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Open mind
Letters– Food thought From Peter Martin, CarbonSense Bijal Trivedi describes some difficulties involved in assessing carbon emissions associated with various foods but fails to mention a critical science communication issue (13 September, p 28). It is conventional to list the warming potential of greenhouses gases in terms of an equivalent amount of carbon dioxide (CO2eq) over 100 years. This made sense for policymakers when it appeared that the human race had a century or more in which to change course. Now it is clear that the need for change is more urgent. Policy-makers need to focus on achieving very considerable emissions reductions within the next 10 years. Policy decisions, and especially communications intended to influence consumers’ purchasing decisions, need to make sense over this time frame. Methane emitted into the atmosphere has a half-life of about a decade, and over that timescale methane is, weight for weight, more than 60 times as potent a greenhouse gas as the longer-lived CO2, or about three times more potent than the 21-fold difference over a century usually quoted – which is the period conventionally used to calculate CO2eq figures. This tips the carbon balance even more strongly against meat and dairy products. Teignmouth, Devon, UK From Hugh Farey Without wishing to denigrate Trivedi’s article, I fear that none of the research described takes account of what I suggest is by far the biggest factor: the lifestyle of the people involved in food production. Do the costs of fertiliser, manufacture, packaging, transport and so on not fade into minor significance compared to the cost of the farmers’ families’ lifestyle, including their own food consumption, travel, holidays and other leisure pursuits – at least for affluent western farmers? This 20 | NewScientist | 27 September 2008
suggests that the best way of saving carbon in your weekly shopping basket would be simply to spend less. Bromyard, Herefordshire, UK
Open mind From The Viscount Monckton of Brenchley Lawrence Krauss says of my article “Climate sensitivity reconsidered” in Physics and Society that I had not corrected the editors’ “misconception” that I was a climate scientist with a doctorate; I had written “what appeared to be” but by implication was not “a highly technical piece refuting the notion that global warming is occurring”; my article contained nothing new; unnamed “climate scientists” said they “had debunked” my conclusions; I claimed my paper “had been accepted by a peer-reviewed scientific journal”; and I was “litigious” (16 August, p 46). When Gerald Marsh put my name forward he did not tell the editors I was a climatologist with a doctorate (13 September, p 20). Nor did I. My correct style and title appeared on every email to them. When they invited me to submit a paper, I reasonably supposed they knew who I was. I asked how much technical detail they wanted. They wanted a great deal. I obliged. The paper was indeed technical. So is the subject. I have not been a “journalist” for 15 years. Until I retired two years ago I directed a leading technical consultancy. I have
made a fortune from probabilistic combinatorics. My paper contained much unpublished material, including several new equations, each of which the editor asked me to justify before publication. My conclusions have not been “debunked”. I have never said my paper “had been accepted by a peerreviewed scientific journal”. However, a professor of physics on the editorial board edited it and asked for many clarifications. This “litigious viscount” has issued two libel writs in 56 years. I won both. Rannoch, Highlands, UK The editor writes: ● Readers may be interested in a discussion of Monckton’s articles by the climate scientists on the Realclimate.org site via www. m-climate1.notlong.com and www.m-climate2.notlong.com.
