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Letter of the month Making connections I always read the Worldwatch and Climatewatch sections that start your excellent magazine with great interest. I also refer back to previous insertions, and it’s this that leads me to suggest that the individual contributions don’t always appear to make a coherent whole. It sometimes gives the impression of isolated experts, each intently putting together part of a jigsaw while unaware of the appearance of the other pieces. A very simple example involves overfishing, declining phytoplankton, burgeoning grey seal numbers, and an increase in seabird populations. Food chains and predator–prey relationships seem to suggest a contradiction. intently putting together part of a jigsaw while unaware of the appearance of the other It would be helpful to inexpert but interested ‘lay’ readers such as myself if a team of geographers (possibly looking for a desk study) could do what I have done in a more professional way and provide an overview that would surely enhance the value of your magazine. As a suggestion, recent (and not so recent) offerings on freshwater, that is its movement, sources, sinks and holding zones, could benefit from such analysis. Ron Pursell, Flookburgh, Cumbria Levy could offer dividends The Dossier by Mark Rowe on carbon trading markets (Playing the market, December 2010) describes the failures to date of the Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS) to significantly either raise the price of carbon or reduce carbon dioxide emissions by industry. As well as those failures, the ETS applies only to big polluters, leaving about half of CO2 emissions untouched, including those from transport, agriculture and domestic activity. The alternative of a carbon tax is dismissed as being politically difficult. A major reason for political difficulty is that a significant tax would have an impact on domestic heating, affecting the poor and the ‘fuel poor’. The latter difficulty can be overcome by paying back every penny raised as a cash dividend to the whole population on an equal-per-head basis. People with large carbon footprints subsidise those with small carbon footprints. All of the poor and nearly all of the fuel poor will be better off. With the poor protected, the tax can be large, for example £100+/tonne of CO2. With an across-the-board carbon tax on the production and import of fossil fuels, the impact on industry is halved, as it applies to 100 per cent of fossil fuel use rather than 50 per cent. There are issues, including those to do with international trade, but these can be addressed in reasonable ways. However, there will of course still be opposition. As there is no money kept by governments, the tax can be called a levy. Carbon-levy-with-dividend schemes are advocated by, among others, James Hansen, the leading US climate scientist. Compared with the ETS, there should be much less fraud, and administration would be relatively cheap. Carbon levy with dividend is a fair and effective way to reduce CO2 through market forces. Stewart Reddaway, Ashwell, Baldock, Herts Full set needs home We have in our possession an almost complete set of Geographicals that we would like to dispose of to a good home. Volumes one to 27 are bound, as are a few volumes in the late 1960s; otherwise they are all unbound copies. We are quite happy to give the set away but the proviso is that it would have to be collected from our house in Bedford. Roy Morgan, via email Anyone interested in taking up Roy’s offer should contact the Geographical editorial office by calling 020 8332 2713 or emailing magazine@geographical.co.uk Urban outfitting I wonder if your contributors to Essential gear might turn their attention to equipment for places with a slightly higher population density than the Catlin static ice base or central Iceland. Central London for the January sales springs to mind. My wife and I have spent the past ten years in south India and Singapore, and our wardrobe is definitely equatorial. On a late-November expedition to London for some emergency supplies, we were faced with outside temperatures close to 0°C, reduced further by the wind-chill of the canyons around Oxford Street, and internal ones (M&S, Debenhams, HMV) in the mid-20s. Do your experts have advice Letters to the editor THE LETTER OF THE MONTH RECEIVES A BOTTLE OF CHAMPAGNE GH MUMM CORDON ROUGE Letters to the editor can be emailed to geordie@geographical.co.uk. Please remember to include your full address and contact details. Letters may be edited. Geographical, Circle Publishing, 1 Victoria Villas, Richmond, Surrey TW9 2GW. Telephone: 020 8332 2713 Fax: 020 8332 9307 78 www.geographical.co.uk JANUARY 2011
