A story warning that the burning of biomass – wood or other organic materials – released more carbon into the air than gas, carried the headline “Green answer to global warming ‘will make the problem worse’”. This might have led readers to believe that Green campaigners supported the use of biomass fuels. To clarify: the Green party calls for a suspension of all biofuel targets, incentives and subsidies and has campaigned against the burning of biofuels at the Drax power station mentioned in the piece. This is a view shared by much of the wider green movement (News, last week, page 10).
An article headlined “British social media users admit they don’t check online news sources before sharing” (News, last week, page 7) quoted research commissioned by the Syria Campaign, which we incorrectly described as a humanitarian charity. It is an advocacy group and does not have charitable status.
Mary Wollstonecraft’s A Vindication of the Rights of Women and The Diary of Fanny Burney both featured in our survey of nonfiction, headlined “100 books that shook the world” (New Review, last week, page 14), but we muddled the authors pictorially, displaying a picture of Burney captioned as showing Wollstonecraft.
Write to Stephen Pritchard, Readers’ Editor, The Observer, York Way, London N1 9GU, email observer.readers@observer.co.uk, tel 020-3353 4656
