Plutonium puzzle
You warn that “the world is running out of plutonium” (12 July, p 36), but NASA’s James Green need look no further for new supplies.
We have plenty in the UK, as you reported under the headline “Radioactive cache grows” (same issue, p 7).
From Brian Whittaker
This somewhat comical juxtaposition arises from your failure to mention which plutonium isotopes you were talking about.
The shortage is of plutonium-238 鈥� a powerful alpha-particle emitter used in space vehicles and landers, which is produced by irradiating neptunium-237 in a reactor.
The surplus is of plutonium-239 鈥� a fissile isotope used in nuclear reactors and weapons and, like neptunium, produced in the course of reactor operation.
Grove, Oxfordshire, UK
Einstein and god
Lawrence Krauss would love the issue of religion to be simpler than it is, and selects his Einstein accordingly (5 July, p 50). By leaping on Einstein’s use of the words “childish” and “primitive” to describe the Bible, he does not simplify matters, but muddies the waters. Scientific advances have indeed given humanity enormous powers, but these are currently wreaking unforeseen havoc because of our failure to address the much more difficult question of what our powers should be used for 鈥� one of the central questions of religion.
Einstein dismisses the word “god”, but never a sense of the spiritual. In his biography of Einstein, Leopold Infield quotes Einstein: “The most beautiful thing we can experience is the mysterious. It is the source of all true art and science. He to whom this emotion is a stranger, who can no longer pause to wonder and stand rapt in awe, is as good as dead: his eyes are closed. This insight into the mystery of life, coupled though it be with fear, has also given rise to religion. To know that what is impenetrable to us really exists, manifesting itself as the highest wisdom and the most radiant beauty which our dull faculties can comprehend only in their most primitive forms 鈥� this knowledge, this feeling, is at the centre of true religiousness. In this sense, and in this sense alone, I belong to the ranks of devoutly religious men.”
As a non-believer with a theology degree, this seems to me a far more thoughtfully developed position than the Gutkind letter. Furthermore, it resonates strongly with the humble attitude found in the spiritual traditions of those many groups of tribal people who live in perfect harmony with their environments. I suggest that the lesson we can learn from these “primitive” people and from Einstein is rather more urgent than those we have yet to learn from the traditional religions which gave birth to modern science, and imbued it with an unnecessary arrogance which it has never lost.
From Dave Tarpley
As an atheist, I’m getting tired of the growing self-righteousness among atheists. Does knowing that a person believes or disbelieves in God or gods tell you anything meaningful about that person? Can you reliably say whether they are stupid or clever or witty or kind?
I don’t believe in God and I wish more people thought seriously about theological issues. Still, I’m glad that some people do believe. Why should we all respond to the universe in exactly the same way? As for believers being childish, I’d say that demanding that everyone agree with me, as Krauss does, is more deserving of that description.
Concord, California, US
History at stake
A. C. Grayling perpetuates the myth that astronomers were burned at the stake by the Catholic church (28 June, p 54). No natural philosopher, as they were then known, was ever burned by the church because they practised what we now call science.
That said, this cannot excuse the brutal punishment some received for practising alchemy and occultism, such as that meted out to Giordano Bruno, who was burned.
Nor does it minimise the sentence of house arrest that Galileo received from the Inquisition, though it now seems the reasons behind that punishment had little to do with the simple idea that religion and science were in conflict.
A. C. Grayling writes:
鈥� The distinction between alchemy and occult practices, and what we now regard as legitimate science, was clear to very few people between the 14th and early 17th centuries. Vernon might like to start with the burning at the stake of the astronomer-astrologer Cecco d’Ascoli in Florence in 1327, and then proceed through the centuries to the “cleaning-up” of the University of Salamanca 鈥� a Spanish hotbed of astronomy in the 16th century 鈥� by the Council of the Supreme and General Inquisition (the Suprema). A list of names can be compiled from the trial records that survive.
Survival of the nastiest
Narcissists are not interested enough in others to try to understand them, or even to care about meeting their needs. They learn just enough to enable the manipulation of others to meet their own needs. This works only in the short term as most people eventually realise that they’re being used and that their deeper needs are not being met.
Women, like men, are curious and attracted to excitement, opportunities to explore and experience new things, new people and new perspectives. Narcissistic men can appear exciting and challenging, offering new opportunities. Attractive, intelligent and capable women may feel confident that they can conquer this challenge, or at least that they’ll have fun trying.
But the narcissist’s self-focus ensures that any partner will become dissatisfied as she realises that this man is not really there for her, nor for any children, in the long term. Even in the short term, the availability of such a man depends on how this might help him meet his personal needs, such as sex, security, status, financial support or social opportunities. From an evolutionary perspective, the narcissist’s life is physically productive and utilitarian.
Einstein and god
The interesting thing about Einstein’s take on god and religion is not that he considered god to be non-personal, but that he recognised the vast and intense intelligence inherent in the universe (5 July, p 50). Perhaps in the first half of the 20th century it was easier to think of personhood as a separate thing to physicality, and to associate the idea of a personal god only with the abuses of that concept perpetrated by those in power.
