To: et.letters@telegraph.co.uk
Re: Partying on Spaceship Earth
Date: Fri, 16 Apr 1999 

Dear Sir,

I was incredulous at the article by your science editor in Wednesday's Telegraph, "A
sports car for Miss would put fizz into physics:"

"PHYSICS teachers should be provided with sports cars and persuaded to adopt a
more glamorous lifestyle to encourage more girls to take up careers in science
and engineering, a conference was told yesterday."  "Averil Macdonald, 41, an
educational consultant and part-time physics lecturer who drives a BMW 320i and
a Porsche 911, said the image of science had to be made more fashionable."

What kind of values are these? I USED to think that women had a bit more sense
than men. If these are the values guiding us into the 21st Century, then heaven
help us all! The like-style being embraced and advocated here is threatening
the LIFE-SUPPORT SYSTEMS of our planet, SPACESHIP EARTH. Anyone with a
scientific education should know better. There are SIX BILLION people living on
the planet at the moment and most of them are striving for the kind of
UNSUSTAINABLE LIFE-STYLE that we now lead. A little simple arithmetic (no need
for the physicist's higher mathematics) should make it clear to anyone that
such a life-style is simply unsustainable and MUST eventually lead to FAILURE
of Earth's life-support systems,  the consequences of which do not bear
thinking about.

Imagine a spaceship on its way to mars. The astronauts come out of their
induced slumber a week or so before reaching the red planet and, to mission
control's horror, start throwing a party - a part of their memory and reasoning
having been lost during their artificial sleep. Mission control has to make
clear to them that if they do not quickly pull themselves together and take
stock of their situation, they will overload their craft's life-support systems
and that will be the end.

The same applies to SPACESHIP EARTH, only it is difficult to comprehend because
the Earth is so huge. We need to remind ourselves that it also has a huge crew
- 6 billion of us. And if we continue with the kind of party we are currently
having in the West and which the rest of the world is eager to participate in,
it will soon be coming to a tragic end.

What I am trying to get across is not simply important. Our survival depends on
it! I know, it is difficult to believe that we can really be in such a serious
situation, after things have been going so well for so long. As long as the
party is in progress, the signs and sounds of the approaching disaster are
overheard or ignored.

I'm standing on a chair shouting at the top of my voice:
"When are you newspaper editors finally going to wake up to the danger we are
in? You are needed to convey the message to your readers. We do not have a lot
more time to pull ourselves together, take stock of our situation and start
moving rapidly towards a sustainable economy and the kind life-styles that our
planet can support indefinitely for its 6 billion inhabitants"