LetteroftheWeek
READING Donald Trump’s tweet, “so far so good” after the Iran response to the US’s removal of Qasem Soleimani from the West’s terror watchlist, I was reminded of the joke about the bloke who had accidentally fallen off a skyscraper. Someone on the 10th floor shouted “you OK mate?” as he plummeted past, to which the luckless man replied, “so far so good”.
SHAUN Cunneen calls 90 per cent of Australians “idiots” (GCB Jan 6) but in the same breath calls for a royal commission into something Australia cannot change. Mirror?
We are just going through an El Nino event, as we have done repeatedly in the past.
It and its effects were accurately predicted by the Bureau of Meteorology in a warning issued in October 2018, which was even broadcast on the ABC at the time. Quote: “a 70 per cent likelihood of the onset of an El Nino event leading to severe heatwaves, drought and bushfires, during 2019” (Robyn Duell, chief climatologist).
Paleoclimatic evidence contained in published data issued by the Commonwealth Bureau of Meteorology and others also suggests that El Nino events have influenced our weather in this manner for many thousands of years and that they are independent of climate change.
CHRIS BROWNE ROBINA
WHILE ordinary folk are opening their doors to firefighters and other volunteers desperately fatigued after weeks of action, and while film stars and footballers, owners of breweries and cafes are banding together to raise money for the victims, it’s time to ask: where are the activists? Are they out there on the front line? Do they have any thought for those in trouble? Apparently not.
Their only answer is a rally in all major cities to pitch their dogma on climate change, pulling in police badly needed elsewhere. When this is all over, it will be time to recall what the activists did – or did not – contribute.
P.C. WILSON MIAMI
WHERE would we be now without the water bottle industry? In nearly every news clip covering the bushfires there are pallets and pallets of bottled water getting handed out to people whose houses and water supply have been burnt and destroyed. Towns are now out of water because of ash in the dams and whole areas are on bottled water and will be for a long time to come. It shows how important this industry is and now the greenies might give it some respect .
PETER GRAYSON SPRINGBROOK
HOW many residents on the Gold Coast have been here long enough to remember when the highest building was the hotel at Broadbeach?
And the White Shoe brigade that created nothing out of sand to give the wealthy passage for their yachts?
And saw the slow erosion of what the Gold Coast is today?
And what it was when families came here for a holiday, safe in the knowledge that their holiday was just that.
To the wealthy, it is their play thing in between their little trips outside the country.
What it really comes down to is this: will the majority continue to have a few dictate the way the place is to be developed?
D.J. FRASER CURRUMBIN
KEN Wade’s recent letter about Australia’s early settlers transitioning from wood to coal, thus saving the local forests from destruction, is simply bunkum.
Yes, wood was crucial in the first few decades of settlement but sandstone, not timber, was the major material utilised to build infrastructure including homes and bridges, hospitals and government buildings.
Meanwhile, with the introduction of coal, the industrial revolution was not a time for timber to be spared as a commodity.
Wooden railway sleepers in their billions were manufactured for mega rail systems, adding to the massive felling and continued abuse of wood as a resource.
STEVE BARR TWEED HEADS
THE people of Melbourne are an absolute disgrace.
To protest against climate change at such a time shows just how uneducated and inconsiderate they are.
If the Federal Government is to take action over climate change, it will do so at the most opportune time and will involve the right people.
Scott Morrison is already taking steps in this direction but no strategy accepted over the next few weeks will have any effect to change the current situation.
These aliens seem to think the climate can be changed by turning off a tap.
I’d really relish the chance to hear some of their solutions. Why? Because no immediate sensible ones exist.
Any comments these activists make have been repeated before, are totally harebrained and have been dismissed by experts as offering no hope.
Somehow these people cannot accept reason and common scientific sense!
KEN JOHNSTON ROCHEDALE SOUTH