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Letters archive

Join the conversation in New Scientist's Letters section, where readers can share their thoughts and opinions on articles and see responses from experts and enthusiasts across a range of science topics. To submit a letter, please see our terms and email letters@newscientist.com


18 September 2019

Editor's pick - Several approaches to rescuing the Arctic Ocean (3)

From Jim McHardy, Clydebank, West Dunbartonshire, UK

The melting of the Greenland ice sheet could be reduced by slowing the seaward movement of glaciers. Moulins, holes that meltwater flows down, reduce friction between the base of the ice and the bedrock. If a moulin is filled to the top, water pressure at the glacier base can be roughly equal to the pressure …

18 September 2019

Editor's pick - Several approaches to rescuing the Arctic Ocean (1)

From Fred White, Nottingham, UK

Just how big a cynic does it make me that when I read Rowan Hooper's article on refreezing the Arctic, I couldn't shake the conviction that certain politicians who are supposedly climate change sceptics may have links to corporations that can't wait to get their snouts in the geoengineering trough? ( 31 August, p 38 …

18 September 2019

Editor's pick - Several approaches to rescuing the Arctic Ocean (2)

From Luce Gilmore, Cambridge, UK

Assuming that the ice does mostly melt , as seems likely, the Arctic could be the place that comes to the planet's rescue. This may have happened before. During the early Eocene Epoch, the atmospheric carbon dioxide concentration peaked at more than 2000 parts per million – at present, it is around 400 ppm (and …

18 September 2019

And the award for most complex object goes to...

From Hillary Shaw, Newport, Shropshire, UK

Guy Cox discusses whether our brains are the most complex objects in the universe, as they are parts of bodies, which are parts of societies... This implies some complexity metric: perhaps the bytes needed to describe an object divided by its volume (Letters, 10 August ). Otherwise, the universe must be the most complex object …

25 September 2019

What have the Roslings ever done for us, then? (1)

From Jon Atack, Radcliffe on Trent, Nottinghamshire, UK

I'm all for a fact-based viewpoint, but numbers easily reframe reality ( 7 September, p 46 ). For instance, the thought that only 10.6 per cent of people are now in extreme poverty didn't bring me cheer. It means that more than 816 million people live on the edge of starvation. We are told to …

25 September 2019

What have the Roslings ever done for us, then? (2)

From Ian Simmons,Thorpe Bay, Essex, UK

I wish I could share Ola Rosling's optimistic view that the world is getting better if we look at the facts. Yes, we have reduced the number of people living in extreme poverty and increased life expectancy since 1918. But back then, we used less than one Earth's worth of natural resources a year. We …

25 September 2019

What have the Roslings ever done for us, then? (3)

From Chris Smaje, Frome, Somerset, UK

The statement " our world really is improving " is a story that can neither be proved nor disproved with data. Statistics presented to buttress such stories are inevitably more or less cherry-picked. For example, you present a graph of plane crash deaths starting in 1929. If it had started in 1800, as your graphs …

25 September 2019

What have the Roslings ever done for us, then? (4)

From Alan Taman, Birmingham, UK

Jacob Aron's very good interview with Ola Rosling is timely in pointing out the importance of facts. Your graphics show how absolute living standards have shifted over time, with the implication that we ignore how much better things are for many of us compared with the bleak existence our ancestors faced. But the irony is …

25 September 2019

We need every tool for emissions reduction

From Emmanuel Desplechin, ePURE European renewable ethanol association, Brussels, Belgium

Adding bioethanol to petrol will wreck the environment, not save it, says Michael Le Page ( 27 July, p 23 ). This attack on one of the most effective tools we have for reducing carbon dioxide emissions from road transport does a disservice to the fight against climate change. Arguments deployed against biofuels in general …

25 September 2019

How would a species without sight see time?

From John Davnall, Manchester, UK

Martin Greenwood summarises the view of physicist Roger Penrose that much scientific and mathematical thought is non-verbal (Letters, 31 August ). A week earlier, another physicist, Lee Smolin, defined the "sky" of an event as a snapshot of what we see at any one instant, informing us of our relationships with the things around us …

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