Editor's pick: I watched my local glacier collapse
In your article reporting work by climate scientist James Hansen, he points out the risk of sudden sea level rise due to tidewater glaciers collapsing in decades rather than centuries (1 August, p 9).
His work has been criticised, but most of his critics don’t understand the distinction between melt and collapse. They don’t appreciate that glacial collapse has already happened to the Columbia glacier in Alaska and the Thwaites and Pine Island glaciers in West Antarctica.
In 1977 I moved to Valdez in Alaska, 27 kilometres from the terminus of the Columbia glacier. It was a large tidewater glacier, 550 metres thick and with an area of 1100 square kilometres 鈥� about the size of New York City and higher than the Empire State Building. Watching it calve 8 cubic kilometres of icebergs a day was a major tourist attraction. It attained further notoriety in 1989, when the Exxon Valdez ran aground avoiding one of those icebergs, causing a major oil spill.
Now, just 38 years later, all that is left of the Columbia glacier is two small branches.
I am a mathematician, not a climate scientist. Having seen my local glacier collapse so quickly, I share Hansen’s concerns.
Guildford, Surrey, UK
Giving birth under pressure
Michel Odent raises some interesting questions around whether some women might find childbirth easier “in a small, dark, warm room, with… one midwife… knitting” (4 July, p 26). I would be interested to read any evidence supporting his theory, that women’s capacity to give birth is repressed by neocortical activity, one source of which could be other people present in the room.
Wim Van Lerberghe and Vincent De Brouwere that 1500 in 100,000 unassisted births result in mortality, while death rates can be as low as 5 in 100,000 in countries where medical intervention is routine. Meanwhile, published in the British Medical Journal in 2010 found no evidence to suggest that low-risk women were given caesarean sections inappropriately in the UK.
In our society women are often under immense pressure to deliver babies naturally, and many are led to feel they have “failed” if they do not do so.
London, UK
First class post
Bad news should come from a person in a supportive environment, not a strip of plastic
Marie Ayres to our report of a test kit that could predict miscarriage (15 August, p 13)
C-sections, choice and risks
You report concerns that an advice leaflet for pregnant women spells out the risks of caesarean sections while it avoids mention of the risks of vaginal birth (25 July, p 5). But the World Health Organization has that there is no health improvement for either mother or baby when C-sections exceed 10 per cent of births in a population.
At the moment, the rate of caesareans in the UK exceeds 25per cent. Those concerned about risks around birth should investigate the risks of C-sections.
Surbiton, Surrey, UK
C-sections, choice and risks
鈥� The WHO’s position is contested, because of a lack of evidence that lower C-section rates are linked with lower mortality; in fact, countries with higher C-section rates have lower mortality. Aiming for vaginal birth may lead to an emergency C-section, which has much higher risks than either a planned C-section or a vaginal birth.
C-sections, choice and risks
It is still the general feeling in obstetric practice that a caesarean section poses certain risks to the mother but relatively few to the baby. However, choosing to surgically remove a baby from the uterus might carry with it some long-term problems. The baby misses out on the physiological environment created by natural labour: the complex cascade of hormonal events associated with the process of a contracting uterus and passage down the birth canal, as well as circulating oxytocin. As our understanding of epigenetics grows we could find a big impact.
We may find that the butterfly wingbeats of our personal choice leave our great-grandchildren weathering a hurricane. But by then, of course, it will be too late.
Swansea, UK
Don't forget about heating
Your article on developments in battery technology was timely. (25 July, p 20). In the same issue your interview with Malte Jansen about German progress towards 100 per cent renewable power (p 17) surely made any Briton long for a UK energy policy with substance. However, it must be stressed that we need a policy for energy 鈥� not just for electricity.
When UK politicians and media say “energy” they nearly always mean “electricity”; yet heating buildings and water accounts for a large proportion of the UK’s gas and oil consumption. So to reduce our carbon emissions, we need massive-scale replacement of boilers and storage heaters. In rural areas we could switch to heat pumps. Converting buildings in urban areas to district heating 鈥� served by decentralised combined heat and power units 鈥� would be far “greener” than out-of-town power stations that dump their waste heat into cooling towers.
