Vic Roads - dead to the world

Baw Baw Shire Cr Danny Goss’s description of VicRoads as ‘asleep at the wheel’ (Gaz 23/7) is apt.

Indeed, from my experience, Vic’s not just asleep, but dead to the world – the real world of road users.

Cr Goss includes the Burke Street intersection with Howitt Street (Warragul-Korumburra Road), immediately north of the Freeway interchange roundabout, among failed responsibilities.

In a previous letter (Gaz 10/6/18), I reported the failure of VicRoads to renew the line dividing the Burke Street exit into left- and right-turn lanes, despite an oral assurance in November 2017 that the work had been programmed for January 2018. It didn’t happen then, and 18 months later still hasn’t happened.

I also noted that inquiries to VicRoads for information had not been answered. Twelve months later that, too, still hasn’t happened. I thought about reactivating my enquiry with Regional Roads Victoria, whose responsibility it presumably now is, but second thoughts were ‘why bother?’ Doubtless it’s the same people in the same offices, using different stationery but otherwise unchanged.

The odd thing is that early in 2016, when I first suggested the additional line marking to Baw Baw Shire Council engineers, it was done promptly. Unfortunately, the paint quickly wore away, and has long since been completely obliterated.

Re-marking 50m or so of line and a couple of arrows wouldn’t solve the traffic flow issues Cr Goss alluded to, but would ease congestion in Burke Street at peak times. It did help previously, and since then redevelopment of the former Hastings site has generated new traffic.

Let’s hope Vic/Reg Roads hear Cr Goss’s wake-up call. John Hart, Warragul means with so many poker machines already in Warragul.

Apparently the powers that be have decided in their wisdom that applications for more licences should be granted regardless of how addictive and destructive for some families it can become. A. Diston, Warragu

There needs to be a sceptical voice when it comes to climate change, just as there should be with any theory that is presented. However, the voice that challenges needs to be backed up with accurate, verified scientific data that directly contradicts what is being asserted.

In the last 10 years of his life, the acclaimed astronomer Galileo was kept under house arrest and charged with heresy over his assertions about the sun and not the earth being the centre of a series of revolving planets.

He had the mathematical data and observations to prove his theory. The church had nothing that could match it but it had the power to suppress the theory. Galileo was threatened with torture, was not allowed visitors became blind and his health suffered dramatically. His was a case where sceptics won despite evidence.

Climate scientists have advanced a theory about global warming and the massive instability of weather patterns. There is an enormous amount of data collected over the last hundred years that all but confirms their theories.

Sceptics need to do more than just hand pick small sections of the data in order to properly refute commonly accepted assertions. They need to look at the whole body of evidence and all of what the scientists are saying. They need to come up with counter theories to explain what is happening and back these up with verifiable evidence. Then they may have a case to argue.

To say that the earth has cooled over the past two years does little to counteract the trend that NASA has documented “According to an ongoing temperature analysis conducted by scientists at NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS), the average global temperature on Earth has increased by about 0.8 Celsius since 1880.

Two-thirds of the warming has occurred since 1975, at a rate of roughly 0.15-0.20 C per decade”…… “2018 ranked fourth in global temperature as it was cooler than the previous three years 2016, 2017 and 2015 which were the highest on record. The past five years are, collectively, the warmest years in the modern record.”

Sceptics need to argue against these facts properly and not just make simple statements that the earth is cooling. It is not.

Because of our atmosphere, the heat is being retained and the planet is becoming more like a hothouse. It is affecting polar ice caps which have important roles to play in regulating our weather. The other aspect about the polar ice caps is that as more ice melts, the seas rise higher.

We have a choice to believe what we want to believe. If the sceptics of climate change can advance sufficient verifiable data to disprove the current climate theory, then they will win through.

However, until that happens, I, for one, will do what I can to mitigate my own influence on increasing global warming.

Greg Tuck, Warragul