We must teach everyone how to face climate crisis
“We are on the brink of an irreversible climate disaster,” write William Ripple and colleagues at Oregon State University in their report on the state of the planet. As there are no indications of effective global cooperation, or political leadership, to tackle this emergency, we need parallel arrangements. I mean education and training to prepare the population emotionally to cope with what is so devastating and so rapidly approaching (12 October, p 8).
AIs can still rule even if they can't add up
You note that “AIs get worse on simple questions as they get bigger” and that they have trouble adding two large numbers. Remember that Henry Ford built a great automobile company not by becoming an expert, but by drawing on experts (5 October, p 14).
If AI can solve how to iteratively create a team of experts to solve a problem it faces, that is all it needs to do to address any shortcomings. It can delegate adding large numbers to a classical computer. It can use databases and classical “rules-based expert systems” to work through lists. It can write Python computer code, or hire someone who can. It can assemble a team of diverse advisers who can tell it when it is going astray. It can ask 20 people and compare their answers.
Stepping outside your niche really is vital
I enjoyed Chanda Prescod-Weinstein’s look at stepping outside her scientific comfort zone. It reminded me of a line in Kurt Vonnegut’s novel Player Piano: “Show me a specialist, and I’ll show you a man who’s so scared he’s dug a hole for himself to hide in.” As a physicist who has spent my working life in industry, I see the same issues that Chanda observed within academia, which is an overwhelming aspiration to specialise, rather than reap the benefits of a broader perspective (21 September, p 22).
This leads to multiple, parallel reinvention, where industries fail to share knowledge. I increasingly see the same issue in graduates who have gained little breadth of knowledge or application, but have been indoctrinated into the cult of specialism. It feels more important than ever that we try to connect thinking across different industries and disciplines.
Edible oil from waste could take environmental crown
While camellia oil might use less land than many other oil crops, can I point out that rice bran oil requires zero land, since it is made from what is often considered a waste product 鈥� and the world isn’t going to stop eating rice. This oil is popular in many Asian countries, and in Australia, though seems to be little known in the UK and US. It has a healthy fatty acid balance, nice taste and a high smoke point. Surely it is the greenest oil(5 October, p 15)?
True democracy? Those in power may well resist
“Reimagining democracy” starts by noting that current “democracies” favour the rich. It ends by reporting that an attempt to roll out a more truly democratic model across the UK has been vetoed by government because “there is no money”. Turkeys, of course, don’t vote for Christmas (5 October, p 32).
South and north, the poles are melting away
It isn’t only in the Antarctic that temperatures have gone crazy. At the end of August, my wife and I visited Svalbard, well inside the Arctic circle, where temperatures would normally be 4掳C to 11掳C (39掳F to 52掳F) in the summer, and were told that it had been up to 20掳C (68掳F). We travelled to the far north, where we found valleys whose glaciers had entirely melted. The walruses seemed very happy to lie in the sun, though (12 October, p 15).
We then crossed the Arctic Ocean and spent some time visiting the fjords in eastern Greenland, where I was surprised that a lot of ground is entirely snow-free to a significant altitude.
I can't praise this nature writer enough
I liked James McConnachie’s review of England: A natural history by John Lewis-Stempel, and feel he gave the author a fair hearing, but would add more praise (5 October, p 28).
I have read several of Lewis-Stempel’s offerings. He may do his work alone, as you point out, but he has the power to make me understand crucial aspects of nature, for example, the importance of fertility in the soil in his 2016 book The Running Hare: The secret life of farmland.
You are worth more than the whole of mathematics
In her article on why we avoid effort, Amanda Ruggeri mentions the so-called IKEA effect: that we prefer a less well-made bookshelf that we have assembled ourselves over something ready-made and perfect. “Our effort,” she says, “adds value.” (5 October, p 36)
I would say we underestimate the importance of our ability to give value to people and things. Students think mathematics is bigger than they are because they struggle to understand it, but, compared with mathematics, they are worth far more. We give value to people and things by noticing them, enjoying them and then working for them. As it says in The Little Prince by Antoine de Saint-Exup茅ry: “It is the time you have wasted for your rose that makes your rose so important.”
Efficient driving and the long arm of the law
Those readers discussing how to drive more efficiently, take note. The only time I have been stopped by the police and breathalysed 鈥� the result was negative 鈥� was after they observed me practising smoother driving and less braking to conserve fuel. You might call it “reducing emissions”. They called it “erratic driving” (Letters, 28 September).
For the record
Kristian Nielsen at Copenhagen Business School in Denmark was the researcher investigating perception of carbon footprints (28 September, p 19).