Give the disabled fair chance

There are many countries that embrace disabled people and offer comprehensive assistance to their already challenged lives.

Sweden is one with amazing outcomes and overall public acceptance of those with disabilities.

New Zealand is not one of them. Instead, as Cameron Dempsey from Wellington has discovered in the search for a home, discrimination is rife ( NZ Herald, February 20).

Many people with disabilities in New Zealand are shunned, hidden, not offered a sense of self-worth through employment along with the social connections and sense of belonging.

Until people in positions of power recognise the urgent change needed as a society to change this appalling attitude and put in place programmes to raise public awareness to shift the lack of concern for challenged people, we will continue to be seen by foreigners as neglectful, callous and self-serving people.

Rita Riccola, Mindfulness in NZ.

Oranga Tamariki

What a brilliant and well thought-out article by Jarrod Gilbert ( NZ Herald, February 19).

Oranga Tamariki has been constantly castigated and should now receive apologies from all those who think that it does the wrong thing.

Thank you for the publication of that piece.

Patricia McRae, Whanga¯rei.

Zip it, Paula

Paula Bennett should take her own advice and “zip it sweetie” over her advice to Jacinda Ardern regarding Winston Peters ( NZ Herald, February 18).

Fran O’Sullivan wrote ( NZ Herald, February 19) that Ardern has done the right thing over the SFO investigation into the New Zealand First Foundation.

Bennett should know that Peters is not the New Zealand First Foundation, but the leader of the party just as she is not responsible for the donation scandal surrounding the National Party.

Sharon Marks, Te Aroha.

Travel precautions

What a cheek the Chinese Ambassador has in challenging the New Zealand Government’s precautions designed to stop the coronavirus spreading here ( NZ Herald, February 19).

All Wu Xi is concerned about is the economic effects of the virus. Typical.

And menacing; especially when it is now known the Chinese were aware of the deadly virus outbreak weeks before they were finally forced to admit it to the world.

Ron Taylor, Mangawhai.

Start reducing

Bjorn Lomborg ( NZ Herald, February 19) misses several important issues.

If we do not start now to reduce our emissions, when will we start?

His institute’s work on the appropriate allocation of resources to projects is flawed on two bases — that the money should come from some immutable pot, and that a discount factor used for investments is appropriate. Neither assumption is true — the money pot is not immutable and the appropriate discount factor for something like climate change (and most environmental effects) is inflation plus zero because we cannot replace our environment.

No one has ever said that we could have changed the result for this year by starting six years ago.

The whole world should have started no later than 1990 to both eliminate our fossil fuel use and mitigate the effects.

The argument for the unprecedented nature is not the size of the burn, but the early start (July) and the fires in the border-region rainforests. Neither have occurred before.

Professor Lomborg should know better than to misapply economics to existential questions like survival.

Gordon J. Chirgwin, Harrington, NSW Australia.

All humanity

Bjorn Lomborg ( NZ Herald, February 19) is the darling of Australians who want to keep burning and exporting coal and gas for good reason: his arguments are faultlessly consistent and magnificently specious.

The problem is reality. Carbon dioxide is the “control knob” for the Earth’s temperature, and the 45 per cent increase in the atmospheric level since the Industrial Revolution is due to human activity.

CO accumulates in the atmosphere, so

2

if we stopped emissions today, the level would not drop and Earth would keep warming.

Since we put the “extra” CO into the

2

atmosphere in the first place, the first response to global warming is to stop putting any more there now.

It’s obvious one person or one country cannot solve a problem that affects the one atmosphere we all share.

That is exactly what motivates the climate deniers — they sense all humanity must act together, the wealthy first, and they’re only interested in themselves.

Dennis N. Horne, Howick.

Interdependence

Your correspondent Hylton Le Grice comments ( NZ Herald, February 19) that discussion of climate change takes on a socialistic bent.

This is absolutely true.

The reason is that change in our climate does not affect us as individuals, it affects the whole planet and all the people on it.

Socialism recognises that in every area of life we are all in this together and need to find answers that apply to us all and help all of us to survive.

Climate change is a glaring undeniable example of that.

Perhaps Mr Le Grice thinks he can make his own individual plan to keep himself safe when the temperature rises?

I have a feeling that when that day comes he will turn to others for help, realising at last how interdependent we all are.

In other words, he will find that he has become a socialist.

Susan Grimsdell, Auckland Central.

People problem

Hylton Le Grice is, of course, quite correct ( NZ Herald, February 19). Partially.

Virtually every topic imaginable has been blamed for climate change: enviromentalism, fossil fuels, deforestation, excessive plastic, CFCs, sun spots, farting cows — you name it. Except the real “bull in the china shop”.

Population. Just far too many people on the planet.

Robert Burrow, Taupo¯.

Taxiway option

Several years ago, Auckland International Airport needed to do some extensive maintenance work on its runway ( NZ Herald, February 20).

Because this work would mean closing the runway for some time it came up with a plan to strengthen the main taxiway so that aircraft could use it for take-off and landings for the term of the works.

The work completed, that taxiway reverted to its primary use as a taxiway, but why could it not be used again if the main runway becomes temporarily unserviceable as it has recently?

Instead of delaying or diverting flights and causing major inconvenience and expense, opening the taxiway for take-off and landing for the short period taken to repair the main runway would seem a practical solution.

Robin McGrath, Forrest Hill.

Runway project

It’s disheartening to hear about the safety issues with our runway at Auckland International Airport ( NZ Herald, February 20).

The extension to the proposed runway to accommodate larger, heavier planes such as the A380 was approved by the Auckland Council in 2002 and in 2017. Final approval was given in December 2018.

It’s now February 2020 and there doesn’t seem to be any news about this project starting.

It seems to me that this additional runway is needed urgently. What is happening with this? It would be nice to know.

Jacqui Ross, Massey.

Water exports

With near-drought conditions throughout the North Island and various water restrictions in place, I wonder whether commercial operators are also having any restrictions placed on their plundering the proverbial gazillion gallons a second from New Zealand’s artesian aquifers?

Bradley Cryderman, Tauranga.