Letters archive

The idea of using vegetation on buildings to cool them in hot climates is interesting. However, an architect friend fears certain problems. The last thing you want around buildings and walls is something that can catch and propagate fire easily. Dried plants (in very hot climates) potentially could. Installing vegetation on balconies or roofs presupposes …

Frankenstein is one of my favourite novels. However, I, like many others, contest the notion that it is the first science fiction ( Leader, 30 November ). There are many prior examples of what we would today consider sci-fi, if we define that as proposing a novel technology for the time and exploring the consequences. …

I have digested the explanations for why trying to live on Mars is a bad idea. Very good points are made, but one important thing is missed. One day, a disaster will befall Earth that will most likely wipe out the human race. It might be an extinction type asteroid impact, a nuclear war, a …

"Recipe for disaster" certainly got my attention. It made it clear just how serious a matter climate change is likely to be for farming and food production. It then talks about solutions, stating: one big answer is eating less meat ( 16 November, p 44 ). The article later advised against buying organic food because …

My only surprise was that the researchers looking down their microscope at asteroid rock samples only saw terrestrial bacterial contamination and not golden retriever dog hair, which permeates the entire universe ( 30 November, p 15 ).

In quick crossword #172 ( 30 November, p 45 ), the clue for 7 Down should have been Rb.

You report that H5N1 bird flu may be adapting to become more infectious to humans. Considering the high death rate in people infected so far and the projections that even minor mutations could cause a virulent pandemic, mass production of an H5N1 vaccine and the inoculation of most of the population should be considered ( …

The COP 29 climate summit was held in Baku, the capital of Azerbaijan, whose economy is massively dependent on exploiting its huge fossil fuel resources. The nearby Caspian Sea is rapidly drying out as a result of hydrocarbon-propelled global warming. Yet this connection seems to have eluded stingy higher-income nations as they failed to cough …

The climate-related food crisis is a consequence of overpopulation, causing the destruction of huge areas of natural environment by animal farming in particular and intensive chemical agriculture, both highly polluting ( 16 November 2024, p 44 ). The constant quest to defeat nature with chemicals, intensive farming, genetic engineering etc. only offers stop-gap measures. Eventually, …

Pertaining to the problem of urban heat, many suburban roads in the UK have effectively more than doubled in width, as front gardens have been largely or completely paved over. As well as a loss of wildlife habitat, this has significantly increased the heat island effect. In my street, less than 5 per cent of …