LETTERS TO THE EDITOR

PRUNING

WITH spring well and truly here, I wanted to remind residents to cut back any over-hanging branches or over-grown gardens that may impede pedestrian traffic along footpaths outside their properties.

Likewise, Toowoomba Regional Council should ensure that its “street” trees are pruned for the very same reason.

Lastly, vehicles such as cars, utes and trucks parked on footpaths also impede pedestrian traffic.

It is unsafe to force pedestrians onto roadways to move around these vehicles. FRANK ONDRUS, Toowoomba

4WDS

I THINK it is the height of ignorance when a 4WD owner parks their monstrosity next to a smaller car.

Sorry 4WD owners, but your vehicles are not transparent. How the heck is a smaller car supposed to see through one when backing out of an angle park?

I really believe the only reason people have to get one is to annoy the hell out of every other car on the road. It must be a real ego trip for them. DAVE FREDERICKS, Toowoomba

KEEPING NAMES

THE controversy surrounding the renaming of the Lady Cilento Children’s Hospital brings back memories of my passionate, but fruitless quest to retain the names of the various residential establishments run by the Endeavour Association.

These names – Phillips, Townsend, Martin, Hoepper and Mann recognised the amazing work accomplished over many years by these wonderful people.

Mrs Sheila Littler from Warwick and I spent months writing letters and visiting members of the Foundation without success.

In my opinion, we should honour those who have dedicated their lives to the work of the foundation, as well as those who made significant financial contributions so that all who need assistance are afforded productive, safe and happy lives. They should not be forgotten.

I hope the hospital will retain it’s name honouring Lady Cilento. NORMA TEMPLEMAN, Toowoomba

STUDENT STRIKE

SO NEARLY 10,000 students went on strike to force our government to take action on “climate change”?

Well... guess what the majority of these students were doing when they weren’t waving banners and chanting infantile rhyming?

Yep, you got it. They were taking “selfies,” texting their friends and contacts on their mobile phones.

According to research, one mobile phone using one hour per day is equivalent to the C02 emissions of a London to New York Airline flight one way.

The C02 emissions in this instance total 125 million tonnes which we all know is a lot of carbon. However, let’s multiply that amount by the 10,000 or so students, who use their mobiles for an hour a day over the year, which equals 1,250,000,000,000 tonnes of C02. (One trillion two hundred and fifty billion tonnes) causing climate change and destroying our planet

So the students don’t need to demand action from our government, they should take the responsibility for selfishly damaging our planet and who basically could not care less. But there’s more!

The mobiles or IPads they are replacing every time the new model is released, are manufactured in China in massive factories, using guess what for energy? Yes it’s coal. Because renewables do not create the substantial amount of power required to operate these conglomerates.

And, you can also guess where the energy source originates?

Yes, right again, it’s Australia. From coal mines just like Adani. Because the majority of these Chinese factories rely on coal-fired power stations of which China is actually building many more.

Perhaps these students ought to have done just a little research before wasting our time and interrupting their valuable learning schedule. BRIAN SAYERS, Millmerran