Reasons to be optimistic that a better world awaits
Denis Watkins wrote that the loss of hope for a stable future amid crises such as climate change only leads to a pessimistic mindset, and that there is no leadership towards a solution (Letters, 16 April). I couldn’t disagree more.
I am 27 and many of my generation have realised too late that their parents’ old values around investing in one’s future have lost all validity. I was fortunate to realise this early enough that I could get over it and adapt my life goals.
We should abandon our materialism and our trust in institutions, and instead recentre on activism, solidarity, resilience and interdependence. You can survive and do meaningful things without having years of university teaching, and you can raise a child without owning a house or car.
These mirages were never sustainable anyway, only valid for a limited time and place after the second world war, and are costing us the destruction of nature. The safest investments are in human connection, aka social capital. Every year, there are more initiatives, movements and thinkers leading the way.
Intelligence may defy categorisation
The drive to categorise kinds of intelligence and better recognise those of other animals is an important one (14 May, p 42). However, I don’t think the periodic table analogy is good. It isn’t obvious that there would be an underlying structure akin to that imposed by quantum mechanics on the elements.
Ute Eberle writes that looking for intelligence in the animal kingdom might be a comfort, given the “collective stupidity” of humanity, but misses a critical point. The animal intelligences that are becoming recognised are adept in the fields of problem solving, where humans still excel. The greatest examples of human stupidity are found in different areas 鈥� to generalise wildly, those of morality and ethics.
Still wrestling with the meaty issue
Helen Senior is right to say we need a new name for “lab-grown meat”, but I disagree that existing terms are “unscientific” or that “synthetic foodstuffs” would be a better term (Letters, 14 May). These foods are grown from animal cells cultured in a facility (currently a laboratory, but in future, probably a factory). They are therefore arguably “animal flesh”, but hardly “synthetic”.
New inventions often face this problem. When a new term is needed, either a new word is coined, like automobile or flashlight, or an existing word is co-opted, like car or torch. If confusion arises with other uses of the word, a qualifier is added: motor car, or electric torch. This is what is currently being done with “lab-grown meat” 鈥� and it is the accuracy of “lab-grown” that is questionable, not the word “meat”.
Retune to escape the lab coats and chalkboards
US-based columnist Chanda Prescod-Weinstein laments the over-representation of science on TV as people in lab coats and chalkboards full of equations (14 May, p 28).
I can think of more than a dozen scientists who regularly appear on UK television screens presenting the subject in highly accessible and enjoyable formats. Perhaps she should try what is on offer on this side of the pond.
Undergraduates are the modern lab rats
Ingrid Newkirk writes regarding the “Emotional touch” part of your look at chemical haptics (19 March, p 46), and suggests that in a study of stroking, rather than using rats, it would have been better to find students to test the ideas on (Letters, 23 April). However, they may not be a much better choice for this.
So many studies subject undergraduates to mental or physical experimentation in the mistaken belief that it will lead to insights into the general human condition. Nothing could be further from the truth. It has even been suggested that over-reliance on this unrepresentative group means modern psychology is, in truth, merely the study of the undergraduate under duress.
Should we allow mining of the ocean beds? (1)
In your look at the “blue acceleration”, the ramping up of exploitation of the oceans, it seemed to me to be a forgone conclusion that we will raid the deep oceans for minerals and strip the seas of fish and anything else we can get our hands on, regardless of the consequences (23 April, p 38).
The banks and big business are gagging to get going with the project, the argument being that we need the minerals to power the green economy.
We may well end up with a green economy for the small number of rich people who continue to make such demands of the planet, but it will probably spell disaster for the wider environment and the majority of people whose demands are not met and never have been.
Should we allow mining of the ocean beds? (2)
Nodule mining on the seabed may be possible with negligible damage and some surprising upsides. The devil is in the detail. Organic “snow” raised by mining crawlers must all be sucked to the surface and not allowed to smother the seabed. Large areas must also be left unmined to reseed the mined areas.
Among possible positive impacts, mined areas may become homes to pioneer species, actually increasing the biodiversity of the abyssal plains.
Keep yourself warm with a house full of books
Barry Cash wonders if he could insulate the solid walls of his house by attaching old clothes in plastic bottles to the outside (Letters, 14 May).
Any suggestion 鈥� and many professional solutions 鈥� for such external wall insulation will look awful. Internal wall insulation is better, but can still ruin the interior appearance of properties.
There is only one perfect solution. Bookcases full of books. These insulate, look lovely and, better still, have a practical use.
For the record {28 May 2022}
The president of El Salvador is Nayib Bukele (14 May, p 12)
The endangered vaquita porpoise lives in the Gulf of California (14 May, p 21)