26 | New Scientist | 28 September 2019
Editor’s pick
The ‘last mile revolution’
was closer than you think
7 September, p 42
From David Clark,
Norwich, Norfolk, UK
Chris Stokel-Walker says that one
company could be a single point
of contact for delivery of online
shopping, removing duplication
of vehicles. Older readers in the
UK may remember a similar
service provided by the Royal Mail.
Unfortunately, legislation may
now be required to reduce the half
a dozen delivery vehicles coming
down my road every day to just one.From Andy Prior,
Malvern, Worcestershire, UK
Stokel-Walker explains how
online suppliers are looking to
use technology to lower the cost
of delivery to individual homes
and reduce polluting van journeys.
Why not use the existing home
delivery service for milk? My milk
supplier delivers to our house every
other day using environmentally
friendly electric vehicles along
optimised routes.
Any returns could be handled
by leaving them on the doorstep to
be collected along with empty milk
bottles. As our milk is delivered
before I leave for work, packages
could be moved safely indoors
before I leave.
The growth of the internet
was accelerated by the ability to
deliver digital packages to the home
using the existing landline network.
Perhaps the beneficiaries of that
online revolution could use existing
infrastructure once again.What have the Roslings
ever done for us, then?
7 September, p 46
From Jon Atack, Radcliffe on Trent,
Nottinghamshire, UK
I’m all for a fact-based viewpoint,
but numbers easily reframe
reality. For instance, the thought
that only 10.6 per cent of people
are now in extreme poverty didn’t
bring me cheer. It means thatmore than 816 million people
live on the edge of starvation.
We are told to be cheerful because
the percentage has dropped from
67.1 per cent in 1918.
But population increase means
that the number in this state has
dropped from 1,207,800,000 in
1918 to 816,200,000 now – so the
number in extreme poverty has
dropped by only 32.4 per cent. Yes,
“factfulness” and accuracy of data
are vital to our understanding of
the world, but the desperate state
of hundreds of millions of people
is far more than a statistic.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 now use 1.7 Earths’
worth of resources every year.
In 1918, extreme poverty was
spatially distributed. All we have
done is redistribute it temporally,
lifting billions out of povertytoday by using the resources of
tomorrow, ensuring that greater
poverty returns in the future.
I’ll celebrate when we are able to
achieve the same improvements
sustainably. Otherwise, we risk
today’s benefits being a blip.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 for literacy
and infant mortality do, we would
have to conclude that plane crash
deaths are a lot worse than they
used to be. The graph also doesn’t
show that plane crash deaths
make a minute contribution
to human mortality.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 showhow 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 that we ignore how
things improve absolutely because
we are creatures of comparison.
As epidemiologists Richard
Wilkinson and Kate Pickett
describe in The Inner Level^ and
The Spirit Level, people generally
compare themselves with the
society they encounter daily.
“Status anxiety” is responsible for
a great deal of mental and physical
ill health. Relative poverty is
getting worse rather than better in
many societies, including the UK.We need every tool for
emissions reduction
27 July, p 23
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. This attack
on one of the most effective tools
we have for reducing carbonViews You r le t te r s