Outrage over Aleppo
Thanks to Natalie Nougayrède for her article Where is the Outrage over Aleppo (14 October), expressing the need for mass global protests against the horrendous atrocities being perpetrated on the people of Aleppo. In fact, a global protest was called for in solidarity with Aleppo in all the world capitals for the first weekend of October, but the message didn’t reach enough people. The protests need to continue until the bombing of innocent people in Aleppo is stopped.
In Poland recently thousands of people mobilised for abortion rights. The new labour reforms in France outraged masses of people enough to take to the streets, and 40,000 people bothered to demonstrate against a new airport in Nantes that would destroy rural land. Have we really become so selfish that we only react when we are personally affected? Bashar al-Assad and Vladimir Putin need to be stopped, and the least we can do is to show the people of Aleppo that we will not sit placidly by.
Whoever is to blame, whether or not we can stop the bombing, we should be demonstrating in our thousands to show the Syrian people that we care. Or have we become so desensitised that we consider genocide acceptable?
Belinda Smith
Rostrenen, France
• The Guardian Weekly has been publishing stories about the sheer horror of the bombing of Aleppo by the Syrian-Russia alliance. There are many who say that this alliance is committing war crimes, and Natalie Nougayrède wonders why there are no huge demonstrations.
We know that the west won’t play the role of global policeman this time, because the global nuclear powers are on either side of the divide. There is little that can militarily be done in such a situation.
As a matter of fact, I really don’t understand why there are still so-called rebels in Syria. What do they hope? Aren’t they realising that they have no chance to overthrow Bashar al-Assad? When will they flee at last and when will we, the west, stop military support to their lost cause? Any armed rebel in Syria, either extremist or moderate, is now partly responsible for the enduring plight of the Syrian civilians.
Marc Jachym
Les Ulis, France
Dangers to the environment
Now that the Paris agreement has passed, we have hopes that governments will enforce guidelines so that we can cut our global carbon emissions (14 October). But I can’t help but wonder how much we, as individuals, could help reduce pollution and emissions. I think back to what I’ve read about the second world war, where every citizen was expected to do their bit to contribute to the cause. Here where I live many drivers leave their cars running when they stop to let their passengers run into a store, or to check their email or just to listen to their radios. I’ve witnessed many incidents of up to half an hour with engines running. And, of course, many of these cars are huge SUVs or enormous pickup trucks. Walking behind them is an invitation to uncontrolled coughing from the pollution.
I can think of dozens of other aspects of our lifestyles that could be curtailed to help the effort. It is everyone’s responsibility to act responsibly and not just assume that the government will do it all.
Diana Smith
Arlington, Virginia, US
• The Discovery section of 7 October provides one more reason to believe the adage that every cloud has a silver lining. Reading Climate change could take lobsters off menus, I unabashedly divulge, brought on a perverse sense of relief. For I am allergic to lobsters, and beholding others who are not arouses gnawing envy in me: envy of their charging appetites; of how they assert mastery of the fate of the crustacean; of the pleasure they have delivering out of brittle armour dear morsels of flesh, and enriching them further in baths of golden melted butter.
But if lobsters become extinct, those now-enviable gourmands too would irrevocably be deprived of their pleasure, but for reasons different from mine. Indeed, popular adage then could glibly declare also that heartless gloating at the misfortune of others is the cure for envy.
Jack Aslanian
Oakland, California, US
Robots will rule the world
Futurist, scientist, and begetter of the Gaia hypothesis James Lovelock predicts that one day robots will take over the planet, an eventuality that others also warn us about (14 October). But if computer chips with arms and legs do triumph they, like us, as Decca Aitkenhead’s profile of the 97-year-old Lovelock reminds us, will also apply the same “independent volition and intuition” to real life that we their inventors now enjoy, but which, alas, have often misled us.
And robots, if at last they do emerge as our replacements, will also be victims like us of the same ecological, earthbound catastrophes that we, their creators, may have already, willingly or unwillingly, set into motion.
Richard Orlando
Westmount, Quebec, Canada
• I was very interested in James Lovelock’s idea that humans will be overpowered by electronics. I am quite sure he is right in his assumption that electronics will supersede man in evolutionary terms.
However, I feel that humans will survive in small pockets of the world: in remote places in the rainforests in South America and also perhaps among the indigenous peoples of Australia and New Zealand who are uncontaminated by modern electronics. These people will pose no threat to “electronic humans” and so will not need to be wiped out.
Alan Morley
Bryn Dyffryn, UK
Planetary exploration
Ian Sample quotes Jan Woerner, director general of the European Space Agency: “I can tell you that the moon village is my favourite solution for the future” (7 October). What problem is Woerner wanting to solve? It certainly isn’t colonialism. He can’t be referring to the terrestrial need to devote vast sums of money and intelligence to the problem of environmental degradation.
Surely, he’s not concerned about the dearth of good reality TV. Maybe it’s the dilemma of getting a tiny percentage of the human population off the planet before we render it incapable of supporting the rest of us.
Bob Sherrin
Burnaby, British Columbia, Canada
• Nasa’s Jeff Hoffman says: “It has been nearly 50 years since we explored a planetary surface.” I do it daily.
David Josephy
Guelph, Ontario, Canada
Aliens may not be hostile
I am the first to acknowledge that Stephen Hawking’s brain is 100 times smarter than mine (7 October). However, unless he has had communications with advanced civilisations that he is not sharing, I find his comments about possibly “hostile aliens” simply adding to the fear that already appears to run our world to the detriment of all.
Isn’t it possible that advanced beings might have got the hang of qualities like love and compassion, which we may experience in our lives but seem hopelessly inadequate at projecting into political matters? Might not such advanced beings be able to show us the way out of our greed and selfishness, rather than wish to obliterate us?
Of course, they might see us as impediments to the harmonious functioning of the universe and feel we need to go. If so, who could blame them?
Ann Milston
Forres, UK
Briefly
• Natalie Kon-yu bemoans the Nobel award to Bob Dylan and not to a woman, particularly “of colour” (21 October). Should the prize be awarded purely on merit, or not? Bertrand Russell taught us it is intellectually dishonest to argue rationally towards an emotionally desirable conclusion.
Edward Black
Church Point, NSW, Australia
• George Monbiot’s recent rehearsal of the woes of democratic systems (14 October) does little more than update the obvious. Perhaps even a stringent concentration in school education on the benefits and pitfalls of democracy and of the recognition that free discussion of differing views should be welcome, not feared, might not work either. But we could try it!
And, in hope of the possible, I am reminded of Churchill’s view: “Democracy is the worst form of government, except for all the others.”
David Blest
Dilston, Tasmania, Australia
Email letters for publication to weekly.letters@theguardian.com