Unfortunately, both methods are ruled out by investment-averse decision makers. And isn’t “austerity” an excellent excuse for choosing equipment that is cheap for firms to buy and expensive for householders to run?
Marloes, Pembrokeshire, UK
Don't forget about heating
Malte Jansen seems proud of the fact that by 2050 Germany will reach the same level of clean electricity production with renewables that France achieved in about 15 years with nuclear. I thought climate change was an urgent problem?
St Morris, South Australia
Don't forget about heating
鈥� We asked Malte Jansen about nuclear power, but his answer was cut for space. He said that the process of digging uranium ore and making fuel rods is itself highly energy intensive, and since nuclear plants can’t be turned rapidly on and off, they hinder the integration of renewable sources.
We should seek real energy security
Paul Younger writes that energy security seems to have been “forgotten” by those who oppose fracking for shale gas in the UK (11 July, p 24). Unfortunately, the article perpetuates the myth that reducing fuel imports automatically improves energy security. Energy security is a complex issue and cannot be simplified to metrics such as “reducing imports”. There is no evidence that imported fuels are less secure than domestic ones.
The vast majority of energy security problems in the UK have had domestic causes, for instance industrial action or the weather. Moreover, the UK has a highly secure imported gas supply, almost entirely from Norway, Belgium and the Netherlands. Initial attempts to frack, on the other hand, have led to widespread opposition and disruption, and hence costs and uncertainty for investors.
I am not opposed to fracking per se. As Younger points out, concerns about groundwater contamination have very little empirical basis. Moreover, US coal production has recently dropped, suggesting that US shale gas may be exerting downward pressure on global emissions.
Tax receipts from UK shale gas could benefit the Treasury. This is where the potential benefits lie, not in vague claims about “energy security”.
Brighton, UK
Government worse than climageddon?
Robert Gifford missed one of the family of “dragons” that stop people thinking about climate change (11 July, p 28). It is fear of big government.
The “logic” goes like this: climate change is a large-scale problem. The only institution big enough to tackle a problem on this scale is government. If you admit that climate change is real, you give government the power to implement a massive programme of social reorganisation to create a society that isn’t dependent on fossil fuels.
A government with this kind of power is, to those who hold this view, more threatening than climate change. So they can’t admit that climate change is real or caused by human activity. This ideology is exemplified by the joke that environmentalist are like watermelons 鈥� green on the outside but red (communist) on the inside.
Edmonton, Alberta, Canada
There's a fly in the longevity ointment
Clare Wilson presents the fascinating fact that the action of the diabetes drug metformin contributes to a longer life (11 July, p 8). If older non-diabetics took the drug, they too could benefit from a lower incidence of heart disease and cancer.
Great! What isn’t mentioned, however, is that metformin has been linked to vitamin B12 depletion, a serious issue as it can lead to pernicious anaemia. Diabetics are known to have a higher incidence of damage to the peripheral nervous system and may be at greater risk of dementia.
Personally I would rather take my chances with a diet low in sugar and refined carbohydrates, plenty of exercise and enjoying life as much as possible.
Darowen, Powys, UK
Talk about cash machines
In your article “Slime-mould economics” you seem to express surprise that economic inequality is spiralling (25 July, p 38).
But when muscle power and brainpower are being replaced by machines, it seems obvious to expect that the machines’ owners will rapidly become wealthier than those whose labour is being replaced.
La Ciotat, France
Trees are the answer, again
Anthony Castaldo says we need a “cheap solar-powered device that can produce neat carbon pellets by the megaton” (Letters, 1 August). The machines are called trees and they store carbon in chipboard and paper. Instead of recycling or burning these products, I suggest we bale them up and cover them in thick recycled plastic 鈥� there seems to be quite a bit around that we don’t reuse. Then all we need to do is store the bales somewhere where they won’t be damaged.
I suggest old mines or quarries in the UK, deserts elsewhere, Antarctica 鈥� or, as he suggests, the bottom of the sea.
Bristol, UK