Sucking carbon from the air may be just the ticket
There is a general view that the cost of saving the planet using machines to suck carbon out of the air, known as direct air capture (DAC) technology, will be prohibitive (21 August, p 41).
But consider these figures. A London to New York flight is about 5500 kilometres, producing about 91 tonnes of carbon dioxide and carrying about 500 people. As you report, some developers of DAC say it could cost less than 拢200 per tonne of CO2 captured in the 2020s.
A tax on flying to cover the carbon capture would cost 拢36 per passenger in this case. I wouldn’t hesitate to pay that if it saves my children’s future.
On Australia's battle with the covid-19 delta variant
Alice Klein’s article says the outbreak of covid-19 in Australia is blamed on the delta variant (21 August, p 7). Yes, the variant is more transmissible, but the reason we have the outbreak is partly political.
Some right-wing politicians are in Sydney wasn’t and still isn’t being contained because “lockdowns” weren’t and aren’t being implemented in locations until the virus is seen to be spreading there.
Why are we still waiting for other covid-19 vaccines?
Your latest round-up of covid-19 vaccines was useful and thorough, and more detailed than most accounts (14 August, p 8). You mentioned other vaccines that the UK government has supported, but which haven’t yet come to fruition 鈥� those from CureVac, Valneva and Novavax. This got me wondering why these and others still aren’t launched.
Are they being delayed for commercial reasons or in the hope they can be tweaked to give them an advantage over existing shots? And what about the factories in Scotland and north-east England earmarked for their production? Are they lying idle, when they could be used to produce vaccines for the world?
Let's hope vested interests don't spoil the revolution
Graham Lawton’s article on making dairy products using microbes describes technology that can bring significant and welcome benefits: greatly reducing emissions of greenhouse gases, improving animal welfare, helping to better human health and nutrition, and so on (14 August, p 46).
While he says lobbying against these products hasn’t yet begun, it is only a matter of time before vested interests push back. Just as renewable energy initiatives are resisted by fossil fuel businesses and nations whose wealth derives from fossil fuels, I expect livestock businesses and nations whose economy is based on livestock farming to follow the same path.
Making fast work of Olympic records
Laura Healey’s explanation of possible reasons for the large number of records broken on the athletics track at the Tokyo Olympics was interesting (14 August, p 25). It suggests to me that track and field athletes should be required to be barefoot, bareheaded 鈥� other than religious headgear 鈥� ungloved and wearing only simple, loose-fitting clothing. What’s more, tracks, other surfaces and equipment for events should be constructed to agreed neutral specifications.
If it is cheating to use performance-enhancing chemicals, surely it is also cheating to use performance-enhancing shoes? If not, why not allow high jumpers to wear springy stilts and gene therapy to increase athletes’ muscle mass?
Without wanting to take away from any athlete’s achievement, if they broke a world record not because they are inherently better but because they had better footwear, then has the record actually been beaten? Instead, one has been set for a passively assisted version of the event.
Offices could well become more sterile places to work
I read with interest Annie Murphy Paul’s article on the impact of the physical working environment on productivity, which was very much focused on the office (14 August, p 36).
With office work very likely to be different when we enter the post-pandemic period, I was intrigued about the potential impacts on productivity.
It may be that offices become underpopulated as flexible working becomes the norm, office desks become more widely spaced and businesses change from a first-come, first-served “hot desk” policy to a “clear desk” policy that promotes uncluttered desk spaces that enable hygienic, easy-to-clean surfaces.
That would result in a reduction in the personal photos and mementos that provide ownership of our workspaces, as well as the likelihood of unplanned colleague interactions. This could lead to a loss of any empowered feelings within our workplaces, which are described in the article as being beneficial to productivity.
For a real taste of space, we should go a little further
Because of space tourism, there has been much talk lately of what constitutes being in outer space (31 July, p 16). Many definitions are strictly technical and scientific in nature. Perhaps a more philosophical position should be considered.
Let us apply the distinction between object and subject 鈥� that is, when would you feel you are in outer space? I suggest that at about 12,742 kilometres (one Earth diameter) away, the planet would be truly other and set off nicely against the background of space. I can’t, however, afford to test my hypothesis.
What is 20 years when you're building a citadel?
You report that Machu Picchu has been declared 20 years older than we thought (14 August, p 23). Considering it was built on top of a mountain with no builders’ merchants and no power tools, it probably took well over 20 years to complete. This variability in its age seems like no big deal.
For the record
The nearshore trawling ban mentioned in our report on kelp conservation off southern England (31 July, p 18) has no definite expiry date.