What to do about the carbon capture crisis? (1)
As attempts over the past 20 years have demonstrated, carbon capture and storage is fraught with difficulty and unlikely to make a significant contribution in the future. A worthwhile alternative strategy in which citizens and various levels of government worldwide can participate is carbon sequestration through tree propagation 20 April, p 8.
In cities, every backyard and nature strip could be partially or completely forested. Non-productive farmland could be put to far more important use as a carbon sink. Wealthy nations could subsidise reforestation in the Amazon and other damaged rainforests. This is surely a low-cost and effective option and, as is often discussed, greened environments bring considerable health benefits.
What to do about the carbon capture crisis? (2)
Carbon capture and storage is a complete waste of time, money and effort. It can’t work at the scale necessary to make any meaningful difference in the time available and consumes a lot of energy.
We need to focus on what will make the greatest difference in the least time: a complete cessation of new coal and gas extraction; existing fossil fuel power plants being wound down as soon as possible; German nuclear plants brought back into action, but no new ones built; and all transport powered by electricity or hydrogen. These are the only things that will make any substantial difference.
What to do about the carbon capture crisis? (3)
Your list of key technologies for carbon capture and storage omits any mention of biochar. This is produced by pyrolysis of agricultural, forestry, garden or other organic waste materials in limited oxygen/air to produce something akin to charcoal. Most biochar is incorporated into soil, where it can lock carbon away for millennia. A recent report refers to being sequestered this way in 2023. Growth in production has averaged over 90 per cent in the past two years.
Optimise the skin biome rather than destroy it
You report that “post-op infection is often due to skin-dwelling microbes”. Surgeons try to prevent these infections by sterilising the skin before cutting into it, but nature abhors a vacuum and when most of the biome is killed you have no control over which organisms multiply to fill the (nearly) empty niche. Maybe it is worth considering painting the skin with a biome that will do no harm 鈥� ideally even be helpful 鈥� if introduced into a surgical wound 20 April, p 14.
Scent-loving snakes enjoy making a stink
Many years ago, in eastern Canada, I encountered numerous eastern garter snakes 鈥� the species in your report on a study that found they appear to recognise their own scent. Noam Miller, the researcher who found this ability, attributes it to the fact that garter snakes are social creatures, unlike ball pythons, which appear not to know their scent 13 April, p 19.
However, there is another possible explanation. Garter snakes defend themselves by flailing their tails to smear a foul-smelling substance, which also gets on their body. Perhaps they are simply more familiar with what they smell like and more likely to notice a small difference.
Obesogenic habits might be very tricky to change
The words “鈥y peers load their plates with only burgers, fries and pizza” define precisely what is at the heart of the obesity crisis. Pretty much no food is inherently bad. However, the sheer amount of it eaten is. In the UK, US and other places where food is relatively cheap, I have witnessed single servings that could easily have fed four people. Nothing will solve the problem if people aren’t willing to change their habits. I am not even sure that education will help, although it can do no harm 13 April, p 21.
On possible causes of child anxiety
The evidence that anxiety is rising in children is largely unequivocal. You describe several potential causal factors, including social media, interactions at school and socio-economic status 6 April, p 35.
Another possibility worth mentioning is the use in schools of low-intensity interventions to raise awareness of mental health. These are often given whether or not people present with actual or suspected symptoms.
This is done with the best of intentions, but evidence that exposing children without mental health issues to these interventions could cause harm. It has been suggested that they may trigger some of the conditions they try to prevent by causing some children to over-ruminate on their state of mind. More research is needed to ensure they aren’t causing net harm.
Another vote against the many worlds theory
My objections to the many worlds interpretation of quantum theory are that it is necessarily untestable and anyway explains nothing 23 March, p 32.
To be testable, we would have to be able to detect the influence of one of the other copies of our universe on us for at least some tiny period after separation. Yet, so long as such influence exists, it is, by definition, part of our universe. And it explains nothing because the thing to be explained is quantum collapse. Recasting it as a bifurcation of the universe sheds no light on how it comes to pass.
Why AIs may never be able to think like us
You posit that advances in the ability of artificial intelligence to do pure maths may “herald machines that reason and think like humans”. While I agree that this will contribute to the ability of AI to reason and gain general level intelligence, it doesn’t necessarily mean they will ever think like us Leader, 13 April.
Human thought can be rational, but it can also be emotional, embodied, spiritual, contradictory and unintelligible. Because of this eclectic mix, people can have experiences, hold values, be hypocritical, act illogically and empathise. Unless these are emergent phenomena of the complexity required to create intelligence, it is likely that these attributes will prove challenging to replicate artificially.