Letters: Protest leader
Your article ‘Fair deal denied to people displaced by dam’ (This Week,
3 August) was an interesting and timely piece but lacked analysis of the
nature of the protest movement – something too often neglected in reports
of Third World issues. For example, you describe Medha Pathkar (misspelt
‘Modha’) as ‘a key figure in the movement’ but do not even mention the man
Baba Amte whose devout follower she has been.
Baba Amte, a humanitarian in his late eighties and well-known all over
India for his work with lepers, had lately been living with the homeless
tribals. Distressed at their plight and alarmed at the ecological damage
the Narmada project had already caused in the name of development, he first
took up the issue with the governments of Madhya Pradesh and Gujarat. When
this failed he gave a countrywide call in January for a protest march from
Madhya Pradesh to Gujarat. The response was tremendous and immediate: thousands
of people from all walks of life – scientists, economists, ecologists, environmentalists,
human rights activists and displaced tribal people – joined the march, the
biggest ever since India’s independence.
When the nonviolent marchers were not only refused entry into Gujarat
state but were beaten up and arrested, Baba Amte went on an indefinite hunger
strike and, following his example, several others, including Medha Pathkar,
did the same. The gravity of the situation and the intensity of passion
which the death of Baba Amte would have aroused in the country apparently
compelled the World Bank to take a second look at the Narmada Project.
Amiya Rao New Delhi India
Letters: Power reigns
Tam Dalyell’s Thistle Diary piece, ‘Acid reigns over Europe’, suggests
that National Power is doing nothing about acid rain (Forum, 17 August).
Let me put the record straight.
In fact, we are undertaking a range of actions to reduce emissions from
our power stations. We are investing 拢700 million in the world’s
largest single atmospheric cleanup project at our Drax station to reduce
sulphur dioxide emissions. We are fitting special burners to our seven major
coal-fired plants to reduce nitrogen oxide emissions. We are investing in
new port facilities so that we can substitute low cost, low sulphur coals
for high sulphur coals. And we are investing in combined cycle gas turbine
(CCGT) plants which are ‘environmentally preferable’ on all emission counts.
Tam Dalyell suggests that because we are moving from our Leatherhead
laboratory we are in some way neglecting our duty. He omits to say, however,
that we are opening a new research centre at Swindon. The change is being
made because the old CEGB was an 拢11 billion a year turnover organisation.
Our much more modestly sized company cannot afford Leatherhead. But we can
afford a more modest research establishment and we are siting it at Swindon
where the rest of our thinking power is based. This will ensure our research
people will be alongside the planners and engineers instead of remote as
at present.
Finally, he implies that National Power must go on spending on acid
rain research at the same rate as in the past, as if no progress has been
made. The fact is that many of the policy issues to which the research was
addressed are now resolved, and research has been overtaken by action. It
has also been overtaken by a major shift in technical strategy from the
CEGB’s planned expansion of large coal-fired stations to one based on new
CCGT plant with guaranteed performance.
John Baker Chief Executive National Power London
Letters: Greens and science
What has been obscured is that greens (or environmentalists) can appear
on both sides of a dispute; the fault lies not with the scientists but with
the greens themselves.
Take, for example, the consumption of nonrenewable resources. In order
to alleviate this problem one might have expected greens to support the
use of hydroelectric power, either from high dams or from tidal barrages.
But the environmental protests are so vociferous that, in practice, it appears
that one may not build a dam or barrage anywhere.
W. S. Robertson Stafford
Letters: Colour problem
Following the recent solution of the flamingo mystery by New 杏吧原创
readers (Letters, 10 and 17 August), I wonder whether any of them can shed
light on a similar enigma which has been perplexing my daughter and myself.
Why aren’t sheep green?
S. P. Kingsley University of Sheffield
Letters: Piltdown stew
In view of the continuing interest in the Piltdown imposture, it may
be worth drawing the attention of your readers to a piece of literary evidence
that may shed some light on the matter. This evidence is to be found in
the book The Lost World, by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle.
As your readers will be aware, this book was published in 1912, the
same year that the discoveries at Piltdown were announced, and among the
inhabitants of the lost world that Doyle created were a tribe of apemen.
If the book was written in ignorance of the discoveries at Piltdown, this
would be a remarkable coincidence, but perhaps nothing more.
