No point throwing money at a ‘dying industry’
JUDITH Collins’ recent support for the exploration and export of New Zealand natural gas reserves shows her complete ignorance of the worldwide context of gas exploration and sales.
Australia, Qatar and Papua New Guinea, among many others, have a large natural gas export capability. There are new fields under development in many places including West Africa. Greece, Turkey, China and East Asia are in conflict over new gas reserves.
So, who is going to buy New Zealand gas?
Then there is the climate change threat. Whose gas does Ms Collins suggest is kept in the ground so the world does not enter a spiral of rising temperature?
If New Zealand really needs gas to replace coal, then we should invest in import infrastructure so we can import gas from PNG, which badly needs the income, rather than throwing taxpayers’ money at international corporates desperate to maintain a dying industry.
John Kaiser
Dunedin
Pest control
PREDATOR Free Rakiura chairman Paul Norris is fundamentally flawed in his quest (ODT, 14.10.20).
He doesn’t understand the difference between a predator — carnivore — and a vegetarian browser — herbivore. Possums are not carnivorous.
The evidence is clear. For example, in 2007, Landcare Research analysed 26 possum stomachs. Woody foliage was 47%, seeds 38%, fruit 15% — no meat or feathers.
In 2004, possums from three South Westland sites revealed no trace of birds. Even back in 1969, a New Zealand Forest Service paper by field officer Les Pracy and scientist Ralph Kean said possums did not predate birds.
The high percentage of seeds in the 2007 study strongly suggests possums benefit seed dispersal as part of the ecosystem’s function.
When $6 million of taxpayers’ money is allocated to a dream, the public have every right for fact, not fiction, to be the basis.
Lewis Hore
Oamaru
Covid19
FEW Kiwis want to be part of the ‘‘Swedish’’ experiment to acquire herd immunity naturally, and our experts, with one or two ‘‘junior’’ exceptions, see it for the nonsense it is.
In his excellent defence of this view, Gwynne Dyer makes a simple error (Opinion, 19.10.20).
The Great Barrington Declaration was written by Sunetra Gupta, and yes, she is a professor at Oxford, and an epidemiologist, but she is not ‘‘medically qualified’’. She is a biologist.
I might add, I was taught at the dental school by the late John Gavin whom I seem to remember had four doctorates from Otago: DDS, PhD, DSc and an honorary DSc. He became a professor of pathology at Auckland but he was not ‘‘medically qualified’’. He did, however, know the difference between a ‘‘patient’’ and a number.
Dennis Horne
Howick ..................................
BIBLE READING: A father to the fatherless . . . is God in his holy dwelling. — Psalms 68.5.