Quips& Quotes

“Earlier today, Suits actress Meghan Markle married some unemployed dude who still lives with his grandma.” – Saturday Night Live

“I doubt alcohol kills more people than it creates.” – author John LeFevre, quoted in the Week

“The best way to stop a bad guy with a gun is 73 million millennials with a vote.” – student activist Tyler Suarez

“When I was a child, my mother said to me, ‘If you become a soldier, you’ll be a general. If you become a monk, you’ll end up as the pope.’ Instead, I became a painter and wound up as Picasso.” – Pablo Picasso

“Trump’s blood type is KFC-positive. At a rally last week, Trump vowed to ght for the rights of the LGBBQ community.” – Trevor Noah

“I can tell how intelligent a man is by how stupid he thinks I am.” – Cormac McCarthy, quoted in the LA Times

“I am glad not to have been a revolutionary when I was young, because it prevented me from becoming a reactionary bore in old age.” – Robert Lowell, quoted in the London Review of Books

“Some say it’s Yanny, some say it’s Laurel, and everyone says they’re just happy to talk about something other than Trump.” – Jimmy Fallon referring to the viral video

“I haven’t the slightest idea how to change people, but I keep a long list of prospective candidates in case I gure it out.” – David Sedaris catastrophic sea-level rise, we need to reduce greenhouse gas emissions – now.

Gibbs should be aware that, despite the global climate’s complexities and chaos that he says “scientists struggle to understand”, climate change is proceeding much as predicted, only faster. The time for public

misinformation is over.

Peter Otway (Omokoroa)

Grace (gravity recovery and climate experiment) satellites measure changes in the mass of the landscapes over which they pass. When it comes to the planet’s ice, it’s a case of win some and lose some. Unfortunately for David Gibbs, the satellite measurements show that far more ice is now being lost than gained.

The climate system is chaotic, but the trends are absolutely clear. There are ups and downs in the global mean temperature from year to year, but the trend is for rising temperatures.

There are ups and downs in the global mean sea level from year to year, but the trend is for rising sea levels.

There are ups and downs in the planetary store of ice from year to year, but the trend is for increasing ice loss.

There are ups and downs in the number and cost of extreme weather events from year to year, but the trend is for an increasing number of such events and increasing costs. Doubters have only to talk to the Insurance Council. Digby Scorgie (Kaiapoi)

PINE IN ITS PLACE

The solution to the One Billion Trees challenge (“The pine

problem” (May 12) is to plant the right tree in the right place for the right reasons.

Pine forestry is always likely to play a significant part in our timber industry. But even for sites where forestry is the right answer, pines are not necessarily the right forestry answer.

Commercial pine forestry is inappropriate for some sites, such as steep slopes with erodible soils, sites where the climate (winter snows or strong winds) make pine a problematic crop, or sites with a substantial risk of creating a wilding problem. For those places, other species and different management strategies, such as those associated with continuous cover native forestry must be considered. Gerard Horgan (Rotorua)