However, there is the internal evidence of The Lost World itself. In
chapter 5, Doyle makes Tarp Henry say of Professor Challenger’s specimens:
‘First one out of an Irish stew. Second one vamped up for the occasion.
If you are clever and you know your business you can fake a bone as easily
as you can a photograph.’ Perhaps Doyle knew of some of the discoveries
at Piltdown, in advance of the official announcement, and, suspecting that
they were not authentic, used this method of publishing his suspicions?
It would be appropriate for the creator of Sherlock Holmes.
R. L. Stratford Hitchin, Hertfordshire
Letters: Greens and science
I write to support Steven Yearley in the debate on the relationship
between science and environmentalism (‘Greens and science: a doomed affair?’,
13 July). Research on the role of science in acid rain policy in Britain
and Germany demonstrates that Paul Johnston and Mark Simmonds are well intentioned
but misguided (Talking Point, 3 August).
The idea of ‘precautionary’ science as distinct from policy should be
examined carefully. In my view, the concept of precautionary science should
be rejected for at least three reasons: precaution is a legal and philosphical,
not a scientific, principle; the idea that there are various types of science
(rather than various degrees of complexity in scientific problems and uses
to which scientific knowledge may be put) is dangerous and resented by many
scientists; science is and can be only one ingredient among many in the
making of wise and effective environmental policy.
Science alone is not prescriptive and is not translatable into effective
political action, although it should participate fully in informing society
when the goals of such actions are decided. The Greenpeace model of political
action is too simple, lacks democratic commitment and may even endanger
the integrity of science.
Research by the Science Policy Research Unit on acid rain policy concluded
that a competitive and open political system, a well-founded legal-administrative
framework and a healthy innovative industrial base are as important as influential
experts in the adoption of a precautionary environmental policy.
Sonja Boehmer-Christiansen Science Policy Research Unit University of
Sussex
Letters: Sitting safely
Your report about rail passenger safety in the event of a slow speed
rail crash, which states that seated passengers are unlikely to suffer injury,
is rather misleading (This Week, 17 August). From the experience of a colleague
of mine and myself, who reviewed injuries following a rail crash at Kensal
Green on 16 October 1986 between a British Rail train and a stationary London
Underground train, injuries do occur. At Central Middlesex Hospital, which
treated the majority of the 24 injured, a review was undertaken of the mechanism
of the injuries.
Shin injuries (16) and neck sprains (5) accounted for most of the injuries.
Of 11 patients in the front carriage of the BR train who responded to a
postal survey, all were facing the direction of travel. Many had lower leg
injuries as a result of striking the seat edge in front of them.
A review of the seat design in the carriage involved (Class 313 EMU)
showed that, unlike the diagram shown in your article, it had sharp-edged
seats 45 centimetres above the floor with relatively loose seat cushions,
accounting for most of the shin injuries. In addition, unlike the diagram,
the seat backs were only 52 centimetres in height, accounting for the neck
sprains.
Following this a survey was undertaken of a range of BR commuter and
London Underground rolling stock. Many were deficient in both adequate soft
moulded seat edges and seat back heights. Most of the more recently introduced
inner commuter trains (Classes 313, 315 and 455) were found to have deficiencies
in seat design.
Although redesign may be costly, simple visual inspection could lead
to better seats being installed when the carriages undergo a major refit,
something which usually happens every 10 years or so.
Michael McCabe Accident Department Cardiff Royal Infirmary Cardiff
Letters: Winning prediction
Donald Gould’s article ‘Goodbye to the heart bypass’ (Forum, 17 August)
compares predictions of the 1969 publication Medicines in the 1990s with
today’s state-of-the-art in medicine, and finds those prognostications both
off-target and funny. Perhaps Donald Gould would do a similar article based
on the New 杏吧原创 volumes of predictions published in 1964 entitled The
World in 1984. My guess is he will find them equally hilarious.
By coincidence, New 杏吧原创 ran a competition in 1969 asking for new
uses of the computer. I was one of the winners, and accurately predicted
that computers could and would be used for just about every stage of film
production, and would also be an alternative media form for audiovisual
applications.
