NOW and again there is an edition of The National that prompts me to wish to comment on more than one article. Tuesday’s was just such an edition. Let me take them in the order they appear. You will note that only one of them refers to the present brouhaha being experienced in London as several privileged, elitist bullies vie for the position of being able to line their own nest without fear of criticism – that of Prime Minister of the UK.
First: on page ten there is the article by Anne McLaughlin (Indy Scotland will get priorities right – unlike the Tories). This has answered a question for me. Last week I received a sum of money, directly deposited in my bank by the DWP. It was noted as “COL”. As it was a substantial sum, I wanted to make sure it wasn’t a mistake before I used it. However, Anne’s article has answered it by making it obvious to me that “COL” means cost of living.
But it does raise another question. It wasn’t £650; it was £326. Does that mean my cost of living is half of everybody else’s? Can I go into Morrisons and ask for a 50% reduction, as the government obviously has considered that I only need pay half what everyone else pays? I think not. So, where’s the other half of my cost-of-living payment?
READ MORE: Devolved nations send joint letter over cost-of-living
Second: the article on page 14, “Minister warns ocean crisis is ‘existential’”. I have said it before, and I will say it again. Yes, we have to cut down on greenhouse gas emissions, but that in itself will not solve the problem. There is a book by Sean B Carroll, an award-winning scientist and Professor of Molecular biology and genetics at the University of Wisconsin, called The Serengeti Rules: The quest to discover how life works and why it matters.
It describes various ecological experiments to discover how ecosystems work – from the Arctic to Africa, ending up in an analysis of the Serengeti and how it recovered from devastation caused by a cattle disease. It is a “must read” for anyone interested in global warming and its solution. Particularly relevant to our present situation is the description of an experiment carried out at Mukkaw Bay on the pacific coast, in Washington State, by Robert Paine, professor of Zoology at Washington State University. Page 111 of the book describes the thriving community of colourful marine creatures that existed in the tidal pools there. From seaweeds and larvae to crabs, small fish, mussels and barnacles – and starfish, which were the top predators.
READ MORE: Scotland's temperature broke 35C on hottest day ever, Met Office says
Paige removed the main predators from one pool and left another, further down the coast, as a control. He threw all the starfish that were in one pool as far as he could out into the ocean. Within a year the species in that pool had been cut in half and within five years there were only bare rocks covered in barnacles and mussels, which had taken over all the territory and eaten all the food.
On this planet, we are the barnacles and mussels. We are taking over all the territory and other species are dying off because of destruction of their habitat. Not only that, but we are also causing so much pollution that the planet can no longer cope with it and is slowly being destroyed by our greed – like the oxygen-producing algae in the Atlantic that have died off.
There used to be predators that kept our numbers under control – just like the starfish that kept the mussels under control in the rock pool. In our case it was germs and viruses that caused occasional plagues and disease and kept the population of the planet down to about 1.5 to 2 billion until the end of the 19th century. Then we discovered vaccinations and antibiotics, and were able to throw the starfish out of our pool. Today there are some 7.5-8 billion humans on the planet and, as the number grows, it will only get worse. We can’t bring back the disease but we really need to restrict the human numbers. Maybe mandatory birth control needs to be considered as a solution. Not very palatable but probably necessary.
Finally, pages 26 & 27 of the letters’ pages and the comment by Penny Mordaunt about England needing to celebrate Rabbie Burns to make everything right between them and Scotland. Well, I’ve got news for her. There are Burns clubs all across Russia, but they haven’t improved Russia’s behaviour towards Ukraine. I don’t think they would improve Westminster’s behaviour towards us!
Charlie Kerr
Glenrothes
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