Association Journal. We came to the conclusion that the number of
deaths directly resulting from anaesthetic accidents had fallen substantially
in many countries over the previous 20 years.
Monitoring equipment, as described by Youngson, was not available in
most hospitals at the time of our review. We suggested that the improvement
in safety was, among other things, due to better preparation of patients
pre-operatively and the institution of training schemes for specialist anaesthetists.
Anaesthetists are often compared correctly with airline pilots when
considering certain aspects of their tasks, such as the complexities of
the human-machine interface. However, Youngson’s example is fallacious.
The studies from Harvard University which he quotes have actually shown
more potential mishaps during the course of an anaesthetic than at either
the start or the end. Indeed, the tragic case he describes details such
an incident. That the anaesthetist was not present in the theatre when things
went wrong is inexcusable. The fact that when he returned and was unable
to interpret the monitoring equipment suggests lack of knowledge, training
and professional manner. The outcome may not have been any different even
if more monitoring had been available.
Selection and training of anaesthetists are as important as their equipment.
Pressure for mandatory monitoring standards will increase. However, this
is not a one-time decision governed by available finance. In our view, there
must be continuous review of and commitment to all parts of the equation
in order to maintain and improve the current record of anaesthetic safety.
Leo Strunin London Hospital Medical College Jan Davies Foothills Hospital
Alberta, Canada
Letters: Amputee in the sky
I was very interested in Mike Rogers’s article ‘The case for an amputee
astronaut’ (Forum, 2 February). I made exactly the same points 40 years
ago in Islands in the Sky: ‘He’d been quite an athlete, it seemed, so the
loss of his legs must have been an even bigger blow to him than to most
men. It was obvious why he had come to the Station-it was the only place
where he wouldn’t be a cripple. Indeed, thanks to his powerfully developed
arms, he was probably the most agile man in the Station.’
Arthur C. Clarke Colombo Sri Lanka