Government’s hands tied over rising petrol prices

OUR current fuel prices are a combination of a higher trending global oil price along with a significantly lower New Zealand dollar versus the United States dollar.

By doing the math of where the NZ dollar was trading versus the US dollar as recently as May this year, and where it is now, along with the global increased cost of oil, I can see about a 45c increase.

If oil prices go to the suggested $US100 a barrel, and our dollar drops to the suggested $US0.60, then a litre of petrol will have a ‘‘$3’’ in front of it.

Our Government can’t do anything about this unless they reduce the tax on fuel.

The Government will not do that for two reasons — firstly, they have a negative fossilfuel agenda promoted by the Greens and, secondly, their tax take would be welldiminished, resulting in the coffers being negatively affected, which politically they will not want see.

So get used to a much higher cost of fuel. And to those protesters annoying legitimate fuelbased sales businesses, move on or get arrested for your complete lack of education of economics.

Greg Glendining

Glenross

Climatechange debate

INTERESTING that Peter Foster (ODT, 16.10.18) feels confident about dismissing climate change warnings from the IPCC as ‘‘pseudoscientific’’.

He doesn’t state his own scientific credentials, but the IPCC’s conclusions are the result of rigorously assessed input from thousands of toplevel scientists.

Its recent report, detailing some of the catastrophic outcomes of global temperature rises of over 1.5deg errs, if anything, towards a conservative conclusion regards the ongoing damage our embrace of fossil fuels is causing this planet.

If known feedback mechanisms come into play, even the 1.5deg limit risks making many areas of the world uninhabitable.

To put it bluntly, we are well down the track of destroying the habitat that supports all human and other life — the only habitat available to us.

Those who deny climate change are not just deluded but completely irresponsible. Do they really want their children and grandchildren to live in a habitat that has become hostile to human life?

Vicki Jayne

Oamaru

ONCE again the climate scientists are warning that we are heading for a planetwide catastrophe (ODT, 9.10.18) unless urgent action is taken.

We have heard it all before: airy warnings that unless we reduce the greenhouse gases drastically, the consequences will be dire.

The scientists have a point, but they don’t seem to know any better than the rest of us how those drastic reductions should be implemented without demolishing the very foundations of the society.

Just imagine what would happen if a New Zealand government banned the tourism, banned the livestock farming, banned most motor vehicles, including ships and aeroplanes . . . That’s what it would take to make meaningful reductions, but the government which tried to make them would collapse at once. So it is not going to happen.

Besides, there is something else to consider: as recently as 100 years ago the human population of the planet was less than 2 billion. Now, we are approaching 8 billion.

Well over 200,000 hungry mouths, two times the population of Dunedin, are added to the total every day. How do you stop that growth, then start reducing the total, while the time is running out?

The conclusions are grim: the planet is indeed heading for a catastrophe, and nobody has any idea of how to avoid it. Aulis Alen

Manapouri

BIBLE READING: Commit your way to the Lord; trust in Him, and He will act. — Psalm 37:5.