What to do about Syria
The agony in Syria (30 September) is more complicated than comments on recent US-Russian negotiations suggest. The Obama government has also had to consider the conflicting interests of Turkey, the Kurds, Iraq, Iran, Saudi Arabia, the Gulf states and Israel.
Turkey, a Nato ally, views the Kurds as a greater threat than the Assad government in Syria. The failed coup in Turkey has only exacerbated President Erdoğan’s crackdown on Kurds in Turkey. The US has agreed with Turkey to give military support to Syrian Kurds as long as they stayed east of the Euphrates.
The US is also giving air and ground support to the Iraqi Peshmerga, Iraqi troops and Shia militias, in the buildup to retake Mosul from Sunni Islamic State. At the same time, this presents a threat to the unstable Mosul dam, which, if breached, could kill millions downstream.
The successful US nuclear negotiations with Iran have led the US to reluctantly support the Saudi government in its war against the Houthi rebels in Yemen.
Behind the scenes, Shia Iran is waging a proxy war against a range of Sunni opponents, including Isis and Jabhat Fateh al-Sham (formerly the Nusra Front), using the Alawite Assad regime and the Lebanese Shia Hezbollah, which Iran’s Revolutionary Guard have armed.
In view of these shifting alliances, it has been prudent of President Obama to consult carefully with his military and diplomatic staff before committing to further Middle East adventures. It is easy to forget that he was elected in 2008 by voters weary of protracted foreign wars.
Linda Agerbak
Arlington, Massachusetts, US
• Almost every week Natalie Nougayrède makes me nostalgic for the good old days of the cold war. Those were the days: one side 100% good, the other 100% bad. Just replace “Communist” with “Russian” and her columns take me back to the sweet days of youth.
Naturally, a black-and-white view of the world requires a short memory. So the fragmentation of Yugoslavia along ethnic lines advanced democracy and was good; the same process in Ukraine is a Russian conspiracy and is bad.
Her latest war-horse is Syria – a tragedy, for which all sides share responsibility. Nougayrède’s proposed solution? A “tougher approach to Russia’s intervention”. How? As an example, she quotes approvingly the “targeted strikes on Serbian forces” that in her opinion helped solve the Yugoslavian crisis. But there are no Russian ground forces in Syria, and if I remember correctly Nato bombed Belgrade as well. So is she saying that the west should bomb Moscow? If only the US president’s “reluctance to do more” could be overcome.
Giorgio Ranalli
Ottawa, Ontario, Canada
Please take our toys away
George Monbiot is right (30 September) – the solution to carmageddon is fewer, and electric, cars. But there’s a huge problem here. Electric vehicles will be major indirect polluters and contributors to climate change until the energy they use comes from renewable resources.
Most electricity and nearly all hydrogen still come from fossil fuels. A battery-electric vehicle doesn’t avoid the pollution from electricity production – it is released at the power station rather than on the motorway. Even worse, more battery-electric cars will increase the demand for electricity from a grid that already can’t cope. Likewise, a fuel-cell-electric vehicle running on hydrogen only produces water, but the associated pollution is released at the hydrogen production plant.
Solutions that ignore the connected nature of the problem never work. Yes, we must have electric vehicles, but hand-in-hand we must have sustainably produced electricity and hydrogen to power them.
Evan Gray
Brisbane, Queensland, Australia
• George Monbiot (23 September) has written starkly about to what all the species of the world are heir: the age of the Earth inhabited by humankind. By focusing on contemporary consumerism in which we all are involved to one degree or another, his words remind of how civilisations are dredging everything and everywhere: lands, forests, lakes and rivers, the sky. Even our human species is affected by the degradation of what he calls “uncontrolled consumerism”.
With respect to all animals, fishes, birds, plants and the smaller living things of the Earth: so much has sickened. Disappeared. Died. While so many do work on behalf of other species, we humans do not seem to have the nerve for doing what is required to show mercy toward them.
We do not grieve enough. Mourn. And as Monbiot suggests, let each of us learn how to better live lightly.
Vivian Darroch-Lozowski
Moose Jaw, Saskatchewan, Canada
• Gutting a chicken is not enough: people who eat chicken should be prepared to kill it too. Monbiot also forgot to mention bees: some farmers are guilty, even if they don’t kill bees directly; they spray their crops with chemicals that do the job nicely. Don’t our poor bees have enough on their plate, being gobbled up by Asian hornets, without those who manage to get through being exterminated by lethal chemicals? No bees, no pollination. No pollination, no crops.
Lea Yauner
Pessac, France
• I read both Horatio Clare’s review of Peter Wadham’s A Farewell to Ice and Bill McKibben’s opinion on ocean warming (16 September) and both these pieces struck a chord with me. Indeed, if methane from melting permafrost is released then we really will have hit the point of no return and the consequences could be truly apocalyptic.
In both pieces the use of renewables is discussed but only Clare mentions “voluntary” steps such as giving up SUVs and budget flights. This is not unusual as many reports emphasise cosy, visible measures (eg wind and solar) but soft-pedal on any thoughts that our consumer excesses should be reined in.
Surely we have gone beyond this and we need to give governments a mandate to “take our toys away” with strong legislation against individual, private transport and cheap air-travel; against excessive trucking, excessive packaging and temperature-controlled retail palaces; and against market structures that encourage indulgent consumption.
Only when we have recognised these connections and taken appropriate action do we stand any chance of preventing the coming “meltdown”.
Alan Mitcham
Cologne, Germany
The problem with anger
Oliver Burkeman’s analysis of anger (30 September) fails to draw a crucial distinction: the difference between the feeling of anger, or any of our feelings, and the freely chosen expression of the feeling.
Feeling, experiencing and accepting our anger is an essential prerequisite to a free decision about what, if anything, to do with it. In the case of genuine self-defence, physical retaliation may be the correct response. A civil, verbal assertion of our disagreement may be a proper response to an abusive attack. Screaming and yelling and retaliation will never be appropriate.
If we do not first recognise and accept our feelings, including anger, but sweep them under the carpet, they will inevitably break out in ways that are inappropriate.
Greg McCarry
Sydney, Australia
• Oliver Burkeman’s thought-provoking column on the downside of anger reminded me of a quote by Mark Twain, which I saved as a reminder that “Anger is an acid that can do more harm to the vessel in which it is stored than to anything on which it is poured.”
Richard Orlando
Westmount, Quebec, Canada
Decline of hitchhiking
As someone who hitchhiked through New Zealand in the 60s with a friend, I mourn the decline of hitchhiking as does Anne Perkins (30 September). Then, the ease and friendliness of the experience increased the more rural the countryside became. Drivers were interested in who we were and why we were travelling; several invited us to their homes, some became friends. I experienced similar treatment of the “stranger” riding horses through New South Wales in the 70s. Perhaps social media satiates the desire for human contact from afar? The test would be whether digitally savvy Indian villagers still offer yoghurt and a chat. If so it has more to do with being the owners of your land and having a code of hospitality. Nowadays, of course, neither is true for most of us in western countries. Do lords give lifts to people walking up their drives?
Angelica Dwiller
Katoomba, NSW, Australia
Briefly
• I suspect I was not the only reader to be confused by the opening words of Paula Cocozza’s interesting article on the Vatican (30 September). In this context, “The man holding the keys” suggests St Peter more than the functionary whose job it is to unlock doors.
Joan Dawson
Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada
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