Editor's pick: Don't recycle, break the cycle of poverty
You mention work on food sachets that can be recycled (22 July, p 39). That would solve entirely the wrong problem. People who can afford only single sachets are trapped in a cycle of poverty, because daily sachets are much more expensive than the same amount of product in a larger bottle. They can never save up enough to buy a larger bottle, because their daily lives are too expensive. As the writer James Baldwin : “Anyone who has ever struggled with poverty knows how extremely expensive it is to be poor.”
If they could somehow get that first bottle, they'd have all the ketchup or laundry detergent they needed, and money to spare for other necessities. It's a classic poverty trap. You break the cycle by getting poor people off single sachets, with something as simple as gifting them the first bottle and helping them put money aside for the next. Or help people to set up buying clubs to make communal purchases in bulk and share the savings. The beauty of these ideas is that they help poor people and solve the ecological problem caused by billions of sachets.
How would green disinvesting work, then?
Andrea Needham proposes we withdraw investment from fossil fuel stocks (Letters, 29 July). Why does this put any pressure on the companies to be greener?
Yes, it will lower the stock price, but while earnings hold up this gives them, as Bob Cory points out on the same page, a superlative stock-price-to-earnings ratio. It may devalue the executives' stock options, but if they're canny they will arrange bonuses based on the price/earnings ratio.
Stock market movements have little effect on the long-term actions of a company. By all means deny it new capital from rights issues and bond sales, so it can't invest in new fossil projects. But it might be better to hang on to the stocks and demand big dividend payments, sucking the capital out of the company and reducing its capacity to reinvest.
First class post
Memo guy got fired for being closed-minded. Ignoring hundreds of years of discrimination
Shifty Girl to Twitter ire over a man being fired after “” (12 August, p 5)
My own personal energy policy, for the kids
Michael Le Page concludes that politicians need to hear loud and clear that they must do more to boost renewable energy (5 August, p 22). True, but the downside of this message is that it fails to encourage ordinary people to do what they can. It makes them think it's the politicians' job.
But there are things we can do and should be encouraged to do, not by financial incentives, but because it gives our children the best start in life. This is something that, in other spheres, parents go to enormous lengths to achieve. Buying efficient electrical appliances, having better house insulation, choosing the most efficient car and installing solar panels are relatively modest sacrifices. So are avoiding unnecessary gadgets, food from far-flung places and flying.
By any reasonable assessment of the effects of uncontrolled climate change, preserving the climate is far more important for your children's future than their education. A world changed by climate will be ravaged by economic collapse and war. Is that what you had in mind for your beautiful baby granddaughter?
Solar panel valeting is a thing, maybe not good
John Davnall is surprised that he doesn't see businesses offering to wash his solar panels (Letters, 5 August). His hopes (or perhaps fears) have been realised.
I have had several offers to wash my panel array for about £100 a splash. I have declined as I've been told by installers that panels are treated with a dirt-repellent coating. We have 30 to 40 pea fowl, who delight in perching on the ridge tiles and defecating on the panels. But there is no sign of persistent stains nor of loss of function.
We've just had our 6-year-old array retrofitted with control units that allow each panel to function separately. This avoids the issue of splats knocking out chains of cells.
A further benefit is that this has an internet connection, so we can monitor the array in real time or reprise the recent output. This provides more entertainment than many TV programmes.
You can drop the drones for counting penguins
You report the use of drones and artificial intelligence to count birds (29 July, p 7). Back in 1969, I was at the British Antarctic base then called .
We were fortunate enough to have a large emperor penguin colony on the sea ice nearby. Estimating numbers was difficult because the penguins were constantly moving.
We used a meteorological balloon to carry a camera high enough to take a photo of the whole colony, blew this up onto the largest photo paper we had and drew a grid of squares. Instead of AI we enrolled our cook, who was laid up with a bad back. The task of counting the birds in each square was not comfortable, as the bunk rooms were well below freezing most of the time. Gin and tonic helped.
When is it really OK to stop taking antibiotics?
Jessica Hamzelou discusses whether it may be a good idea to stop taking antibiotics once you feel better (5 August, p 25). But the proper question is: “when should I, with my particular infection, stop taking the antibiotic I have been prescribed?”
The outcome of these three interacting factors is dependent on initial circumstances.
Doctors must decide on length of treatment. They and those who issue guidelines for doctors have to act like bookmakers, but using policies of “the greatest good for the greatest number” and “first do no harm”. For some bacterial infections, even starting an antibiotic may hardly be worthwhile. Sore throats or uncomplicated lower urinary tract infections in non-pregnant women spring to mind.
In other infections, such as tuberculosis, stopping early will be disastrous. In yet others – for example, complicated urinary tract and respiratory tract infections – over-long treatments can breed resistant strains.
In theory, the duration of each course of antibiotic should be determined individually. In practice, doctors have to assess the odds from series of patients and, like bookmakers, have to assume that they will not win every single bet. Oh, and some bookmakers are better than others…
The benefits of escapism for prisoners and for all
Jo Marchant writes that if awe can be reliably induced, it can quiet self-interest, fold us into the social collective, make us more ethical, generous, humble and charitable, leave us happier and less stressed, and calm the fight or flight response (29 July, p 33).
So inducing awe seems an ideal approach for those who are most lacking in these attributes, and who are also most deprived of awe: our prison populations.
Could society reap multiple benefits simply by taking prisoners to IMAX theatres?
Another view of the Common Fisheries Policy
You paint a rosy and distorted picture of the EU Common Fisheries Policy (29 July, p 23). The CFP has been an ecological disaster from the start.
Fish quotas were ostensibly invented to conserve fish by restricting the number of each species a fishing boat could catch. Unfortunately, you cannot tell what type of fish you have caught until you haul in the net, by which time the fish are dead. So millions of dead fish are thrown back, often more than are landed under a given quota. As far back as 1991, the EU knew what the problem was – but did nothing about it for decades.
With Brexit, we have the chance to get rid of some EU stupidity – but could introduce our own.
We need to make sure our scientists and politicians introduce a modern system of sustainable marine reserves and no-catch zones as, for example, New Zealand has done.
The editor writes:
• The CFP does have problems, but it's the least bad thing on offer for the seas around the UK – particularly now that it is starting to be informed more by science.
Don't be so optimistic about evolution
Fred Pearce celebrates the optimistic view of ecologist Chris Thomas that we are entering a new age of creative evolution (5 August, p 44). But so far, we've seen nothing of the sort.
Perhaps new species are being created as existing ones spread out too far to maintain their integrity. Maybe there are some changes in species' behaviour, colour or size.
But we don't see new anatomical features. If we lose elephants, we will no longer have animals with similar tusks. If we lose gorillas, no new species will quickly become as strong.
Real innovations don't pop up overnight in evolution. Maybe if we wait a million years…
Robots should swim like dolphins or tuna do
Leah Crane says a nanorobot that could swim through blood mimics the front crawl stroke, “the fastest way for humans to swim” (29 July, p 8). But the fastest human technique is “underwater dolphin kick”, with arms stretched out ahead in a streamline.
This is so efficient it is restricted to no more than 15 metres per length in competitive swimming, to prevent the sport from evolving into an underwater event. Michael Phelps used it, and a fin, in .
The editor writes:
• Yes: the front crawl is the fastest freely allowed in competition.
For the record
• The researchers looking at Rylands' bald-faced saki monkeys eating termite mound mud that they do it to absorb organic toxins in their diet (1 July, p 10).