It was not "England's" most significant naval victory but Britain's. This confusion between "England" and "Britain" is only too common and causes irritation in the other constituent countries of the United Kingdom. Nelson himself was not immune from the same error as his words to the British Fleet clearly indicate. If we really do have an English Navy then why is the whole cost not met by English taxpayers?CHARLES PAYNE GORDONST ANDREWS, FIFE Too naughty Sir: Guy Keleny writes "...it became acceptable to print naughty words in a respectable newspaper" (Errors and Omissions, 15 October) and it may be so within the circle of newspaper publishing, but not so, I maintain, to the wider circle of readers.
I cannot say that I know anyone who uses, for example, the word attributed to "Crowe" by Guy.DAVID WILFORDNINFIELD, EAST SUSSEX Congestion tax Sir: Embassies may be quite correct to refuse to pay the Congestion Charge. It is a tax every bit as much as the annual licence disc is a tax for putting your car on a public road. The C-charge is a supplementary licence to put a car on a public road in a prescribed area during prescribed hours. As such it is a tax.G LAWSONBEXHILL-ON-SEA, EAST SUSSEX Night to remember Sir: Your readers (Letters, 19 October) want to refer to Bonfire Night as 5/11 or 11/5. In the interests of those less antiquated than them and me, should we not get up-to-date and refer to 30p or 57p? "30p day" probably has the better ring.MIKE JONESHERTFORD Banned birds Sir: Further to the proposed ban on hen nights (Letters, 20 October), I suggest a 50 per cent shortening of cock and bull stories and a complete cull of the seasonal round robin.SHANE MALHOTRAMAIDSTONE, KENT. The Amazon rainforest is being destroyed twice as quickly as previously estimated, according to a satellite survey of the region. Scientists have discovered that previous satellite photographs of the Amazon have missed a form of surreptitious logging that is equally destructive, but not as apparent from space.Now a team of American and Brazilian specialists have for the first time been able to assess from space the damage done by "selective logging", when one or two trees are removed leaving surrounding trees intact. They found that selective logging of mahogany and other valuable hardwood trees, which is often illegal, is destroying an area of the Amazon equal to that razed by conventional logging.Gregory Asner, one of the leaders of the study published today in the journal Science, said that the new satellite technique has provided a shocking insight into the true scale of Amazonian destruction."People have been monitoring large-scale deforestation in the Amazon with satellites for more than two decades, but selective logging has been mostly invisible until now," said Dr Asner, a researcher at the Carnegie Institution in Washington and Stanford University in California."With this new technology, we are able to detect openings in the forest canopy down to just one or two individual trees," he said.
Across its vastness there is evidence of the effects of global warming and its impact on the environment.On a recent fact-finding tour of Alaska The Independent was confronted by glaciers dating from the last Ice Age that are in rapid retreat; by spruce forests that have been destroyed by a surge in the spruce bark beetle population; and by roads and buildings that have collapsed because the permafrost on which they were built is thawing.Meanwhile, in the remote north and north-west of the state, millions of dollars are being spent to relocate native villages threatened by erosion, a process exacerbated by the absence of the winter ice which normally protects the shoreline. By now there should be ice here." The absence of the ice sheet in the small Inupiat community may not appear to be the most striking news. But here in Alaska, the most sparsely populated state in the US, it is just one sign among many that something extraordinary is happening to the landscape. "We have been saying this for a number of years," sighed Eugene Brower, the local fire chief in the native Alaskan community of Barrow and captain of a whale-hunting boat "In the Fall, it takes longer for the ocean to freeze. But this year, that ice is more than 100 miles from the shore. At this time of year the shoreline in this remote, northerly spot should be frozen solid.
