Free to object
Sceptical environmentalist Bj酶rn Lomborg says some of the world’s leading economists are optimistic about the state of the planet (12 October, p 26). That’s no surprise really, because the optimistic view, as Lomborg states, believes in the infallibility of the markets. However, only when real action is taken on climate change will I be optimistic.
Point Cook, Victoria, Australia
<i>From Ruth Ashbee</i>
Lomborg states that “pessimists build their case on overpopulation, starvation and depletion of resources. Optimists stand for the infallibility of the market economy”. I am sure there are many people who are optimistic about the state of the world but reject the free market.
I, for example, am optimistic because I observe, in parts of the world, the progress made in women’s rights, racial equality, quality of life for the poor and the decline in homophobia. A free market, for example, would never permit statutory maternity pay or renewable energy subsidies.
Shrewsbury, Shropshire, UK
Nobel joy
I’m so excited that this year’s Nobel prize in physics has been awarded for the Brout-Englert-Higgs mechanism, and that British physicist Peter Higgs and his Belgian counterpart Fran莽ois Englert have been recognised for devising it (12 October, p 6).
Predicting, and then discovering, the Higgs boson is one of the very greatest achievements of modern physics. It’s a wonderful idea that opens our eyes to the deepest nature of the universe. That it has turned out to be true is one of the most amazing things I’ve ever witnessed.
We shouldn’t forget that it’s fantastic, and important, too, that this work could happen in the UK. The very best science can happen here, as long as we keep supporting it.
Liverpool, UK
Leave no trace
Further to the idea of a personal digital guardian such as openPDS for smartphones and computers (5 October, p 20), there should be a third choice besides allowing or not allowing third-party access to your data. I call this option “fake”: setting my location to a cave in Afghanistan or, better still, the US National Security Agency headquarters.
Tjele, Denmark
The dark side
The efforts of some members of the Texas State Board of Education to mandate the teaching of creationism is the latest chapter in the ongoing struggle between science and religion in the US (5 October, p 7). I taught evolution for 42 years, and in that time saw little progress on the part of science in this struggle.
These creationist Texans exemplify a large segment of our society 鈥� poorly educated, enamoured with their bibles and guns, predominantly from the south and very sure of themselves. They will always be guided by superstition and ignorance, not reason.
They represent the dark side of American culture, and over the course of my life I have seen this segment grow in resolve. Most discouraging to an old man who remembers a great country with so much hope.
Irvine, California, US
Break the cycle
Peter Turchin’s model predicting outbursts of political collapse and social violence, which follow economic cycles in history, is undoubtedly correct. It also has more frightening implications now than in earlier eras, as the global population reaches 7 billion, and a greater glut of workers outnumber jobs and inequality soars (12 October, p 8).
But we make our future and need not be victims of cycles. The current danger can be remedied by repatriating the estimated $32 trillion frozen by a tiny minority in tax havens (28 July 2012, p 3).
This should be invested in sane, sustainable industries. The global wealth must be shared with every newborn child in a world where automation increasingly removes paid jobs and denies access for some to the money-economy.
These steps, with other changes, will create unprecedented global wealth and fairer, stable governance.
Oxford, UK
The real deal
We appreciate attempts by the European consultancy Ecofys to investigate the opaque process of land acquisitions in developing countries by foreign companies (12 October, p 7). It used the Land Matrix, an online public database that tracks large-scale land deals, which the International Land Coalition helps run. This is under continuous improvement.
In June 2013, one month before Ecofys published its report, the Land Matrix was relaunched with a revised dataset that differentiates between stages of negotiation and implementation in land deals. Ecofys accessed the data in January 2013, which at the time aggregated deals at any stage of negotiation.
Out of the 66 deals that were mentioned in the report, only 21 are visible in the new dataset with the default filters.
Rome, Italy
Second opinion
Your article on multiple personality disorder (MPD) takes the perhaps thinly veiled position that it is not a valid diagnosis (28 September, p 46).
However, a few years ago you published an article on MPD that cited the case of a German woman in 1791 who suddenly began having episodes in which she acted like a French woman who had fled the Revolution (15 March, 2008, p 52). She would speak perfect French, and spoke German like a French person would. This case was not induced by a psychologist. There are many other examples.
The fact that MPD can be induced or faked does not mean that it doesn’t exist “naturally”.
Les Essarts-le-Roi, France
Give Gaia a chance
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s assessment was expected to say that “global warming is irreversible without massive geoengineering of the atmosphere’s chemistry” (28 September, p 6). This statement is worth questioning.
Carbon dioxide levels rise by 8 parts per million (ppm) and fall by 6ppm annually 鈥� showing how powerful natural processes such as seasonal plant growth are, so let’s give them a hand.
For example, wood is 50 per cent carbon, based on dry weight, and we have destroyed forests worldwide. We should let them recover. The tree line is moving northward as the permafrost melts. Let it happen.
We have decimated biomasses of whales, tuna, oysters and many other species, all of which sequester carbon. Let them recover. We have mined soils worldwide 鈥� in temperate zones they can . Let’s farm in ways that let them recover. Before we try massively expensive systems that will collapse in the next economic crisis, let’s give Gaia a try.
Waipara, New Zealand
Money for nothing
Eldar Shafir’s research suggests that the worry of poverty makes it harder to think clearly and make good decisions (7 September, p 17). However, the opposite is also possible 鈥� bad decision-making helps to cause poverty.
This could perhaps be shown by giving lots of money to people who are relatively poor. A natural experiment like this already happens in many countries. It is called winning the lottery.
It is widely accepted that around who unexpectedly come into large sums of money lose it all within a few years, and end up worse off than before.
Hannover, Germany
Ivory sale
Since when did biologists become arbiters of the laws of supply and demand? The proposed destruction of confiscated ivory described by Richard Ruggiero of the US Fish and Wildlife Service would be an act of foolishness (5 October, p 27). It would simply increase the black market price of ivory, and thus encourage criminals to take greater risks.
By selling the ivory held in stock at reasonable prices, significant funds would be created, enabling 鈥� at no cost to governments 鈥� the formation of really effective wildlife protection. We are talking about hundreds of millions of dollars.
Westleigh, New South Wales, Australia
Sticky subject
Lambros Malafouris states that the use of tools by animals, such as a chimp using a stick to extract an item of food from a hole, is fundamentally different from human tool use (7 September, p 28). His point, comparing a blind person’s stick to the chimp’s, was that the human uses tools as an extension of the senses, sight in this case, whereas the chimp is simply obtaining food.
I’m sure a chimp sticking a twig into a hole containing a squishy bug is “feeling” around, not blindly plunging in the hope of food. But who will ever know?
Wellington, New Zealand
Third time lucky?
Frank Siegrist suggests that third children are usually an accident (5 October, p 31), but in my English middle-class environment, all the families with three children have the oldest two of the same sex, but the third child is the opposite sex. So maybe it is a deliberate attempt to have a child of the other sex, not always successfully, of course.
Sanderstead, Surrey, UK
For the record
鈥� More than 拢75,000, rather than $75,000, has been raised by the developers of brewing robot Brewbot on Kickstarter (12 October, p 21),
鈥� You may have experienced a feeling of d茅j脿 vu when attempting Engima 1770 (12 October, p 30). It was an earlier puzzle republished in error. Entries will be honoured and a winner picked in the usual way.
鈥� In our look at the impact of the US government shutdown on disease control work (12 october, p 8), we should have said that there were 75 cases of cholera in the Mexican state of Hidalgo.