Pope’s population omission
There is much to be applauded in Pope Francis’s encyclical (Pope speaks out on climate change, 26 June). His references to the “ecological crisis”, “fragility of the planet” and the need to respect the limitations of a “finite world” are very welcome indeed.
He rightly recognises that fossil fuels have to be replaced with renewables without delay and he calls for binding, enforceable international agreements on carbon pollution. He well understands the science, no doubt thanks to his adviser and leading climate scientist, Hans Joachim Schellnhuber of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research. Nevertheless, his refusal to acknowledge population growth as a contributing factor flies in the face of the limitations of the finite world. It is at odds with the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change which says that population growth, along with socio-economic development, is a driver of climate change.
Global population today is more than 7 billion and growing by 82 million a year, equivalent to a country the size of Germany, according to the UN. The encroachment of cities and farmland on natural habitat is the underlying cause of biodiversity loss and, indeed, the whole ecological crisis.
The pope simply must revisit the 1968 Humanae Vitae encyclical and allow Catholics to use modern contraception, even if he sticks to his church’s opposition to abortion.
Jenny Goldie
Michelago, NSW, Australia
Borders open – for business
In his article on the global crisis of the unprecedented number of refugees fleeing wars (26 June), Simon Jenkins writes that “open borders carry an unacceptable political price for national governments”.
This is today’s world in a nutshell. Governments – with the exception of countries like Greece – are racing to outdo one another to open borders for corporations and capital without hindrance, to allow them to move freely and to subsidise them. Only human beings are restricted in where and when they travel or reside, and only human beings are subjected to “austerity measures”.
Imre Bokor
Armidale , NSW, Australia
US not blameless in Honduras
Nina Lakhani (Corruption scandal embroils Honduras, 19 June) states that Honduras had good quality government-run healthcare until the military-backed coup and that corruption runs rampant as President Barack Obama urges millions in funding for anti-migration measures.
Yet Lakhani is strangely silent on the US role in the 2009 coup; even Hillary Clinton (in her memoir Hard Choices) admits she used her powers to make sure elected president Manuel Zelaya would not return to power. Another US triumph which we should not forget.
Christine Barnard
London, UK
Banda’s questions to answer
In the euphoria that comes with an ex-president of Malawi who is comfortable with the western media (22 May), it must be remembered that Joyce Banda still has a few questions to answer about her own, and her family’s, involvement in the monstrous Cashgate scandal.
The Mutharika family, which ruled Malawi under president Bingu wa Mutharika – and continues to rule now under his brother, Peter – and their DPP political party, certainly have most to answer for in the “gap” of 577bn kwacha ($111m) in government accounts for the 2009-14 period exposed in the PricewaterhouseCoopers Final analytics report recently presented to Malawi’s parliament.
But Banda and her own People’s party are not entirely above suspicion and need to be more open about their own experiences at the head of a very corrupt administration during a part of that time.
Nicholas Wright
Woodbridge, UK
Technology’s shortcomings
We are reminded, this time by the computer scientist Kentaro Toyama (Comment, 19 June), that as in any other human endeavour, advances in technology can be undermined by “corrupt or inept collaborators”. That is why we as elders in a whizz-bang computer society should assume responsibility and advise caution to those younger than us who are often, ironically, more adept at operating these new machines.
The now omnipresent computers and the internet that the last century has spawned are, as we have come to find out, not invincible. The “world wide web” is certainly not a foolproof guide to healthy living, as witness its use by “corrupt and inept” individuals who self-aggrandise, propagandise, and proselytise on their vanity websites, blogs and the various forms of online social media that millions of people can readily access, and from which their inventors daily acquire huge profits.
Richard Orlando
Westmount, Quebec, Canada
Life, learning and tequila
I was saddened by your story on the decline of hand-harvested tequila (12 June). It’s yet another example of loss in a world that’s losing far too much far too fast, and especially because of what the word “study” has come to stand for in that world.
I have a daughter who did a lot of studying. Halfway through her master’s course, she announced that “no way was she going to spend the rest of her life analysing data for people to twist”. Four years on, she’s the owner, manager and sole workforce of a local shop/cafe/concert venue in a village that hadn’t had a shop for 30 years. She’s not making much money and works very long hours, but she’s very happy – and so is her community. The concerts bring in regulars and visitors of all ages – and political persuasions – who all squash in happily for every imaginable kind of live music once a month and to chat with the musicians afterwards.
I was proud of her for studying, but I’m even prouder that those studies never made her lose her sense of what’s valuable in life – and what isn’t. Maybe one day the missing agave harvesters will start coming back, studies and all, to breathe new life into what was lost, and bring new ways of understanding what makes life worth living.
Ilona Bossanyi
St Sardos, France
Violence and the west
While I agree with Ian Thomson, in his book review of Violence: A Modern Obsession (Why the west has renounced savagery, 19 June), in some aspects, I wonder how black people in the US feel about the savagery inflicted on them by some police forces on a routine basis?
The west may not be violent in the west, but it certainly makes up for that by the terror it inflicts in other countries. How can drones be anything but indiscriminate murder machines? How can the UK not have a guilty conscience when it has the biggest arms show in the world, where regimes can buy at will without too many questions being asked? I do wish that Thomson had brought up some of these items in his review.
Gemma Hensey
Westport, Ireland
Briefly
• I appreciated Hadley Freeman’s article about British attitudes to alcohol abuse (12 June). I was busy binge drinking from age 17 to 27 when I left the UK. I was also chronically depressed and repressed. With hindsight, I was angry about how I had been treated at home and in school with no way of expressing it.
As I struggle for self-expression in my vocal-improv class I can see that it is about letting go of the strangle-hold on my throat, which I have endured since childhood. People in Canada recognise this as a human – but particularly British – problem.
Edward Butterworth
Victoria, British Columbia, Canada
• Re the article about volunteers for a one-way mission to Mars (19 June). I believe that in most countries it is against the law to take one’s own life and to assist others to do so.
The one-way trip promoters to Mars, and the aspiring candidates, are therefore in a situation where they would be acting illegally and could be subject to prosecution. However, rather than use the threat of legal action it might be better to encourage psychiatric treatment.
Ray Sheldon
Bridgetown, Nova Scotia, Canada
• Re: Efforts to aid Rohingya refugees slow in coming (29 May) and Japan’s rural schools run out of students (15 May). Japan could offer aid to the Rohingya refugees and at the same time alleviate its population problems in places like Aone. By integrating refugee facilities in areas depleted of population by “a rapidly ageing society and miserable birthrate”, Japan could replace the people leaving outlying towns and cities. Killing two birds with one stone?
Marguerite Sivertz
Salmon Arm, British Columbia, Canada
• Allow me to take the liberty to complete Shami Chakrabarti’s sentence (Edward Snowden is a hero, 19 June): “Whether you are with or against Liberty in the debate about proportionate surveillance, [David] Anderson must be right to say that the people and our representatives should know about capabilities and practices built and conducted in our name” ... and with our taxes.
Ally Hauptmann-Gurski
Ingle Farm, South Australia
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