Letters archive

"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 …

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 …

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 …

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 – and the world isn't going to stop eating rice. This oil is popular in many Asian countries, and in …

"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 ).

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°C to 11°C (39°F to 52°F) in the summer, and were told that it had been up to 20°C (68°F). We travelled to …

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 …

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 …

Those readers discussing how to drive more efficiently, take note. The only time I have been stopped by the police and breathalysed – the result was negative – 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, …

Kristian Nielsen at Copenhagen Business School in Denmark was the researcher investigating perception of carbon footprints ( 28 September, p 19 ).