Letters: Air travel and the environment

Sir: Amid all the gloom in your 11 August edition I detected a ray of hope in Simon Calder's article on the effect on the airline industry. With a government which refuses to countenance taxation as a way of limiting growth in air travel, perhaps those of us concerned about environmental damage should hope that the alarm over terrorism has done some good in this respect.

As Simon Calder says in his article, business travellers seemed more ready to surrender their children than their laptops, Blackberries and mobile phones. The stress of current travel conditions may convince some of them that there are alternatives to travelling across the Atlantic for a face-to-face meeting.

Is it wrong for those of us who worry about the future of the planet to hope that the current regime of full body searches and hand luggage replaced by clear plastic bags is here to stay?

JUGGY PANDIT

LONDON SW13

Sir: I, like many other people travelling to and from the UK, travel to work, not to sunbathe. Hand luggage is not "an option". Thanks to this hysteria I will have to renounce travel by air, because I simply cannot afford to risk loss or damage to my laptop, which carries five years of hard scientific work. Bin Laden has won his anti-modern battle, as has Bush, well-known to dislike science and scientists.

CHIARA PERONI

FAENZA, ITALY

Sir: Airport officials will have to revise the panic criteria regarding items one can take on board an aircraft. It may be OK for short-haul travellers but a 24-hour flight to Australia without a change of knickers and a book to read is unimaginable. Meanwhile I shall fly Korean Air, which has an in-flight library on a trolley wheeled around the aircraft. As for a spare pair of pants, I shall wear these on my head.

CHRISTINE OSBORNE

LONDON SW8

Sir: If the "No hand baggage" rule for air passengers becomes permanent I wonder if the prices for refreshments airside in airports will mysteriously increase .

LAURENCE WILLIAMS

HOCKWOLD, NORFOLK

Terrorism is about methods, not causes

Sir: Any potential Islamic terrorist, seeing the reaction to last week's terror alert by Muslim organisations calling for an urgent change in British foreign policy, can only draw one conclusion - that terrorist actions work, in this case achieving the alienation of mainstream British Muslims from the British society in which they live.

The debate on terrorism is not about causes - presumably, within their own abominable minds, even the perpetrators of the Beslan school siege felt they could fully justify the capture and slaughter of mothers and children. With no shortage of causes and adversaries to justify those causes, the debate on terrorism is crucially about methods used to achieve objectives - after all, this has been the essence of the critique of Israel in recent weeks, that it used excessive, disproportionate methods in pursuit of its objectives in Lebanon.

That may be, but a comparison of Hizbollah's tactics with those of the Israeli army clearly demonstrates the significance of the Geneva Conventions in determining which methods of terror are within the rules of war and which not. The Geneva Convention states that combatants that shelter within human communities are endangering civilians and are thereby responsible for any subsequent casualties. The mass leafleting of southern Lebanon from the air should also be noted - the 900,000 or so displaced civilians in Lebanon prove that it was successful, that civilian populations were warned.

Hizbollah's indiscriminate rocket salvos, the daily Shia-Sunni carnage in Iraq, the train bombs in Mumbai and Madrid, the Bali disco bombing and so on all bear evidence to the direct targeting of civilians without any kind of warning by a complex variety of extreme Islamic organisations.

The attention of the British Muslim community should be clearly focused on establishing within the minds of their youth what are and what are not acceptable political methods. To blame British foreign policy for last week's terror alert simply means that they have become part of the terrorists' agenda.

STEWART WILLS

ALTRINCHAM, CHESHIRE

Sir: The now-standard Muslim response to Islamist terror plots runs something like this: "We condemn this sort of thing unreservedly - but leaving Saddam Hussein and the Taliban in power, refusing to help the hyperpower catch al-Qa'ida terrorists, abandoning post-liberation Iraq to civil war and condemning Israel for attacking Hizbollah might have prevented it!"

With variations of this spiel currently being repeated across all news media, it is important to recognise it as an insidious call for an Islamist veto on British foreign policy.

KEITH GILMOUR

GLASGOW

Sir: This is still (I hope) a civilised country, thank you, Stewart Trotter (letter, 9 August). I wonder if Mr. Trotter can propose a practical way to "know what British Muslims are thinking and doing" - or does he wish our nation of 60 million to descend to the level of the four young Muslims who blew up an innocent, diverse group of their fellow citizens?

What exactly do "we" have "every right" to do in order to know this? And does "we" include the Muslims who approve of the fatwa against the 7 July bombers? Or shall we tag them all like animals and follow them like Big Brother contestants?

ALICE SHEPPARD

HAVERFORDWEST, PEMBROKESHIRE

Sir: How on earth can the Government dismiss the letter from our Muslim great and good with the words that it is not interested in anything that "justifies or excuses" the terrorist threat to Britain? This sensible letter does neither; it seeks to explain.

The British public needs to understand why we are being singled out in this way. What happened to New Labour's claim to be tough on crime and tough on the causes of crime? Mr Blair's administration seems to have lost interest in causes now that it is one of them.

ADRIAN MOURBY

OXFORD

Sir: Many analysts are trying to paint the whole war on terrorism as an ideological war between the "enlightened" West and "fundamentalist" Muslims. What is not being pointed out is the uncritical support of every Israeli policy and quest for big wars by huge sections of the US Christian fundamentalists, who are eagerly waiting for the "fulfilment" of Biblical prophecies of Armageddon, the coming of Christ and Rapture. If the American government aims to tackle religious extremism, it would be helpful if it was more consistent in its approach.

HARIS AZIZ

COVENTRY

Sir: As a resident of Walthamstow of 24 years, and a Muslim (non-practising), I hope the police find evidence from the homes they have raided. Walthamstow is largely a harmonious community, and I would like to see it remain so. If no evidence turns up, then I fear we will have created yet more angry young Muslims and more potential radicals.

