Nitrates in our water are harmful

A massive Danish study recently revealed elevated nitrates in drinking water causes increased risk of colorectal cancer.

Our freshwater nitrate pollution comes primarily from intensive agriculture and dairy farming practices. High nitrate levels kill life in our rivers and streams.

Investigations by scientists, including ecologist Dr Mike Joy, shows a rising intensity of nitrates in many waterways and aquifers.

The nitrate pollution in Canterbury water is especially high. Anyone regularly drinking this water, including dairy farmers’ families, is risking cancer. It is no surprise that Canterbury has one of the highest death rates for colorectal cancer in New Zealand.

So. What to make of the silence from ECan and the Ministry of Health on this topic?

We learn this week of more government investment in ‘‘cliff-bottom ambulances’’ in the form of more cancer drug funding, treatments and machinery. National has the same approach.

Surely, it makes more sense to invest in preventing cancers, even if it means going into battle with those powerful vested interests that benefit by creating the contamination.

But perhaps that fight requires too much political capital and courage?

Jim Coyle, Avalon

Utes have a double role

In response to Wayne Kitching (Letters, Aug 5), it’s not only utes that are bigger and block a driver’s view when parallel parked next to such a beast in town. SUVs and vans do the same thing.

There may be an excuse for the growth in size of what was once a small humble utility vehicle, thinking back to the days of Barry Crump and Scottie. In those days they were a small practical vehicle used to working for a living. Next to them in the driveway would be the big old faithful family car. Think the old Valiants, Kingswoods and Falcons.

Those days of having two vehicles in the driveway have gone. They have been replaced by the big utes we see on the roads today.

Utes are now doing the job of two vehicles. During the day they are the beast of burden doing their best to help their owners make ends meet and at other times they become the family wagon carting the family around.

So, we could conclude they are really big, but compared with the old regime they take up less space than a car and small truck and they are so much more economical as far as fuel use and greenhouse gases are concerned.

I think they are here to stay, even if they grow to wear 30-inch wheels so the rest of us can see under them.

Roger McLeay, Whanganui

Just do it now

Chris Uruski (Letters, July 29) thinks the Greenpeace people climbing the Majestic Centre in protest at OMV drilling for oil and gas – fossil fuels that science has proven that society needs to move away from to avoid catastrophic climate change – were engaged in ‘‘hypocritical posturing’’, because the climbing equipment they used was partly made possible by the use of petroleum-based products.

He also states (Letters, Aug 5) that there’s no substitute for petroleum, citing that even Greenpeace powers the Rainbow Warrior with diesel.

These arguments are utterly invalid. If science tells me I’m on the cusp of a killer heart attack due to cholesterol, I avoid foods with cholesterol. I don’t give up and do nothing because the cutlery I’m using was developed by the cholesterol food industry.

And the Rainbow Warrior is wind/sailpowered, using diesel only as a backup.

Changing from large-scale use of fossil fuels to greener alternatives is hard, but it is not impossible. Let’s not resign the planet to certain death because weaning ourselves off fossil fuels is hard. Let’s be Kiwis and just get on and do it, now. Marcus Newton-Howes, Johnsonville

Tick for Greens

Quite pleased to see the Greens advocating a rent-to-buy scheme for state houses. A certain percentage of houses built could be used for this scheme. It will work for working couples and it will enable them to get a deposit.

Peter Petterson, Taita

Poor darlings!

Re Boy-racers group traumatised (Aug 5), poor darlings! I feel traumatised every time I’m woken in the night by the squealing of tyres and revving engines, not to mention the mess they leave on the road.

Maybe they should go to bed earlier, then we could all get some peace and they can grow a brain.

Mandy Worsley, Trentham

Arm them with muskets

Give those who insist on their rights to ‘‘keep and bear arms’’ the right to bear what the wise writers of the US Constitution had in mind when it was framed – a single-shot, muzzle-loaded flintlock musket.

Such weapons are very difficult to carry concealed. Even skilled users have trouble getting off more than three or four rounds per minute and the clouds of smoke from the gunpowder would make unseen sniping impossible.

Another worthwhile use of the Second Amendment thinking would be to enforce the end of the sentence, ‘‘a well regulated militia’’, so if people want want to play with guns, they join the Territorials and learn gun safety and perhaps lose their more Ramboesque fantasies.

Graeme Buckley, Miramar

Kirk’s view?

A propos the abortion issue and Minister of Justice Andrew Little. Stuff’s website on August 5 had a photo of Little, presumably in his Beehive office. On the background wall are distinguishable photos of two previous Labour prime ministers, Peter Fraser and Norman Kirk.

Little is positioned smugly and strategically between the photos. My question is whether those fine gentlemen on the wall would have approved of Little and his Government sponsoring what can only be described as abortion on demand. Eamon Sloan, Elsdon

Some readers of Henry Cooke’s column (The end of abortion lies, finally, Aug 6) on the abortion law reform proposals may wonder at the phrase ‘‘pregnant people’’ that he uses throughout. A whole column about abortion and the word ‘‘woman’’ does not appear once.

Welcome to the Brave New World of gender ideology, where the term ‘‘woman’’ is not inclusive enough, and men can get pregnant. I’m joking, right? Sorry, wish I were.

If this new language hasn’t caught up with you yet, it soon will. Though with any luck this is just a phase the privileged West is going through, and it will pass.

Jill Abigail, O¯ taki

If the mental and physical life of a pregnant woman is not at risk then can the justice minister and those parliamentarians who support abortion on demand explain how it is a health issue?

Henry Cooke is right that there will and should be a massive fight over the proposed abortion legislation. Women who believe that the unborn are children who have a right to protection under the law, at all ages and stages, need to stand up now and be counted.

It is a lie that the proposed law, based on the philosophy that it is a woman’s right to choose free of any protection for the other person involved, her unborn baby, is a health issue. Verity Johnson (One less thing to shame us, Aug 6) wants young women to be supported in the decision to terminate the lives of their babies without question. How many women has she spoken to regret the decision to abort their baby?

This is a decision no woman should be left to make without good counsel and the option for support to have her baby. It is a decision she will live with for life. Teresa Homan, Upper Hutt