Let's pull out all the stops to save the Amazon forest (1)
Congratulations on your topical article on the Amazon’s last chance (11 December 2021, p 42). I certainly agree with Carlos Nobre and Thomas Lovejoy that we are nearing the tipping point when the forest will be replaced by savannah.
This is a call for concern and action. Two themes that were only mentioned peripherally, but would be severely affected by further loss of forest, are biodiversity and the Indigenous population.
Many of the animals and plants of Amazonia have very restricted distributions and as the area of deforestation increases, species are rapidly being lost. The peoples who have lived in the forest for many generations and have learned to manage it sustainably are vitally important stewards from whom the rest of the world can learn much about agroforestry and sustainable use.
Let's pull out all the stops to save the Amazon forest (2)
The dire situation of the Amazon presents a great opportunity for regeneration through carbon offsets funded by worldwide, highly polluting industries, such as airlines, cement and steel manufacture.
Damaged parts of the forest could be purchased outright or the present owners paid to reforest. I believe small areas of the Amazon have been purchased in the past to preserve the flora and fauna, so these options amount to a huge and essential growth industry for the local population.
On Occam's razor and proof and disproof
Johnjoe McFadden’s article paid a welcome acknowledgement to William of Ockham and his great idea that we should always look for the simplest explanation for things that happen (18/25 December 2021, p 70). However, I disagree with McFadden’s statement: “It is as impossible to disprove as to prove a hypothesis.”
Surely it is possible to disprove most hypotheses 鈥� for example, that Earth is flat, or that the sun, planets and stars go around Earth? Karl Popper’s suggestion that scientific hypotheses should be capable of disproof seems pretty reasonable.
The wilderness myth can provoke strong views
Thank you Emma Marris for laying out arguments in “The myth of the wild” that some of us have been trying to make for decades (4 December 2021, p 42).
In the mid-1990s, as a lead investigator on a project to integrate the health of people, other animals and the ecosystems we share, I organised a workshop. When some of us attending suggested there were no “pristine ecosystems”, several ecologists took the floor and angrily argued that this was ridiculous.
Only if we acknowledge and more carefully explore such issues can we hope to achieve some scientific wisdom and solve the apparently intractable challenges of global environmental change.
In support of the shift from livestock to trees (1)
You report that Pat Brown of Impossible Foods, a plant-based meat pioneer, has been trying to persuade British cattle farmers of the financial gain of moving from selling animals to growing trees and selling carbon offsets (11 December 2021, p 9).
In the same issue, you report on the impending catastrophe in the Amazon caused by the destruction of rainforest in favour of (among other things) cattle farming (p 42).
Can environmentally minded investors think big and launch an Amazon-based project along the same lines? This forest is possibly the greatest store of carbon on the planet, making Brazil potentially the Saudi Arabia of carbon offsetting 鈥� thus creating a healthy flow of profits for investors and Amazon residents alike.
In support of the shift from livestock to trees (2)
The article on swapping livestock production for growing trees included a response from the UK’s National Farmers’ Union that wasn’t exactly a ringing endorsement.
This suggests to me that Brown is definitely right, though I would question whether we need a pilot. Let’s just do it at scale. We are, after all, in a climate emergency.
Maths isn't broken, so don't try to fix it (1)
Michael Brooks, in his call for maths to play down Platonist influences, is too dismissive of the golden ratio (27 November 2021, p 25). It is the limit towards which the ratio between successive pairs of Fibonacci numbers converge.
This sequence was invented to model the growth in the population of breeding rabbits, and has turned up in many natural systems, so there is nothing Platonic about it. Its application to the arts is questionable, but that is a different matter.
Maths isn't broken, so don't try to fix it (2)
Beyond simple arithmetic, people shun maths for key reasons, all straightforward and understandable: it is useless in their daily jobs, it is boring and intrinsically uninteresting, and advanced maths is very difficult to master and useful to only a relatively small subset of professionals.
Sorry, but maths will never “belong to us all”. Just like physics, chemistry, biology, geology, engineering, surgery, psychiatry and a host of other specialised disciplines, which don’t (and never will) belong to us all.
The overlooked role of emotions in thinking
With regard to rationality, Steven Pinker totally emphasises logical thinking (11 December 2021, p 46). He doesn’t mention that any given situation also has an emotional state.
If we are comfortable in that state, we don’t like to be questioned about it because it makes us feel insecure, so we stubbornly stick to our poor situation against all logical arguments.
AI ethics: What if the machines don't agree?
You say that nearly 200 countries have signed up to a protocol for AI ethics (4 December 2021, p 27). I would feel safer if the AIs signed up.
For the record 鈥� {08 January 2022}
The Hubble photos we showed you (4 December 2021, p 30) weren’t of our solar system, but of much further away in the universe.