26 | New Scientist | 5 October 2019
Editor’s pick
A hard lesson that cod
should teach all electorates
14 September, p 23
From David McKenzie,
Launceston, Tasmania, Australia
Graham Lawton’s discussion of the
tension between action on global
warming and electoral outcomes
brings to mind a grim precedent.
Newfoundland cod was massively
overfished until the fishery
collapsed in the early 1990s.
Scientists warned that quotas
needed to be reduced. Elected
representatives didn’t dare impose
the required limitations for fear of
being labelled “anti-jobs”. I fear
we are seeing a repetition of this,
scaled up, with the global climate.
In May, Australia elected
a government that vowed to
increase coal mining. Brazil’s
president was candid about his
plans for the Amazon before his
electoral victory last October.
Unless voters see real, personal,
economic opportunity in carbon
dioxide reduction, Newfoundland’s
experience may be a prelude to
what awaits us all.Give the rich an incentive
to offer an example
14 September, p 6
From Hillary Shaw,
Newport, Shropshire, UK
Adam Vaughan lists challenges
facing the UN Climate Action
summit. One hurdle that plans
for climate change reduction
must overcome is that they often
involve cutting things that people
find enjoyable or convenient –
cars and flights, for example.
Humans are very short-termist
as a species, as our continuing
appetite for unhealthy but tasty
food shows. We have an odd sense
of jealousy and of fairness: if
someone else has something, we
may feel entitled to it too. We are
reluctant to give something up if
someone else has it, even if doing
so benefits the entire planet.
So we may resent taxes on
fuel if we see very wealthy peoplepaying the same flat tax rate or
continuing to fly when we are
supposed to cut back. Maybe we
need graded carbon taxes. The
richer you are, the more you
would pay for emitting the
same amount of carbon dioxide.
Perhaps the very well-off could
publicly commit to not flying to
persuade the rest of us to follow
suit. Carbon taxes that rise
suitably steeply with income
would give them an incentive
to provide this example.To fix a broken economy,
drop money at its base
3 August, p 30
From Fred Groenier,
Don, Tasmania, Australia
It would be a shame if none of
the three books on how the global
economy is broken that Joanna
Kavenna reviews mentioned the
way that Australia dealt with the
2008 financial crisis. The Labor
government of the time, headed
by Kevin Rudd, recognised that
employing trickle-down
economics would be futile.
Money doesn’t flow down
from the wealthy. It mostly gets
moved upward, concentratingwealth even more. A government
that wants money to move
throughout an economy needs
to invest in its base. That is what
Labor did, through a lot of make-
work schemes. Australians didn’t
experience the horrors that
people in other countries did.Can you be catapulted off
to start your holidays?
Letters, 24 August
From Stephen Blyth,
Roade, Northamptonshire, UK
Crispin Piney suggests ways to
book flights to minimise your
carbon footprint. Couldn’t we
adapt the technology that launches
planes from aircraft carriers
to take-offs from land-based
airports? Clean power to catapults
could be supplied off the grid and,
for some, the buzz would be great.Backing for an ammonia-
based fuel economy
Letters, 14 September
From John Watson,
Darlington, County Durham, UK
I would like to add to the argument
for an ammonia-based fuel
economy suggested by Phil Pope.You have reported that researchers
at the University of Tokyo have
developed a low-energy
alternative to the Haber-Bosch
process that makes ammonia from
atmospheric nitrogen (27 April,
p 8). This strengthens the case for
ammonia as a carbonless fuel.
Ammonia could be used to
fuel gas or steam turbines as well
as internal combustion engines,
thus providing for all forms of
transport. It could also be used to
meet all domestic and industrial
heating needs. It offers the
prospect of a completely
carbonless fuel economy.Rejecting global cooling
strengthens the science
Letters, 10 August
From Michael Scott,
Lochcarron, Ross-shire, UK
Were scientists worried in
the 1970s that we were about to
plunge into another full-blown
icy spell? Jon Stern thinks not, and
you suggest that it would have
been better to say only a few were.
As part of my botany course in
the early 1970s, I was taught that
we were most probably in a warm
interglacial period, and that theViews You r le t te r s