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| MAIL bag | on suitable clothing, bearing in mind such factors as ease of removal in changing rooms, and for footwear suitable for pounding the London streets while still being acceptable at the Colosseum? Phil Crook, Carthage Hannibal, Tunisia Ed replies: Keep an eye out for March’s instalment, which features a walk around the M25 in the depths of winter Watershed moment It’s unfortunate to see the American usage of the word ‘watershed’ creeping into Geographical – in the Worldwatch story ‘Water insecurity affects billions’ in the December issue. The problem with this American usage for the area of land within a watershed is that it leaves no word to label the perimeter of the catchment. Dr John Heathcote, Thurso, Highland Outstanding imagery Just wanted to say that the photography in your December edition was really quite extraordinary. The shots of Britain from the air (power stations, islands covered in gannets, floods, viaducts); the underwater images of tuna shoals; the almost monochrome picture of the moment a landslide hit the Hunza Valley in Pakistan; the near-abstract image of the Interoceanic Highway slicing a red gash across Peru’s Amazonian rainforest; each time I turned the page, the images seemed to get better and better. Keep up the good work. And please ignore Todd Curry, who complained about the use of Photoshop in the production of your October front cover (Letters, December 2010). That was my favourite cover of 2010. We need to remember that photography has always been an amalgamation of pre-, post-, and in-camera production. Just look at the amount of post-production work Ansel Adams did to his prints in the darkroom. I don’t think that anyone would refer to his images as a ‘very poor show indeed’. Luke Foulkes, via email C R O S S W O R D Z E I P R O C T OBER C R O S S W O R D S O L U T I O N S ACROSS: 1 Libya 4 Salalah 8 Ohio 9 Sonar 10 Isle 11 Freetown 12 Eddies 13 Island 15 Rockies 17 Augusta 19 Bad Ems 20 Zagreb 22 Flounder 24 El Al 25 Roust 26 SUVA 27 Sextant 28 Ready DOWN: 1 Lahar 2 Boomerang 3 Abscond 4 San Andreas Fault 5 Larsen C 6 Laird 7 Hilversum 14 Star atlas 16 Indonesia 18 Siberia 19 Bloater 21 Relax 23 Envoy Print out your copy of the prize crossword today at www.geographical.co.uk/crossword Send your entry to the editorial address on page four, marked ‘January crossword’. The first correctly completed crossword selected at random wins a copy of the Philip’s Atlas of the World, a comprehensive hardback atlas worth £75. For further details, visit www.philips-maps.co.uk. Entries close 31 January A c r o s s 1 A Bordeaux wine makes yours truly a physician (5) 4 French spirit is part of regular Magna Carta (8) 8 Prince admits half of Azov is part of a state (8) 9/12 South American archipelago: Reg featured oil spills (6,3,5) 10 Copenhagen’s famous gardens – in central Italy? (6) 11 US state, first 3/8ths in a poor condition (8) 12 See 9ac 14 How very sad: only 1/3 of Kansas is a US state (6) 15 A view from Alhambra – spectacular! (6) 17 Circle through the poles put French sea by India, oddly (8) 19 Main environmental disaster? (3,5) 21 African capital stored in Helsinki, Galilee... (6) 23 Brittany resort needs Kuwaiti money by start of day (6) 24 Siam once Latin had changed (8) 25 British dependency the Spanish located in Athens, oddly! (2,6) 26 Malay Archipelago islands’ endless first day of the week (5) D ow n 1 Area of glacial debris – extra precipitation, we hear (7) 2 Philippine city might produce avocados (not cos) (5) 3 Vast land mass Columbus initially intent on breaking up (9) 4 New World voyager, part dreamer, Igor (7) 5 Accommodation in remote location (5) 6 Insurance for motorist abroad requires ecological vehicle with date (5,4) 7 Fed up with flying needing to use a bag on board? (7) 13 South African province that’s been fruitless since 1995! (4,5) 14 If Ankara’s rioting, it’s heard in South Africa (9) 16 Winter sports facility for those about to go downhill (3-4) 17 Territorial force’s unusual limitation not removed (7) 18 Georgian city Natal rebuilt – thanks! (7) 20 Tributary of the Loire partly behind reservoir (5) 22 Align badly Iranian province (5) JANUARY 2011 www.geographical.co.uk 79

