Surviving doomsday may be for the few
I fear Stuart Clark is being over-optimistic in saying that “we” could take refuge on a gas giant’s moon when our sun becomes a red giant (16/23 December 2023, p 60).
Creating suitable habitation and transporting people and materials will be prohibitively expensive and it is very probable that the only people who could afford such a move would be the mega-rich. The only “ordinary” people who would be able to go would be those needed to pander to the needs of their wealthy masters.
Super elite will call the shots in our AI future
Regarding the potential future of artificial intelligence, if there ever needs to be a ban or control on further development, who will action it? We have already seen the US, European Union and UK governments incapable of understanding, let alone controlling, simple social media (16/23 December 2023, p 56).
Control reminiscent of Nineteen Eighty-Four is well advanced, with the masses submitting to surveillance and haplessly consuming tangible and virtual goods that they mostly don’t need with money they mostly don’t (yet) have. The whole scenario is in the hands of a tiny super elite. The idea that “we” have influence of any kind is sheer fantasy.
Another forgotten branch of ancient art
Michael Marshall’s article about forgotten art and culture from ancient times was fascinating. Even more forgotten is the input of women. They tended to work on textiles, but these rarely survive compared with metals or wood (16/23 December 2023, p 28).
In August 2023, I saw a woman demonstrating weaving. She was using a bowed branch, which had grown naturally to that shape before being cut. So, before looms, people could weave using natural materials from their surroundings. Even if they survived, such wooden “looms” would, I assume, be seen as tree branches, not useful tools.
Ice wranglers, leave them icebergs alone
Given the disappearance of ice from polar regions due to global warming, how can anyone justify towing icebergs away? (16/23 December 2023, p 54)
Why net zero is a sticking plaster on a mortal wound
Although the COP28 summit recognised that the planet is warming due to emissions of greenhouse gases, which inevitably leads to rising sea levels, there was no recognition that the melting of snow and ice greatly reduces the reflection of solar energy back into space, known as Earth’s albedo. This allows more of the sun’s heat to be captured by land, sea and air, especially in polar regions, which, as a result, are warming up to four times as fast as the global average (30 December 2023, p 11).
These regions operate as Earth’s refrigerator, keeping our climate moderately cool, but because they are losing their albedo, they are experiencing a double whammy 鈥� first from global warming due to increasing greenhouse gases, then from the reduction of the albedo. We are losing Earth’s refrigerator. Due to the lag between cooling and such ice reforming, it will take much more cooling than we have had of warming to regrow snow and ice cover. The net zero goal will hinder this process because taking out as much carbon dioxide from the air as we put in will maintain warming, melt more ice and snow, reduce albedo more and further weaken Earth’s refrigerator.
The only way out is to cut emissions drastically. Even at the Paris Agreement’s preferred warming limit of 1.5掳C, ice and snow will keep melting, our refrigerator will keep shrinking and the world will keep warming. Escaping this fate will be a vast challenge. Net zero is a sticking plaster on a mortal wound.
Is carbon dioxide removal tech just a new pipe dream?
On reading your story on negative emissions technology, it struck me that this could have been almost any article written about fusion reactors over the past 50 years, but with the words “nuclear fusion” replaced with “carbon dioxide removal”. If the latter happens, it will be great, but the feeling remains that it may always be 10 years away. Promising a new game changer to policy-makers desperate for a short-term fix risks delaying the steps we need to take (2 December 2023, p 14).
Another way of viewing family life and longevity
You report that having children earlier in life is genetically linked to dying younger. Perhaps this makes more sense if we say that having children later in life is genetically linked to dying older (16/23 December 2023, p 9).
Establishing a career before committing to family life is the preferred choice for some, an outlook that takes a longer view. The resulting ability to live more healthily should anticipate a longer life. Could such a mindset be reflected in our DNA?
In defence of the brain as a complex structure
Tom Reimchen says we shouldn’t claim the human brain is “the most complicated structure in the known universe”. I agree, if it is put like that. It would seem very reasonable, however, to claim that it is “the most complicated known structure in the universe” (Letters, 16/23 December 2023).
No easy way back from collapse of civilisation
Collapse of our techno-civilisation, built on fossil fuels, would have dire and permanent implications for future technology. Where will survivors find coal or tin to dig out by a pit and ladder, or oil you can drill down tens of metres to tap? Such low-hanging fruit to fuel a rebirth of advanced civilisation is long gone. There may be no further technology on this planet until geology creates new near-surface reserves, millions of years hence. Perhaps this era will be the Telopisticene: the End of Science (9 December 2023, p 36).
For the record
S8 can be measured via gravitational weak lensing (16/23 December 2023, p 8).
In our look at an animal milk bank (16/23 December 2023, p 58), Vlad the two-toed sloth was a faecal donor, while rhinos have a fibrous diet.