China’s rise to dominance
The continuing rise of China to global dominance through the rest of this century seems inevitable under the “iron grip” of chairman Xi Jinping and his successors (20 October). The matter of Chinese dominance in regard to soft power internally and externally is, however, more problematic, leaving a degree of openness in regard to both human rights and forms of democracy as well as future structures for global and regional governance.
Important as these matters are, they are dwarfed by two more fundamental questions in regard to the future of capitalism. First, can capitalism be reformed to ensure planetary survival and turn around economic and social inequalities? If not, can capitalism be replaced with an economic and social system that offers a better prospect for the planet, and the many – not just the few?
Can we both fulfil the Chinese dream and other dreams while avoiding a planetary nightmare?
Stewart Sweeney
Adelaide, South Australia
Farming is not the answer
George Monbiot is correct in saying that grazing ruminants are less efficient producers of food (13 October). However, much of the world’s land area is not suitable for growing crops; its natural ecosystem is one of perennial deep-rooted grasses that were maintained by large herds of ruminants. Farming this land has in general been an ecological disaster: witness the US dust bowl or the so-called virgin lands campaign under Khrushchev. With careful management to mimic the herds of yesteryear, these fragile lands can be successfully grazed to produce high-quality protein. Land in less arid regions, such as New Zealand, which is too steep for crops, can also be sustainably managed with ruminants.
We should not be destroying virgin ecosystems to grow ruminant protein, but neither should we do the same to grow soya beans. We have large areas of land that have been grazed for generations. Replacing all the protein produced on this land with soy would still require a sizable area of land, and where is this land to be found? There is a place in the world for sustainable production of grass-fed meat: on land not suitable for cultivation.
Dave Read
Wairoa, New Zealand
The population problem
We would all love to preserve the remaining wild places in the world and get rid of all the cities and farms that have replaced so much of our planet’s ecosystem. Or would we?
How many of us are prepared to give up our creature comforts for the life of a hunter-gatherer facing all the challenges of nature in the raw? And if we aren’t prepared to, what right have we to deny others the opportunity to have better lives in order to make us feel good about the environment?
A rapid route to destruction? (6 October) deplores the development of dams, farms and hydropower in the Amazon basin while choosing to either ignore or discount the reasons for the development: the ever-growing demands of an ever-growing human population.
We are faced with a stark choice: curb our population or reduce the wildlife that competes for the same resources. Campaigns to prevent development are futile misdirections of resources that would be better employed in addressing the reasons why such development occurs. Or is that too sophisticated an approach for environmental activists?
David Barker
Bunbury, Western Australia
Briefly
• Katherine Norbury’s lovely review (20 October) of The Lost Words, in which Robert Macfarlane and Jackie Morris direct our attention to conserving the vocabulary of the natural world, reminded me of Alasdair Maclean’s reflections about names and places in his memoir Night Falls on Ardnamurchan: “Civilisation begins with names and must end when they end … Without names for ourselves and our possessions and places we return to the void.”
Alastair Hulbert
Edinburgh, UK
• Oliver Burkeman’s column nearly always gives me a strange feeling that whatever part of the human race he is a member of, it is not the part that I belong to (20 October). I suspect that his group is the one my nephew also belongs to: he seems to find it incomprehensible that I don’t go rushing out to get an updated iPhone or other e-gadget. I find it difficult to believe that people can take these things seriously; they usually end up giving me the same sort of look that I’m giving them. Namely: “are you living on the same planet as me?”
Michael Barton
Gamle Fredrikstad, Norway
• Gary Younge’s utopia is naively imagined (We should value people more than money, 20 October). I have travelled the world for more than 20 years and in almost every country I have visited, hordes of people have asked me “Can you please help me come to Australia?” Rarely is this due to do with a “well-founded fear of persecution”, but rather a desire for our lifestyle.
Should we just let them all come? How many billions of people should Australia have? Unfortunately, it is far from a realistic option to fix the arbitrary lottery of life.
Richard Abram
Sydney, Australia
• In her story about the newly opened airport on St Helena (20 October), how come Emma Weaver has omitted the main attraction of the island: Napoleon?
Marguerite Laboulle
Hastière-Lavaux, Belgium
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