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on suitable clothing, bearing in mind such factors as ease of removal in changing rooms, and for footwear suitable for pounding the London streets while still being acceptable at the Colosseum? Phil Crook, Carthage Hannibal, Tunisia

Ed replies: Keep an eye out for March’s instalment, which features a walk around the M25 in the depths of winter

Watershed moment It’s unfortunate to see the American usage of the word ‘watershed’ creeping into Geographical – in the Worldwatch story ‘Water insecurity affects billions’ in the

December issue. The problem with this American usage for the area of land within a watershed is that it leaves no word to label the perimeter of the catchment. Dr John Heathcote, Thurso, Highland

Outstanding imagery Just wanted to say that the photography in your December edition was really quite extraordinary. The shots of Britain from the air (power stations, islands covered in gannets, floods, viaducts); the underwater images of tuna shoals; the almost monochrome picture of the moment a landslide hit the Hunza Valley in Pakistan; the near-abstract image of the Interoceanic

Highway slicing a red gash across Peru’s Amazonian rainforest; each time I turned the page, the images seemed to get better and better. Keep up the good work.

And please ignore Todd Curry, who complained about the use of Photoshop in the production of your October front cover (Letters, December 2010). That was my favourite cover of 2010. We need to remember that photography has always been an amalgamation of pre-, post-, and in-camera production. Just look at the amount of post-production work Ansel Adams did to his prints in the darkroom. I don’t think that anyone would refer to his images as a ‘very poor show indeed’. Luke Foulkes, via email

C R O S S W O R D

Z E

I

P R

O C T OBER C R O S S W O R D S O L U T I O N S

ACROSS: 1 Libya 4 Salalah 8 Ohio 9 Sonar 10 Isle 11 Freetown 12 Eddies 13 Island 15 Rockies 17 Augusta 19 Bad Ems 20 Zagreb 22 Flounder 24 El Al 25 Roust 26 SUVA 27 Sextant 28 Ready

DOWN: 1 Lahar 2 Boomerang 3 Abscond 4 San Andreas Fault 5 Larsen C 6 Laird 7 Hilversum

14 Star atlas 16 Indonesia 18 Siberia 19 Bloater 21 Relax 23 Envoy

Print out your copy of the prize crossword today at www.geographical.co.uk/crossword

Send your entry to the editorial address on page four, marked ‘January crossword’. The first correctly completed crossword selected at random wins a copy of the Philip’s Atlas of the World, a comprehensive hardback atlas worth £75. For further details, visit www.philips-maps.co.uk. Entries close 31 January

A c r o s s

1 A Bordeaux wine makes yours truly a physician (5) 4 French spirit is part of regular Magna Carta (8) 8 Prince admits half of Azov is part of a state (8) 9/12 South American archipelago: Reg featured oil spills (6,3,5) 10 Copenhagen’s famous gardens – in central Italy? (6) 11 US state, first 3/8ths in a poor condition (8) 12 See 9ac 14 How very sad: only 1/3 of Kansas is a US state (6) 15 A view from Alhambra – spectacular! (6) 17 Circle through the poles put French sea by India, oddly (8) 19 Main environmental disaster? (3,5) 21 African capital stored in Helsinki, Galilee... (6) 23 Brittany resort needs Kuwaiti money by start of day (6) 24 Siam once Latin had changed (8) 25 British dependency the Spanish located in

Athens, oddly! (2,6) 26 Malay Archipelago islands’ endless first day of the week (5)

D ow n

1 Area of glacial debris – extra precipitation,

we hear (7) 2 Philippine city might produce avocados

(not cos) (5) 3 Vast land mass Columbus initially intent on breaking up (9) 4 New World voyager, part dreamer, Igor (7) 5 Accommodation in remote location (5) 6 Insurance for motorist abroad requires ecological vehicle with date (5,4) 7 Fed up with flying needing to use a bag on board? (7) 13 South African province that’s been fruitless since 1995! (4,5) 14 If Ankara’s rioting, it’s heard in South Africa (9) 16 Winter sports facility for those about to go downhill (3-4) 17 Territorial force’s unusual limitation not removed (7) 18 Georgian city Natal rebuilt – thanks! (7) 20 Tributary of the Loire partly behind reservoir (5) 22 Align badly Iranian province (5)

JANUARY 2011 www.geographical.co.uk 79

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