Letters : Reduce the rich
Manchester
Fred Pearce is wrong to suggest that Paul Ehrlich has chiefly been concerned
about population growth in poor countries (Forum, 20 July, p 47). On the
contrary, Ehrlich has consistently argued that, because of high average per
capita consumption, the most overpopulated country in the world is the US,
closely followed by other industrial countries.
It is also unfair to imply that Ehrlich and others who are concerned about
human population growth are misanthropists. The opposite is generally the case.
Our criterion in trying to estimate an optimum population for the world or its
regions is the quality of human life, in this and coming generations. We dislike
human suffering.
The present low fertility rate in many industrial countries, especially in
Europe, is not a problem but a solution. Reducing the size of the population is
a matter of enlightened self-interest.
Why enlightened? Because each European citizen鈥攐r rather,
inhabitant鈥攁ppropriates, directly or indirectly, an average of 2 hectares
of ecologically productive land outside Europe in order to support his or her
lifestyle. Reducing this acreage would create “environmental space” for people
in poorer countries.
Why self-interest? Because it is hard to think of any aspect of European life
which would not improve if the continent had a smaller population. Fewer people
would mean fewer houses, motor vehicles and regulations; less congestion on the
roads and in the skies; less crime, erosion of footpaths, factory farming,
pollution, pressure on national parks, road building, unemployment and
urbanisation; more countryside, independence, space, trees and wildlife; cleaner
rivers and beaches, clearer ski slopes and views of the night sky, greater
national security, higher incomes and a harder life for pathogens. For the
individual countries it would even mean greater success at sport, if the records
of New Zealand and Australia are any guide.
Letters : . . .
Stanford, California
Pearce wrote that I and other environmental scientists were in the habit of
blaming the poor for environmental problems and implied that I was a racist to
boot. I and my coauthors have been taking exactly the opposite viewpoint for
over a quarter of a century in many dozens of books and articles of which Pearce
must be aware.
For instance, in 1971 John Holdren and I wrote: “Because of this consumption,
and because of the enormous negative impact on the global environment
accompanying it, the population growth in these [overdeveloped] countries must
be regarded as the most serious in the world today” (Science, vol 171,
p 1214).
In our 1972 book Population, Resources and the Environment, Anne
Ehrlich and I called for de-development of the rich nations to aid the poor, and
that general theme has been pursued ever since, as in Ecoscience (1977,
coauthored by Holdren), The Population Explosion (1990), and
The Stork and the Plow (1995, coauthored by Gretchen Daily). The latter
focuses on equity issues in general.
If Pearce had done more homework, he would even have run across Anne’s and my
article entitled “Too many rich folks” (Populi, September 1989). Since
I was also heavily involved in the civil rights movement and in attempting to
counter scientific racism (see Race Bomb, 1977, coauthored with
psychologist Shirley Feldman), I was not pleased by Pearce’s gross
misrepresentation of our views鈥攐r those of many other environmental
scientists and highly competent science reporters such as Laurie Garrett.
Pearce may not like the Ehrlichs; that is his privilege. But he should be
held to at least minimum journalistic standards.
Letters : Fizzy sea
Ipswich, Suffolk
While burying excess carbon dioxide at sea seems superficially attractive
(This Week, 3 August, p 11), perhaps we should remember the lesson of Lake Nyos
in Cameroon before we proceed.
If anything, be it seismic activity, meteorological conditions or even
terrorist attack, should lead to a sudden release of stored CO2, the
effects upon the marine ecosystem would be disastrous.
It is also not very pleasant to imagine the effect should a heavily packed
passenger ship be passing at the time. A sea of soda-water might provide an
interesting diversion for passengers and crew, but they certainly would not be
in a position to tell their grandchildren about it.
Letters : Animal antibiotics
Arundel, West Sussex
The item on antibiotics and hospital epidemics mistakenly states that animals
are injected with the antibiotic avoparcin (This Week, 27 July, p 7). This is a
food-grade antibiotic which is insoluble and so cannot be absorbed by the gut.
It is thus incorporated into feed and enhances protein absorption and
utilisation.
In hospitals, human patients receive large doses of antibiotics, a procedure
which actively selects for resistance by leaving behind resistant survivors. It
is thus no accident that resistant bacteria appear within hospitals, especially
in situations where rapid control of pathogenic bacteria is an urgent clinical
necessity.
By contrast, low-level administration in animal feed does not kill bacteria
and therefore has limited effects on the development of resistance. Bacterial
resistance is a fact of life with which all doctors and their patients will have
to live. It is too simplistic to blame the development of resistance on any one
particular source or method of use.
Wolfgang Witte, the German microbiologist on whose work the article was
based, has performed previous studies which suggest very strongly that
resistance can move from the farm to the human population. Witte found that in
East Germany, between 1982 and 1987, resistance to the antibiotic
streptothricine spread from bacteria in farm animals to bacteria in the general
population. Streptothricine has only ever been used on farms, which were
therefore the only possible source of the resistant bacteria in
辫别辞辫濒别鈥抬诲
Letters : Owning the past
Your Jerusalem correspondent perhaps did not have enough space to tell us
whether the Israeli government’s newfound possessiveness about artefacts from
archaeological digs extended to the large number of sites that are, de jure and
de facto, located outside the boundaries of Israel in the occupied areas
(This Week, 3 August, p 8).