As I am an artist/scriptwriter and at that time had very little knowledge
of computers, it might seem worthwhile asking how my predictions were so
accurate when so many experts of the time were not. I believe it was because
I knew exactly what was needed to make films, and only needed ask the experts
whether computers could do what I wanted in the way I wanted. On the other
hand, the experts were more concerned with the machines’ capabilities rather
than my needs. It is no surprise to me that groups of such experts in these
highly specialised areas simply support each other in making bad predictions.
Stan Hayward London
Letters: In clover
I thought everyone knew that clover fixed nitrogen in its roots and
that planting clover would work as a way of fertilising crops with nitrogen.
It just goes to show that thinking everyone knows something is a mistake,
perhaps a very costly mistake.
It is extremely encouraging that the technique of planting clover as
an undercrop to supply nitrogen to the soil is at last being seriously investigated
(This Week, 10 August). Certainly it must be all of 40 years ago that the
idea occurred to me and I simply assumed that the reason it was not yet
standard practice was because there were some drawbacks which I did not
know about.
Has it really taken from the time people first found out about the ability
of leguminous plants to fix nitrogen in their roots till the late 1980s
for practical trials to take place? It seems almost unbelievable. After
all, articles on gardening have been telling readers for years that legumes
(beans and peas for instance) contribute nitrogen to the soil and so could
act as a fertiliser for later crops on the same patch of soil.
The moral seems to be: ‘If you have a good idea, for heaven’s sake do
somethaing about it and don’t assume everyone else has had the same idea
and tested it already.’
Alec Vans Newnham, Gloucestershire
Letters: Amateurs in space
I confess it was I who castigated New 杏吧原创 for its derogatory coverage
of Helen Sharman’s Juno mission after the schools’ press conference (Forum,
10 August)). As a regular reader, who exhorts students to make New Scientst
required background study for A-level science courses, I make no apology.
Agreed, the original concept of the Juno mission being funded by British
industry met a sorry end in October 1990 but that was no reason to virtually
ignore the schools’ projects which flew.
It seems that any form of ‘amateur’ science is thought worthy of little
mention by official institutions in this country and certainly not considered
when sponsorship funds are being allocated.
I was responsible for setting up the amateur radio link between Helen
on the Mir space station and several schools across the UK (in fact, it
was the only direct communications link between Britain’s first astronaut
and the UK). This was done with no funding to the participating schools
at all and we had to rely on borrowed equipment for sections of the programme.
This project was the culmination of many years’ work at my school on
amateur radio, during which time we have introduced digital ‘packet’ communication
and amateur satellite work to the course. How many New 杏吧原创 readers
are aware that there are more than a dozen working amateur satellites in
orbit which can be freely accessed, using modest receiving equipment, and
talked through with appropriate amateur radio licences? These satellites
produce a wealth of information from the environmental data they gather,
as well providing free communications facilities to the amateur community.
So please, New 杏吧原创, stop knocking and start supporting amateur
science. It really does have much to offer!
Richard Horton Head of Physics & Information Technology Harrogate
Ladies’ College Harrogate, North Yorkshire
Letters: Peoples pillaged
Forest peoples may indeed be guardians of a detailed knowledge of the
curative properties of tropical forest species. And, as Chris Bird points
out (‘Medicines from the rainforest’, 17 August) there is a potential bonanza
of profits to be made by the pharmaceuticals companies in exploiting this
knowledge. But will this help these peoples, or will their knowledge be
pillaged by Western scientists without the locals seeing a penny of the
profits?
International debates about intellectual property rights are at least
drawing attention to the need for some of the profits to be paid to the
Third World countries where the knowledge originates, but that may be little
use to the local peoples themselves. Even, as in the Korup case, where some
of the profits from the drug prospecting are recycled by the World Wide
Fund for Nature back into conservation programmes, this may not benefit
the local communities. Indeed, ironically, it is exactly because the Korup
area has been designated a national park that the local peoples are being
obliged to move off their lands and settle further east.
By all means let us realise that the destruction of forests and forest
cultures implies a major loss to our global heritage, but profiting from
this heritage may not by itself ensure the survival of either. Once the
natural medicines’ active constituents are identified in the laboratories,
they are usually synthesised for the market without any need to maintain
the original species.
No wonder that forest peoples themselves are demanding secure rights
to their lands and to their intellectual property. The international community
has yet to effectively recognise either of these rights.
Marcus Colchester World Rainforest Movement Chadlington, Oxford