Risky business From Lynn Stoppelman Michael Bond detailed how decision-making driven by fear and emotion interferes with reason and allows people to accept incorrect assertions (30 August, p 34). The psychiatrist and psychoanalyst John Bowlby, who drew on evolutionary biology to demonstrate the importance of the attachment bond infants negotiate with their primary carer, laid the foundation for expecting this behaviour, particularly from insecure adults. A daily flood of data challenges everyone’s coping skills, but
particularly those of insecure individuals who are predisposed to accept media sources as more knowledgeable than themselves. Such individuals do not investigate so much as trust. While confident people apply critical filters to their daily input without hesitation, insecure individuals whose experience in infancy has led them to prioritise acceptance and approval are unlikely to challenge an authority. Improving risk literacy is more complicated than switching off the TV. To encourage more people to use rational, less emotional decision-making we must train youngsters in critical thinking skills before fearfulness born of insecurity becomes habitual – not wait until the last year of high school or the first year of college. Conscious parenting focused on raising secure infants who have benefited from a healthy attachment to a parental figure remains the fundamental way to ensure a clear-thinking society. Reston, Virginia, US
IQ standards From: Nigel Mellor James Flynn notes the 15-point IQ gap between black and white Americans (6 September, p 48). I recall that items in intelligence tests are carefully chosen so that males and females score equally – as we believe they are equal. Those who construct the tests do not, however, amend test items so that black and white subjects score the same. Is that because we believe they are not equal? Is prejudice built into the common IQ tests right from the start? To put it another way: would you accept a carefully researched IQ test constructed so that black and white Americans scored equally? And if not, why not? Newcastle upon Tyne, UK From Sanusi Orobosa It is a huge logical leap from the Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children showing a deficit of 15 IQ points in black children, to James www.newscientist.com
suggests that the best way of saving carbon in your weekly shopping basket would be simply to spend less. Bromyard, Herefordshire, UK
Open mind From The Viscount Monckton of Brenchley Lawrence Krauss says of my article “Climate sensitivity reconsidered” in Physics and Society that I had not corrected the editors’ “misconception” that I was a climate scientist with a doctorate; I had written “what appeared to be” but by implication was not “a highly technical piece refuting the notion that global warming is occurring”; my article contained nothing new; unnamed “climate scientists” said they “had debunked” my conclusions; I claimed my paper “had been accepted by a peer-reviewed scientific journal”; and I was “litigious” (16 August, p 46). When Gerald Marsh put my name forward he did not tell the editors I was a climatologist with a doctorate (13 September, p 20). Nor did I. My correct style and title appeared on every email to them. When they invited me to submit a paper, I reasonably supposed they knew who I was. I asked how much technical detail they wanted. They wanted a great deal. I obliged. The paper was indeed technical. So is the subject. I have not been a “journalist” for 15 years. Until I retired two years ago I directed a leading technical consultancy. I have
made a fortune from probabilistic combinatorics. My paper contained much unpublished material, including several new equations, each of which the editor asked me to justify before publication. My conclusions have not been “debunked”. I have never said my paper “had been accepted by a peerreviewed scientific journal”. However, a professor of physics on the editorial board edited it and asked for many clarifications. This “litigious viscount” has issued two libel writs in 56 years. I won both. Rannoch, Highlands, UK The editor writes: ● Readers may be interested in a discussion of Monckton’s articles by the climate scientists on the Realclimate.org site via www. m-climate1.notlong.com and www.m-climate2.notlong.com.
Risky business From Lynn Stoppelman Michael Bond detailed how decision-making driven by fear and emotion interferes with reason and allows people to accept incorrect assertions (30 August, p 34). The psychiatrist and psychoanalyst John Bowlby, who drew on evolutionary biology to demonstrate the importance of the attachment bond infants negotiate with their primary carer, laid the foundation for expecting this behaviour, particularly from insecure adults. A daily flood of data challenges everyone’s coping skills, but
particularly those of insecure individuals who are predisposed to accept media sources as more knowledgeable than themselves. Such individuals do not investigate so much as trust. While confident people apply critical filters to their daily input without hesitation, insecure individuals whose experience in infancy has led them to prioritise acceptance and approval are unlikely to challenge an authority. Improving risk literacy is more complicated than switching off the TV. To encourage more people to use rational, less emotional decision-making we must train youngsters in critical thinking skills before fearfulness born of insecurity becomes habitual – not wait until the last year of high school or the first year of college. Conscious parenting focused on raising secure infants who have benefited from a healthy attachment to a parental figure remains the fundamental way to ensure a clear-thinking society. Reston, Virginia, US
IQ standards From: Nigel Mellor James Flynn notes the 15-point IQ gap between black and white Americans (6 September, p 48). I recall that items in intelligence tests are carefully chosen so that males and females score equally – as we believe they are equal. Those who construct the tests do not, however, amend test items so that black and white subjects score the same. Is that because we believe they are not equal? Is prejudice built into the common IQ tests right from the start? To put it another way: would you accept a carefully researched IQ test constructed so that black and white Americans scored equally? And if not, why not? Newcastle upon Tyne, UK From Sanusi Orobosa It is a huge logical leap from the Wechsler Intelligence Scale for Children showing a deficit of 15 IQ points in black children, to James www.newscientist.com