As with the Elgin marbles, caution is needed in ascribing “ownership” to
ancient stones. Or documents: a large museum in Jerusalem is given over to the
Dead Sea Scrolls which were, of course, found at a site which, then and now, is
not part of the State of Israel. Surely the scientific consideration of
artefacts must take precedence over anachronistic claims of ownership.
Letters : Rutting rhinos
Lilongwe, Malawi
As a former head of the organisation that managed the Pilanesberg National
Park (it is not just a reserve), I feel I must comment on your article on
“rampaging” elephants (This Week, 20 July, p 5). The reference to elephants
trying to mount rhino cows is given out of context鈥攐nly one adolescent
bull was ever noted carrying out this aberrant behaviour.
The circumstances behind this case were that after the original group of
juveniles was translocated from Kruger National Park, they were kept in a
temporary enclosure to help them settle down and acclimatise to their new
surroundings, whereupon they were released into the park. One of the group,
however, remained in the enclosure for a short period and lost contact with the
main group. He subsequently attached himself to the first group of animals that
looked “familiar”, which happened to be a herd of rhinos (remember, at that
stage he was of a size comparable to them).
It is felt that he imprinted himself on that group just as other animals can
imprint themselves on humans. In this context, his later attempts to mount the
rhino cow can be understood as a logical reaction鈥攂ut it is incorrect to
say that this is a general tendency for all the ex-Kruger Park elephant
bulls.
It is correct to assume that there has been an effect of post-capture trauma
on the young elephants and that there are possible repercussions now being noted
in some of the elephants. But it must also be noted that the translocation of
young elephants at that stage (1979) was in the pioneering stages of modern
wildlife management. “Experiments” such as these attempted to ensure the
adequate protection and survival of animal populations. There are bound to be
some after-effects from taking these risks in the name of research and good
wildlife management.
Finally, Pilanesberg National Park actually covers 55 000 hectares, and is
considered to be large enough for most animals, including elephants, to have
space to establish adequate breeding populations. It is not some “back yard”
small game reserve or zoo, or inconsequential wildlife park as the article seems
to infer.
Many professional wildlife managers who have visited the park acknowledge
that it is a model park, given the innovative management techniques it has
introduced to the field of park and wildlife management generally.
Letters : Conscious cat
Southampton, Hampshire
Marian Stamp Dawkins reports that Daniel Dennett suggests that “talking is
not merely a means of knowing about other minds, but a prerequisite for
consciousness itself” (Review, 3 August, p 42).
Surely it is not suggested that human beings born both deaf and dumb have no
consciousness? If it is argued that various forms of sign language are
responsible for the development of consciousness in such situations, then isn’t
this the case elsewhere in the animal world?
If I pat my knee while sitting in an armchair, my cat will come and sit on my
lap, or not, according to its decision at that time.
Letters : Nozzles and spikes
Bracebridge, Ontario, Canada
The aerospike engine described in your article (“Flight of the aerospike”, 6
July, p 36) cannot change direction by pumping exhaust鈥攊t may change
direction by pumping fuel to one side. Further, this is unlikely to be “simple”,
since you end up with at least three pumps as against one in the steerable
nozzle engine (excluding backup pumps).
Referring to the diagram that shows the conventional nozzle and the
aerospike, it would appear that combining the two, that is having a spike inside
a nozzle, would result in considerably greater thrust per pound of fuel.
Letters : No change
Los Angeles, California
Plunging into the debate over time travel (Letters, 27 July, p 63), I submit
the premise advanced in my 1989 film Time Trackers, in which the
time-travelling scientists discover that if they change the past, it would
always have been changed. In other words, by going back to another time, their
actions became part of that time and therefore part of its history, so no change
would be perceptible in the present since the “changed” event would always have
happened in its “changed” form.
As one of the characters in the film states, no matter how many times you
went back, you would have no choice but to make the same change every time and
history would not be affected.
As for the argument of 15-year-old Stephen Coast, who suggested that the
traveller would pop up in empty space because the Earth would have moved in its
orbit, any self-respecting time machine designer would include a couple of
rocket thrusters. (No, in the film, I didn’t; but that’s the magic of movies. If
I really knew how to build a time machine, I’d have shot on location in the 12th
century鈥攁nd, since history is unchangeable, we would all be familiar with
a reference in Chaucer to a movie crew in Sherwood Forest.)
Letters : Fax them back
Oxford
I was sorry to read about Feedback’s experiences with the wrongly connected
fax machine (3 August, p 92). You could, however, have turned digital technology
back on itself during one of the one-minute pauses by dialling 1471, when a
voice would have told you the number and STD code of the last number to have
called your phone. You could then have faxed this number with a message saying,
“Please stop faxing me, you’ve got the wrong number.”
Though what this apparent paradox would have done to the Data Protection
Register computer’s tiny brain is anyone’s guess.
Letters : . . .
Melbourne, Australia
This happens a lot at work, but we’ve overcome the problem by transferring
the incoming screeching call to the fax machine’s number. We just use the same
procedure as if we were transferring a phone call to someone else’s phone. I
realise this wouldn’t work in all cases but might help some readers in a similar
predicament.