New Scientist 2018 sep

8 September 2018 | NewScientist | 53

“ Being wrong should be on the curriculum:

what holds people back is fear of it”

rate at which we are thrashing the
planet, Mathis Wackernagel is on
the money in describing typical
economic activity as the largest
“Ponzi scheme” (4 August, p 20).
The dominant global economic
paradigm in the developed world
is neoliberal capitalism. It ticks
four boxes recognised as defining
a Ponzi scheme: it is predicated
on infinite growth, which is an
impossibility in a finite world;
when growth stops it falls over;
there is no way to a soft landing;
and the precise point of collapse
can’t be predicted. The reason this
description hasn’t registered in
mass consciousness is the longish
time span to collapse.

From Fred White,
Nottingham, UK
Our society determines actions
based on cost-effectiveness and
profit potential at all scales, from
the household up to government

level. This should work, but these

actions are based on an economic

system that draws down capital

assets and counts them as profits.

It assumes that continual growth

is possible in a finite system and

takes no account for cleaning up

the consequences of actions.

Our descendants will be at a

loss to know how a society capable

of exploring other planets and

editing the genome could possibly

have done so with an accounting

system that encourages two plus

two to equal seven.

When glaciers have gone

it’s too late to use valleys

From Perry Bebbington,

Kimberley, Nottinghamshire, UK

Erik Foxcroft suggests using

vacant glacial valleys as water

reservoirs for pumped storage

hydropower (Letters, 18 August).

By the time the glaciers have

water (and it can get very hot).

Energy generation must be

accompanied by appliances that

enable the resulting heat to be

used in the most practical way.

What is the role of stress

in producing allergies?

From Piers Roberts, Hampton

in Arden, West Midlands, UK

Thank you for the interesting

article on allergies (11 August,

p 28). I was amazed, though, to

find no discussion of whether

stress levels can have a role,

either as a precursor of allergic

reactions or in exacerbating them.

From Tony Kelly,

Crook, County Durham, UK

Penny Sarchet doesn’t mention a

factor that, I am sure, contributes

to allergies: stress. I refer to

unrelenting mental stress to

which there is no conceivable

retreated enough to make this

viable I think it will be a bit too

late to think about such storage.

Renewable energy

thwarted by appliances

From Enid Smith,

Linton, Cambridgeshire, UK

Paul Whiteley suggests that

instead of funding large-scale

energy projects we should spend

the money putting solar hot water

panels on people’s roofs (Letters,

4 August). We have solar hot water

panels on our roof, and they have

saved us money for some years.

But our predominant use of

warm water is to wash clothes.

Needing a new washing machine,

we couldn’t find one that took

warm water from the system,

only ones that took cold water that

was then heated. The rise in our

electric bills has been significant.

Meanwhile we have excess hot

Kate Shaw MA, MS, PsyD responds to a report that we can train

ourselves to better know when we are wrong (1 September, p 14).

>

One of the foremost physicists of

mid-Victorian Britain, John Tyndall’s

contribution to science underpin our

understanding of climate change, the

atmosphere, and glaciology. He was

also a pioneering mountaineer,

friend to the political and

literary elite of his day, and one

of the great popular science

communicators of his time.

Roland Jackson’s

biography makes

perfect summer

reading.

SUMMER READING

9780198788959 | 576 pages | £25

“If you want to understand AI, you need to

read The Deep Learning Revolution.”

—Erik Brynjolfsson, Professor at MIT Sloan

School of Management

mitpress.mit.edu/revolution