But compartmentalisation has broken down and the disciplines of physics, biology, psychology and philosophy are more integrated than ever before. Just as we ascribe personhood to the complex animated system of energy, mass and chemistry we call the human body, it is not unscientific to ascribe personhood to the universe.
Science is at a crucial point, where we are finding that most of the mass in the universe is something we know nothing about and where we can look so closely at subatomic matter that it disappears before our eyes. At the same time, our ability to reconcile ethics with scientific capability is being challenged in many areas, from genetic design to space exploration.
This is no time to write off god as an impersonal force of nature, nor to write off our fellow human beings as expendable units. Einstein, genius as he was, may have thrown out the baby (a personal god) with the bath water (abuses of religion), but he didn’t get rid of the bath.
Waste not
I am continually baffled by the enthusiasm for using agricultural “waste” to produce cellulosic ethanol (21 June, p 30). I fail to see any material difference between that and the use of food crops for the production of ethanol.
Directly diverting food to fuel production increases not only the cost of food but also the cost of crop inputs such as fertilisers obtained from oil, gas and potash. The negative effects on both food prices and the environment from corn-based ethanol production has been extensively documented and this seems to have caused suspension of critical thinking about so-called “crop waste”.
Failure to leave this “waste” 鈥� be it corn stalks, wheat straw or whatever 鈥� on the land after harvesting robs the soil and the farmer of a natural and local fertiliser and soil enhancer. If fields are continually stripped with each harvest and all the materials turned into food or fuel, the inevitable result will be depleted and barren soil. That’s unless it is enriched with organic matter and fertilisers obtained off-site, at a cost in both money and carbon emissions.
Depletion of the soil will progressively lower yields and dramatically increase input costs, resulting in further scarcity and increased prices. The same soil impacts would apply also to sawgrass, logging “waste” and any other plant matter that would normally be left in place to decay and enrich the soil.
Nitrogen trifluoride
You reported Michael Prather expressing concerns about nitrogen trifluoride as “the missing greenhouse gas” (5 July, p 10). Air Products believes the basic premise of Prather and his co-author Juno Hsu 鈥� that 100 per cent of the annual global production of NF3 could be released into the atmosphere 鈥� is an inaccurate and implausible scenario. More than 20 years of research and work with our customers finds that less than 2 per cent of NF3 is released into the atmosphere. In fact, we developed NF3 as a safer and more environmentally sound alternative to other materials.
As you noted, we received a Climate Protection Award from the US Environmental Protection Agency for this work in 2002. NF3 is used in the manufacturing process for computer chips and certain types of televisions: it is split into nitrogen and fluorine before it is used. The fluorine then cleans the equipment. During this process, more than 98 per cent of the gas is destroyed. Most of the remaining NF3 鈥� less than 2 per cent 鈥� is then destroyed by emission-control equipment.
Global demand for electronics continues to drive the need for NF3. We continue to work closely with our customers to further reduce the industry’s impact on the environment. We agree that the amount of NF3 in the atmosphere should be measured and are investigating techniques to do this.
Nature not over yet
“Nature is finished” (5 July, cover and p 32)? Oh please. Nature is just fine, and is busy doing what it always does when faced with environmental challenges.
Some species are becoming extinct, some are adapting and evolving, some ecosystems are disappearing, and new ones are taking their place. Granted, humans may be causing more rapid changes than do purely “natural” events, but it’s hubris to think that our effects are somehow worse than asteroid strikes, or microbes reclaiming the planet (9 February, p 40).
Even without human impacts, nature is never static. For example, I live in the rocky Mojave desert, which has been inundated by oceans, covered in freshwater lakes, and a sand-scoured desert that would put the Sahara to shame. Do we bemoan these changes as bad for nature?
The only problem with the changes humans are causing is that we’re creating a planet that will be less beautiful to us and less able to support our burgeoning numbers. These are legitimate concerns but they are purely human concerns. No matter what comes, nature will shrug and get on with adapting.
Electrickery
You extol the virtues of electric cars without asking where the electricity they need will come from (28 June, p 5). It is highly unlikely that this electricity will have zero carbon cost, not to mention the additional environmental cost embodied in the manufacture of and infrastructure for these cars.
People should not be lulled into thinking that technology like this is a cure-all. There is no substitute for cutting consumption.
Whale foil
Be it ever so small, it is a disappointment to see anything resembling support for the nonsense preached by the Japanese government over its whaling 鈥� such as your soundbite of the Japanese delegate to the International Whaling Commission saying: “This is a case of accepting the coexistence of different cultures,” (28 June, p 12). Many people in Australia feel this disappointment deeply, and find the sullying of the terms “scientific research” and “cultural practice” a travesty and an insult.
There is no widespread historic culture involving eating whale meat in Japan. It was eaten after the second world war when other meat was in short supply. Japan has programmes to encourage primary schoolchildren to eat whale. There is no need for us to “educate” our Aboriginal children to eat kangaroo or goanna (monitor lizards).
Australians are often criticised for hunting and eating kangaroo or emu. Fair enough, but they are at least our kangaroos and emus. Killing 500 or more whales in a sanctuary around Antarctica 鈥� for a “scientific programme” that has produced nothing of merit and sees the vast majority of the catch neatly boxed for market when the ship reaches port 鈥� has nothing to do with regional culture.