Action on climate
Gaia Vince discusses how we will cope if the Earth’s temperature rises (28 February, p 28). It’s time to face facts: if we don’t reduce global greenhouse gas emissions by at least 70 per cent within five years, we will have blown it. Of course, what stands squarely in the way of what we must do is the will to do it.
Is it possible? The fundamental rule when managing complex systems is to supply the right information at the right time, which points the system in the right direction. At present, the world’s people don’t have this information. If they are going to make the right decision in time, our scientists, politicians and media need to stop lying to them. We don’t “need” more energy, we don’t “need” economic stimulus, we don’t even “need” jobs. What we do need is a stable climate.
My view on climate change is radically different: there is a growing body of experience and interest in low-tech, systems-based, ecological approaches to the global climate crisis. It is possible, and not technically difficult, to sequester carbon in living ecosystems, such that large areas of currently desertified land could be transformed into productive rangeland.
While most technological fixes seem to imply incalculable side effects in unexpected areas, the effect of this kind of approach is increased land productivity, something that will be desperately needed in the coming years. Rather than merely surviving the coming century, let’s restore its promise.
Bedford, Massachusetts, US
Saltwater power
Peter Fournier writes that proposals to produce electricity in Norway by osmosis of fresh water into seawater are impractical (4 April, p 23). Like so many “green” ideas, it suffers from remote location and low power density.
However, the idea could be applicable in Australia: an evaporating pond in inland Queensland could produce very salty water which could be used to produce high-pressure brine by uptake of water from brackish groundwater resources. The pressurised water could generate electricity and then return to the evaporating pond.
Some water in Queensland is alkaline due to the sodium bicarbonate content. This would help protect the osmotic membranes by keeping other metal ions out of solution.
No smoke without
Michael Siegel’s claim of censorship as described in David Robson’s article on tobacco policy (4 April, p 34) effectively casts him as the enlightened Galileo to tobacco control’s blinkered church. In fact, the international tobacco control community not only tolerates debate on scientific and policy matters, but actively encourages it.
In the past year I have published a lengthy critique of outdoor smoking bans (see ) and criticised the overmedicalised view of the smoking cessation process in The Lancet (). My argument against attempts to ban scenes of smoking in movies played an important part in overturning the Indian government’s proposed legislation on the subject.
There are researchers who share some of Siegel’s concerns with regard to a dogmatic view of the risks of smoking. However, a constructive attitude to criticism would be more helpful when contributing to the debate about this health problem, which kills more people than any other single risk factor.
Cold fusion
The article “Many happy returns for cold fusion” contained a subtle but significant ambiguity (28 March, p 10). The article mentions my scepticism of “cold fusion” as a theoretical explanation for the low-energy nuclear reaction experimental phenomena, but fails to mention other theoretical models for these phenomena which also propose nuclear processes, namely, neutron-catalysed weak interaction processes. According to several experts, at least one of these models appears to be a viable explanation.
Converting Dawkins
Mary Midgley states that “many are anticipating [Richard Dawkins’s] conversion with some interest” (21 March, p 22). I think it very likely that, when the time comes, evangelists will be queuing up to try to convert him on his deathbed, hoping to make Lady Hope-style conversion claims as they did with Charles Darwin.
Dawkins has, I believe, stated that he will have a running tape recorder secreted about his person 鈥� so such people should beware, lest they are caught in the act.
Natural-born belief
M. Bell argues that science is independent of great names while religion is not (7 March, p 24). Certainly, other intelligent beings would develop science of a kind, but there is no reason for it to have much in common with, say, Newton’s billiard-ball vision of the universe. Newton’s view was specific to the time and place where it originated. It was also erroneous: for instance, “atoms” are not indivisible.
By contrast, it is possible to claim a universality of religious attitude. Religion is more concerned with human behaviour than truth. All the major religions promote an attitude of awe towards the creator of the physical universe and an attitude of unselfish concern for our fellow human beings.
The extent to which believers actually put into practice these high principles is, of course, a different matter, but this is also true of so-called “scientific objectivity”.
We need lab animals
Vicky Robinson claims that common ground can be found between scientists and opponents of animal research throughthe three Rs: the replacement, reduction and refinement of scientific procedures on animals (7 March, p 22).
Unfortunately, many anti-vivisectionists reject two assumptions on which this approach is predicated: that knowledge gained from animal research can be applied to humans, and that alternative methods of gaining the same information are not always available. Instead, they claim that animal research is not relevant to humans because of species differences, and that alternatives already exist in all cases.
I wish Robinson well in her quest and in her capacity as chief executive of the National Centre for Replacement, Refinement and Reduction of Animals in Research (NC3Rs) in the UK. Animal research still has relevance to humans, and alternatives are not always available.
Super power
I’d like to say “no thanks” to the intercontinental electrical supergrids discussed in the “Green grid” feature (14 March, p 42). Adopting them would make us more vulnerable than ever to the whims of countries from or through which the cables pass, and they would be easy targets for any would-be attacker intent on causing disruption.
Instead, the future of energy should lie in the use of multiple small-scale, local power plants using waste, solar and mini nuclear fission reactors.
Relativity rage
“I didn’t notice hordes of physicists in a frothing rage when the line ‘Why Einstein was wrong about relativity’ appeared on your cover”, Paddy Shannon wrote (14 March, p 24, regarding 1 November 2008 issue). While not frothing with rage, Brian Newham did point out that the problems in Einstein’s theories were those of language rather than of physics (6 December, p 22).
It should be noted that the “Einstein was wrong” issue came with the subtitle “The speed of light is nothing special”, which is rather less inflammatory than your subtitle to your “Darwin was wrong” issue, which was “Cutting down the tree of life”.
While people have overreacted somewhat, it was a bit of a disappointment that the promised article about Darwin being wrong was just about his tree model being insufficient. This was the best he could possibly have done at the time, so really it wasn’t about Darwin being wrong at all 鈥� it was a lot more interesting than that.
Illness and the mind
Simon Wessely’s interpretation of certain medical conditions as having a psychological component makes perfect sense to me (14 March, p 26). We cannot blame our mind for everything, but it undoubtedly plays a major role in many illnesses, as I know from personal experience.
I suffered from irritable bowel syndrome (IBS) from early childhood, though at that time I did not know what was wrong with me. The constant worry haunted me until my early 30s when, after many visits to doctors, someone finally suggested IBS. Reading up on the condition and realising that it was benign, I stopped worrying about it. Almost 11 years on, I haven’t had any further bouts of IBS.
Get knitted
Keith Tritton’s suggestion of knitting patterns as a metaphor for DNA are indeed a much better analogy than a blueprint (21 March, p 22).
Some decades ago New 杏吧原创 published an article on random knitting patterns and I realised they could be used to encode anything into a sweater. I convinced my wife to knit the first 500 digits of pi for me, resulting in an attractive, if erratically decorative, pullover. It strikes me, though, that the same technique would not be able to represent a great deal of my genome.