A simple fix to motorway noise issues
A simple fix for the Redwood motorway noise problem would be to replace the newly-built six foot wooden fence with a higher fence, whether it be wooden, or of sound-proofing material.
Putting a new seal on the motorway might help, but there is also a lot of wind noise created, a woosh woosh sound.
Simple fix? Maybe too simple.
Russell J Wards, Kaiapoi
Industry self-interest
I note that with the proposed people exchanges between New Zealand and Australia, the self-interest of the tourism and hospitality industries is exclusive in that there is no mention of the pollution created by themselves and the airline industry.
Air New Zealand is not indicating any concern for the effect of its escalating activity on climate change with the proposed travel bubble with Australia.
The populace is ‘concerned’, is it not, with global warming, yet the folk undertaking with glee such trans-Tasman travel appear not the least perturbed by their uninhibited want.
Barry Pycroft, Shirley
ETS not suited
The emissions trading scheme is based on an international standard that does not take account of the unique nature of New Zealand’s vision for biodiversity. If you think it is a good thing, it isn’t.
We need a scheme that suits NZ and not one that proliferates single exotic species like triffids. As the scheme stands at the moment we are rapidly heading towards mopping up the emissions of the polluting world and so effectively becoming the world’s only composting toilet, with radiata pine (Pinus radiata) the proverbial bristles on the bog brush. A creeping green desert of monocultural weeds, and nothing else at all.
The need to curb world emissions is undeniable but we must learn how to do it within our own shores to increase our wonderful and unique biodiversity and not sell ourselves and our land to foreign business interests.
Andrew Luddington, Tai Tapu
ECan enabling
If ECan wants to sell us its commitment to freshwater management it has just shot itself in both feet.
Its passive stance over the non-notified consent renewal process for the potentially toxic MHV irrigation scheme (Press, Apr 8) suggests it is more interested in being an enabler for the agriculture industry than the guardian of our environment and protector of families enjoying clean, fresh water. Who would support its proposed 24 per cent rate increase after this?
Bill Horsley, Rangiora
Plastic solution
The coal trains come from the West Coast full of coal and go back empty. This point has been made by the Coasters who want to build a plastic burning factory, at the former Holcim cement factory, which is also feasible, as shown by Sweden.
Another suggestion is to bank all our plastic recycling and possibly other wastes and to provide much-needed jobs for West Coasters.
Simply, we could load plastic into the coal bins, send it to the Coast on existing tracks and then poke it down the old empty mines. This way, we can store plastic for future use, as recycling technology advances, and capture any methane gas that builds up for fuel.
There must be huge tunnel systems underground. Any areas that have been mined also have had the effects of toxins leaching already, but boffins could surely find a way to seal in any further toxins. Some old mines have been flooded, but these can be pumped out, as they would if they wanted to get more coal.
If there is an earthquake, like the big one, most of this landfill would be too deep to affect the local landscape.
Who would pay? Perhaps the people who produce the plastic bottles or a levy on all plastic packaging paid by consumers.
Kay Nichols, Harewood
Commuter rail
It appears that what started as a debate about commuter rail has degenerated into a squabble about trucks vs rail freight, which is the business of business and quite apart from the social consequences of passenger rail.
Commuter rail, by contrast, is about social discourse and cohesion, the very ‘‘guts’’ of so-called civilised society, the most recent of any consequence in my lifetime being of and following WWII, when we were definitely one nation/one people – even in government!
The social discourse that took place on commuter rail, indeed on the overnight ferry to Wellington, meant a great mixing of peoples from all walks of life, few ever claiming some mysterious ‘‘entitlement’’ which has come to infest the isolated ‘‘cocoon travel’’ of the car and resulted in an increasingly divided, impatient, intolerant and even embittered society. John McCaskey, Waipara (abridged)
Shuddering thought!
The idea of little locomotives running on their rails hither and thither from warehouses to retail outlets all over the city makes me shudder!
Samuel Zelter (Apr 8) suggests this as a viable means of supply to supermarkets and industry. We should be looking at driverless delivery trucks, drones and similar answers to the question, not harking back to the days of the Industrial Revolution and the steam train.
Vic Smith, Halswell
Catholic cathedral
Yet again the Catholic diocese chooses The Press (Apr 5, front page) to advise that some of its Cathedral’s treasures have been saved. Thanks to the commitment and professionalism of the archaeologist on site, such items as the Holy Souls Chapel altar have been approporiately crated and removed, minus its two stolen gilt-bronze angel roundels from the former high altar sculpted by prominent Florentine sculptor Giuseppe Cassioli.
Security has surely been lax. After the recent removal of the south wall of the nave, for example, the nearby security fence was breached and the open building entered by vandals. Apparently manmade damage to the Llew Summers Stations, which were set into the walls, has also taken place, with one rumoured to have been stolen.
And now what will become of these treasures? Tony Sewell, diocesan property manager, has been scathing about ‘‘second-hand stuff’’ (Feb 2021, North & South) which is unwelcome in the proposed replacement building.
Alice Flett, Avonside
Basilica forest
I just wanted to express support for the suggestion made by your correspondent Mike Beard, in a Letter to the Editor published last week, suggesting the retention of at least the outline of the Catholic Cathedral and the planting of native trees on that site. What an excellent idea!
Daniela Bagozzi, Linwood
Uyghurs are us
When Jacinda Ardern said ‘‘they are us’’ she was reminding us that ‘‘they’’ is any brother or sister in this shattered old world of ours. The Uyghurs are Muslims just like our Muslims; they are us.
Ardern says no protest is stronger than raising our anger with the leadership in Beijing. Well, our Jewish brothers and sisters had no such hearing from Adolf Hitler. Not a hope in hell.
Our own prime minister at the time, David Lange, sailed into the banned zone of the nuclear testing in the Pacific. No use sending the French some angry words.
Come on Nanaia [Mahuta, Minister of Foreign Affairs]. I saw your face when you won that vote. There’s a strength, I thought.
You be that strength. Hold hands with Jacinda and shout at China, ‘‘They are us to us, and they should be to you.’’
Di Madgin, Heathcote