Dear Sir/Madam,

I cannot help wondering whether the publication in last Thursday's NYT of two articles - one on the furor over Richard Grasso’s pay package (Chairman Quits Stock Exchange in Furor Over Pay), the other on the genetic basis of fairness (Genetic Basis to Fairness, Study Hints) - was purely coincidental.

In view of American income differentials, the disproportionality of which is exemplified in Mr Grasso’s $140 million pay package, one must necessarily conclude that if there is a genetic basis to "fairness", it has developed very little in Homo sapiens since our departure from the common primate line.

This is a great shame, because a sense of "fairness" and" proportionality" is essential if we are to achieve sustainability on our imperilled planet, Spaceship Earth, with its limited resources and finite carrying capacity.

We have all heard about the "straw that broke the camel's back". But have you ever wondered, whose straw was to blame?

Paradoxically, it was no one's and everyone's. Assuming, of course, that everyone placed just one, or the same number of straws on the camel's back.

The answer is rather different, however, if some people placed more straws on its back than others.

Let the camel represent Earth's finite carrying capacity, on which each of us has to place a certain number of straws in order to live. Although we do not know exactly how many it can carry, we do, or should know by now that there is a limit - which will be exceeded if increasing numbers of people continue to pile on more and more straws.

Insanely, this is exactly what we are doing. Everyone can pile as many straws onto the camel's back as they have - or can borrow - the money to pay for, and are encouraged to do so, not just by their natural inclinations, but also by a growth-dependent economy and its multibillion dollar credit and advertising industries.

It is difficult recognising the "insanity of normality", which we have all grown up with, especially when so much (our jobs, investments, lifestyles, aspirations, etc. in short, the American Way of Life) depends on it.

But if we don't, we're extinct!

We need to estimate roughly how many straws the camel's back can support, because we don't want to go anywhere near that limit. Not unless we are completely mad.

Then we have to discuss the degree of "fairness" with which this "limited" number of straws should be allocated amongst Earth's 6 (soon 7-9) billion human inhabitants.