AMJED HUSSAIN

LONDON E17

Sir: If the police have succeeded in the apprehension of 21 terrorist suspects under present legislation, why would Mr Reid need to ask Parliament for stronger powers to deal with the terrorist threat in the future?

NIGEL BALDWIN

PORTSMOUTH, HAMPSHIRE

How poverty hits unborn children

Sir: You are right to draw attention to the riddle of early births and low birthweight ("Boom in premature births threatens a public health crisis", 2 August), but some answers are available.

Nutrition and health education were removed from the school curriculum and the Colleges of Domestic Science closed more than 30 years ago, which means new generations of parents have grown up, conceived and given birth without vital education that would help ensure healthy babies.

In 1972, the Institute of Brain Chemistry and Human Nutrition predicted that poor maternal nutrition, as a cause of permanent developmental brain disorder, would fuel an increase in mental illness unless nutritional education became part of public health policy. Their published epidemiological and experimental evidence, which had the support of the MRC and the WHO, robustly supports such prenatal programming for preventing vascular disease, obesity and the stunting and distorting of brain development. In 1991, the Commons Health Select Committee inquiry into maternity services agreed with them. Nothing was done.

In 1999, after the Zacchaeus 2000 Trust had commissioned the Family Budget Unit to research the minimum income needed for healthy living for a couple and a single mother with two young children, it became clear that statutory minimum incomes are so low that, even if they had the education needed, the food budgets of the poorest mothers of the UK are competing with the increasing price of utilities, transport, council tax, housing and unavoidable debt repayment, and losing.

We raised the alarm with the then Department of Social Security at a meeting with a minister and have frequently brought up the issue since, but the level of all unemployment benefits remains below the Government's poverty thresholds, and a draconian and complex benefit system leaves some women with no money or family support after leaving care or prison. Poor maternal nutrition is inevitable before and after conception.

Meanwhile the incidence of poverty-related low birthweight increases and the direct cost of mental illness to the NHS increases to more than £5bn a year.

THE REV PAUL NICOLSON

CHAIR, ZACCHAEUS 2000 TRUST LONDON N17

Students could face more anxiety

Sir: Your leader on A-levels (7 August) overlooks the salient advantage of the present system. As things stand, students take their A-levels in reassuring certainty about what they need to achieve in order to gain admission to the degree programme and university of their choice: most also have a fallback guarantee if results do not go as well as hoped. Furthermore, their early application has allowed plenty of time for researching the opportunities through open day visits etc.

Under the envisaged arrangements, students will prepare for examinations uncertain where and what they will be studying in just three months' time and, given a situation in which very large numbers of students present with top grades, many could not be certain that even excellent grades will gain them admission to "elite" institutions or high-demand courses.

As for the supposed "chaos" of Clearing, in reality it is a highly efficient way of allocating remaining places to the minority of students who have been disappointed by their results or have rethought their preferences. Clearing is a frenetically busy few days in the admissions calendar and an anxious one for students still without a place, but UCAS and the universities deserve praise for the efficiency with which the process is conducted. I suspect that chaos may be a term best reserved for a system in which every student is searching for a university place during the 10 weeks or so between A-level results and the start of the university year.

Whether the proposed changes will, as desired, benefit students from poorer backgrounds remains open to question.

JIM SIMPSON

LIVERPOOL

Marilyn Monroe was no mere victim

Sir: Terence Blacker's piece "Why do women still want to be losers?" (4 August) described Marilyn Monroe as having her legend built around being a beautiful victim.

Like many other young fans of Ms Monroe I admire her not just for her tragedies but also for her strengths. During the 1950s Ms Monroe stood up for herself against the studio system on numerous occasions, being suspended twice for taking a stand but also ultimately winning script and director approval and starting her own production company.

These concessions were at the time unprecedented. She also fought hard to improve her career on her own terms, even refusing to marry a man for his money when she was starting out in films. Far from seeing Ms Monroe as a victim, I see her as an early feminist icon who is continuing to be emulated by a great many movie stars and musicians.

NICOLA ANNE MONTAGUE

DUNDEE

Need for physics

Sir: It really does matter if the number of students studying physics is falling (The Big Question, 11 August). Can you make an informed decision about nuclear power without some knowledge of physics? You certainly can't develop a viable alternative.

ISOBEL PIPER

CAMBRIDGE

Visible pedestrians

Sir: If the EU is about to introduce a requirement for all moving vehicles to have headlights on at all times, can I suggest that all moving pedestrians should be required to wear yellow luminous jackets at all times?

KEITH MALPAS

WEST PENNARD, SOMERSET

Unwise diet

Sir: In your article "Invasion of the jellyfish" (12 August) you make the observation that "there are also debates about whether vegetarians can eat them since they have no brain". Rather a harsh sweeping statement about veggies, wouldn't you say?

BRUCE WOODHOUSE

GARGRAVE, NORTH YORKSHIRE

Modern art debunked

Sir: How refreshing to read that your arts pages have finally wised up to what the Stuckists have been saying since 1999 ("Mother of all tat", 11 August). As for having to "fight this battle" I think Tom Lubbock will find that we have been pretty much ridiculed for the last seven years for doing just that. Your gossip pages however seem to love us. Even Nicolas Serota appreciates the Stuckists now, and has promised to do a better job. It's nice to be liked and understood.

PAUL HARVEY

NEWCASTLE STUCKISTS

Running out of space

Sir: The free posters series is fantastic. My flat is beginning to resemble the National Gallery. But is it going on for much longer? Soon I shall have to start using the ceiling.

JEREMY Q SLEATH

LEAMINGTON SPA, WARWICKSHIRE

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