Letters
Size is not everything
EARLIER this week Brett Duck (24/8) defended our Olympians for their guts and determination.
Fair enough, but using the old argument “other countries are bigger than us” is only half the picture.
Smaller countries have regularly outperformed Australia at every Olympics since Sydney. Notably NZ and Jamaica, who over-performed with their medals per population in London and once again in Rio.
Corrected for population, Australia’s spot on the medal table drops to 14th.
Whereas NZ won 18 medals despite having just 4.5 million people.
That’s equivalent to Australia winning 90 medals!
And the Jamaican sprinters dominated the sprint medals again, with just 2.5 million people.
Sorry, but it’s not us punching above our weight. Andrew Ferns, Ellis Beach
Men are also victims
CONGRATULATIONS to Julian Tomlinson (25/8) for shining the torch into the dark corners of the domestic violence issue to highlight the other side – DV towards men.
Granted, most DV is perpetrated against women but there’s a strong body of research into DV against men, and the results are really scary.
Anyone interested can find out more at www.oneinthree.com.au/malevictims or simply google “Domestic violence against men”.
To their credit, women have rallied very successfully to protest on behalf of women, but surely it’s about time DV considered without gender bias.
Julian’s article is a start. John R Vickary, Westcourt
Humans clearly to blame
PETER Campion (25/8) claims that there is no established causal link between human activities and climate change.
I’m not sure where he gets his information from, but he is totally wrong.
The latest Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Report (2013) clearly states that the human impact on the Earth climate system is ‘unequivocal’.
This statement is based on scientific evidence examined by thousands of climate scientists.
A very recent peer-reviewed publi- cation in the prestigious journal Nature demonstrates a casual link between human activities and climate change that goes back to 1830 – the beginning of the Industrial Revolution. Dr Steve Turton, Freshwater
Park fails to impress
I VISITED Munro Martin Park with a friend after hearing its praises sung at this week’s council meeting.
Entering by the main gate we passed the art instalment with the artist’s explanatory plaque.
We hurried by the stage and seating area because of the heat, presumably entertainment will be restricted to late afternoon or evening – or cancelled in hot weather – as there is no shade or shelter.
The climbing plant avenue will be impressive, eventually, but at the moment there is little seating at the north end and no tables and not much shade.
We departed leaving the park to its sole occupant, the gardener irrigating the grass. G Vaughan-Birch, Cairns