Editor's pick: Have we blown our chance on climate – or not? (1)
I agree wholeheartedly with your exhortation not to blow the chance to save our climate (Leader, 8 December 2018). But barring a major miracle, it is game over: not for saving the planet itself, of course – despite the universal shorthand, it will survive in some state or other – but for saving a planet fit for supporting humanity and a good slice of other life forms.
The necessary timescales for the essential, tough actions you describe in the same edition (p 31) leave no place for optimism. Let's set aside for a moment the likes of Trump and the commitment to exponential growth in the current economic model. You give evidence of the kind of inertia to be overcome, with the aviation sector seeking to avoid limits on emissions (p 15) and BP advertising a relatively minor fall in fuel consumption from carrying fossil fuels to market (p 38) by ship, as if that will cut the mustard.
At 65, I will be spared the worst of the impacts of climate change. The fate of everyone under the age of, say, 40 terrifies me, though. Speaking on behalf of her generation at last month's UN climate summit in Poland, 15-year-old “we have not come here to beg the world leaders to care for our future. They have ignored us in the past and they will ignore us again. We have come here to let them know that change is coming whether they like it or not.”
Editor's pick: Have we blown our chance on climate – or not? (2)
I would add lobbying for a meaningful price on carbon as another powerful individual action to deal with climate change. Taxation is never popular. But returning money from a fee on carbon at source to all citizens through a monthly or yearly dividend could be a clearly fair and planet-changing policy.
Handy guidance on ritual meanings in cave art (1)
I was interested by your article on finger sacrifice possibly depicted in cave art (8 December 2018, p 16). Might this art be a form of prayer? Today we sometimes say “I'd give my right arm” for something, but we don't actually remove it. Perhaps this art was a plea to the gods for something of importance to the person that made it.
Handy guidance on ritual meanings in cave art (2)
The loss of fingers seen in the stencils on the walls of Gargas cave in France seems to me unlikely to be due to frostbite. Fingers are often missing, but never the thumb, surely ruling this out. It is also less likely to be due to some ritual amputation.
Different fingers are missing on different hands, suggesting that the remaining fingers are being held erect. Given that these images are deep in the cave, it seems more likely that the slivers of animal bones inserted into crevices in the cave walls near the stencils are relevant. Surely the slivers represent the source of protein that prehistoric humans prayed for in times of famine? It seems likely that these fingers held up represent a species to be hunted and the hands are painted in supplication in the oldest known “cathedral”.
First class post 鈥� 5 January 2019
In future they'll excavate the bones and deduce a massive chicken-worshipping cult
Marjorie Meldrum how the Anthropocene being marked by a layer of chicken fossils could play out (22 December, p 18)
Remembering scientists personally as humans
The Bank of England to nominate dead scientists to portray on the £50 note (10 November 2018, p 24). Is there something all too impersonal in the way we in Britain celebrate achievement in science?
I nominated Benjamin Thompson (1753-1814), who was born in British North America and had the idea to found the . The Royal Society . For the past century and a half, biographies have all commented on how he is all but forgotten.
No one, these bodies included, seemed to notice the bicentenary of his death, which took place in August 2014. I went to his grave in Paris and sat there all day, curious to see who else would turn up. Nobody did.
On 27 October 2018, the 50th anniversary of the death of physicist Lise Meitner, I went to her grave, Establishment at Aldermaston in Berkshire, UK. The place was, of course, brought into being by her discovery of nuclear fission. No one else visited from dawn to dusk.
Compare this with the coach party and a dozen more people who turned up in April 2017 at the grave of the poet Edward Thomas near Arras, France, on the centenary of his death, or the 2017 service by the grave of novelist Jane Austen in Winchester, UK, for the bicentenary of her death.
The 500th anniversary of the death of polymath Leonardo da Vinci is on 2 May 2019. He is buried .
Our working weeks have gradually got shorter
Richard Mellish claims that the working week hasn't grown shorter as predicted by the economist John Maynard Keynes (Letters, 24 November 2018).
According to figures collected by Michael Huberman and Chris Minns for a , full-time production workers around the world worked for 64 hours a week on average in 1870, but this steadily fell to around 40 in 2000. It seems to me this shows that Keynes was right.
The figures for males in 2000 range from 36.9 hours in France and Spain to 43.3 in the US. Huberman and Minns attribute this range to differences in labour power and equality.
More on the downsides of destroying drugs
Ed Hillsman is concerned that “vaccination” against opioids would render these drugs useless if a person later has medical need for them to relieve pain (Letters, 17 November 2018). We already face this problem with naltrexone, an opioid antagonist used to prevent relapse in addiction. People receiving naltrexone will be very resistant to opioid analgesia. This can pose major therapeutic challenges when they are in acute pain (BMJ, ). All those receiving naltrexone, particularly if their work or recreation involves risk of injury, should be informed of the potential problems.
Australia may have even older figurative art
In the article on the cave painting found in Borneo (17 November 2018, p 18), it is claimed it may be the oldest figurative art in the world at 40,000 years old. In Australia, there are two detailed rock paintings depicting the marsupial carnivore Thylacoleo carnifex and two of the giant flightless bird Genyornis newtoni.
Although the paintings can't be dated, fossils of these creatures are widespread and it seems none is younger than 46,000 years old. Unless younger fossils are found, I suggest these are contenders for the oldest figurative art produced by Homo sapiens.
We find that much food waste hard to believe (1)
Chelsea Whyte asserts that 30 per cent of food is thrown away (8 December 2018, p 22). I asked around my friends and we all eat almost all that we buy. Aside from peelings, little is wasted. So who are these people wasting so much food? Do we need to reintroduce domestic science at school?
We find that much food waste hard to believe (2)
You say the average person in the US discards almost 3 kilograms of food waste per week. I weighed our food waste bin for a week and I can exclusively reveal that our household “wastes” 1.5 kilograms of food per person per week. This consisted, however, of vegetable and fruit peelings, banana skins, two rotten apples, many tea bags and coffee grounds.
None of this is really food, but all is compostable and I suspect it would be added to our local council's food waste statistics.
The editor writes:
• The number is based on a from 2007-2014 that modelled food loss at multiple stages in the system for over 200 foods. It takes into account food spoiling in the pantry or fridge, and food wasted in cooking or left on the plate. It excludes non-edible parts. It does include half-eaten hamburgers tossed out from fast-food joints.
How does that zero-emission plane lift off?
I was interested to read about the zero-emissions model aircraft (24 November 2018, p 7). You say that the electrodes produce ions that push against the surrounding air. I am old enough to remember the advent of jet aircraft in the 1940s. How could they possibly fly with no visible propeller? “They push on the air behind them” was a frequently heard response from people who didn't understand Newton's third law of motion: for every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction, as when the action of the jet exhaust causes the reaction of the plane's motion.
The editor writes:
• Many readers asked about this. The electroaerodynamic (EAD) propulsion that the plane uses is different from jet propulsion or ion thrusters for spacecraft. EAD doesn't push ions out: it creates ions in the surrounding air, which collide with neutral air molecules.
Bring on the social traitor robot rat poison decoys
Research has found that rats will help free a robot rat from a cage, possibly in the hope that it will return the favour in future (1 December 2018, p 8). Bring on a robot rat that will lead the pack to the poison dish and then “eat” a portion with no ill effect.
For the record 鈥� 5 January 2019
• Physicist Miguel Escudero is now at King's College London (1 December 2018, p 36).
• Bitcoin mining is estimated to use 45.5 terawatt-hours of energy per year (15 December 2018, p 5).
• When two particles are in quantum entanglement, measuring the state of one determines the measured state of the other (15 December 2018, p 10).