Convenience Big Store: He may be cute, but Geronimo must die 🦙🪓

10 August, 2021

In the headlines

Prince Andrew is being sued over alleged sexual abuse. Virginia Giuffre has filed a civil lawsuit in New York accusing him of assaulting her when she was 17. The prince denies the allegations. Nearly half of today's A-level results are As or A*s, up from just a quarter two years ago. Other grades are fast disappearing, says columnist Rod Liddle; they are "simply the forlorn ghosts from that stain on our lives we call 'the past', a time when students were unfairly judged on whether they knew anything or not". Ikea has made a candle that smells like meatballs for winners of a prize draw in the US. It comes in a jar: no assembly required.

Comment of the day

Geronimo with his owner, Helen Macdonald. PA Images/Alamy Stock Photo

He may be cute, but Geronimo must die

The hoo-ha about Geronimo the alpaca sums up everything that's wrong with Britain, says Henry Hill in UnHerd. For those unaware, the eight-year-old animal from Gloucestershire faces execution after twice testing positive for bovine tuberculosis. People are incensed. A "save Geronimo" petition has attracted more than 100,000 signatures. Yesterday, crowds marched to Downing Street with alpaca placards. The media is no better. "I beg you, Carrie, woman to woman... help save Geronimo," ran a headline in the Mail. "I'll take a bullet for Geronimo," said the Sun's front page. "Even the typically serious-minded Matthew Parris promised to 'never to be horrid about our prime minister again, if only he can save poor Geronimo'."

But taking a soft stance on infected animals – "even cute infected animals" – has serious consequences. Bovine TB kills 500 cattle every week. Allowing a disease-ridden alpaca to roam free would undermine our agricultural sector and make it harder to export our meat overseas. More broadly, Geronimo represents a uniquely British problem, "mawkish sentimentality and a refusal to accept the need for difficult trade-offs". It's a big reason this country gets little done and less built. If the government can't enforce our perfectly sensible disease-control policies, how can we expect it to do anything serious?

Meddle with the heavens to save the planet

You don't have to look far to see the direst consequences of climate change, says Clément Lacombe in L'Obs. But science's Doctor Frankensteins are excited by floods, forest fires and heat domes. In Dubai, scorched by 50C heat, they're using drones to diffuse salt crystals into the clouds and create artificial rain. Harvard's "high priest of solar geoengineering", David Keith, wants to inject a fine mist of sulphur dioxide particles into the atmosphere to reflect 1% of the sun's rays, a "would-be veil" to envelop the Earth. He says it would cost a piddling £10bn a year.

Can you blame these demiurges for piping up? In its alarmist new report, the IPCC says geoengineering must be looked at seriously to save life on earth. Our collective failure to reverse the curve of CO₂ emissions has revived boffins' "old Promethean dreams" of reshaping the world through technology. What's more, the pandemic has reminded us of all science can do for humanity. Eighteen months ago, messenger RNA vaccines were still science fiction. Meddling with the heavens is fraught with risk: if we start "seeding" the clouds, who knows what damage we might wreak? But it's not all baloney. So much the better if technological advances such as carbon capture and storage contribute to the long march towards net zero. "And so much the better if the craziest projects do not pass through the doors of the labs."

Why it matters

The target of limiting global warming to 1.5C could be breached within two decades, so attitudes to geoengineering need "rethinking", says the FT. Campaigners worry about safety and unintended consequences, and say the prospect of a technological fix won't push us to address emissions. But to stave off "hell on earth", the world "cannot afford to rule out anything".

Inside politics

Cop26 president Alok Sharma has been criticised for his globe-trotting, carbon-guzzling diplomatic trips ahead of the climate summit in Glasgow this November, but he insists they're "no holiday". Sharma and his team have gone through so many Covid tests, they've compiled a league table of the most aggressive swabbers: "Germany stands head and shoulders above the rest."

Noted

Giraffes are "secret socialites". A study published in Mammal Review reveals they're not "loners", as once thought, but socially complex animals akin to chimps and elephants. Female giraffes enjoy lifelong bonds and take turns babysitting and feeding each other's young in "crèches". They have "lunch buddies", says The New York Times, stay close to their mothers and grandmothers, and stand guard over dead calves for days without food and water.

On the way out

The word curry, which a Californian food blogger wants us to "unlearn" because it's rooted in colonialism. It's believed to be an anglicised form of kari, meaning sauce in Tamil. The food in India "changes every 100km and yet we're still using this umbrella term popularised by white people who couldn't be bothered to learn the actual names of our dishes", said Chaheti Bansal, 27, in an Instagram video that's been viewed 3.6m times.

Snapshot

Quirk of history

The Catcher in the Rye's author, JD Salinger, was so private, there's only one known recording of his voice. In 1980 reporter Betty Eppes sneaked a recorder into lunch with him and taped their conversation. I've been offered $500,000 for it, says Eppes in Bloomberg, but I feel too guilty: "That tape is not mine to give or sell." When she dies the tape will be placed with her body – "in the crematorium".

Snapshot answer

It's a £70,200 painting by Cathy Wilkes, a Turner prize nominee from Northern Ireland, that has been bought to adorn the walls of Downing Street. The money for this, and for another £18,775 artwork, came from the Government Art Collection, which is part-funded by the taxpayer, says The Daily Mirror. It tops the £58,000 refurb with £840-a-roll gold wallpaper demanded by the PM's wife, Carrie, that caused such a stir earlier this year.

Quoted

"If the teachers didn't give you the A level results you were hoping for, don't worry. I got a C and 2 Us and I've ended up happy, with loads of friends and a Bentley."

Jeremy Clarkson on Twitter