Letters
Cartoon by Antoinette Ensbey
Hot and humid You may be standing up against the sheep who are following climate change false narratives or against the billionaires trying to take over the global economy by banning hydrocarbons. You may have developed a rationale of selected theories, or have faith that God is at the steering wheel of planet Earth. You may be one of the people who, for decades, slowed down action against climate, now more aptly known as the climate emergency. Well, just bear in mind that people, even people like you, are dying from heat stroke, heart attack, and organ damage from dehydration. These are the big killers of the climate emergency. Four per cent of those heat-affected people taken to hospital don’t come out alive. Those deaths will climb rapidly as we reach the limits of human capacity for heat and humidity. Just imagine what desperate evacuations from India will do for geopolitical stability! Anyway, to those people who tout their favourite beliefs about climate normality, consider how many deaths you are, and will, cause if you keep dragging your feet over climate action! If you can’t do something positive, don’t say anything at all. Let the rest of us get on with the job! Sapoty Brook Main Arm
Queenslanders Every time I hear on the news of the cyclones and floods in Queensland I think
of the green convoy to the Adani coal mine a few years ago and the reception they received from the Queensland population. Queenslanders were determined to dig up all the coal they could and either burn it or sell it to other people to burn. In either case the coal would be transformed into carbon dioxide in the atmosphere and would worsen global warming. The Queenslanders regarded that outcome as some form of green hoax and were very antagonistic to the green convoy. Perhaps they might think again after their experience of the recent cyclones and floods. I wonder what they might have to experience to be convinced that the earth is not flat. Michael Trevaskis Alstonville
LşƖƆĕƆ Ɛş ǖşşĎ The constraints on housing development in our area are well known locally, as described in a letter last week, although apparently not recognised by the bureaucrats in Sydney who continue to insist that we must house more and more people. Flooding is an obvious constraint, and nearly two years after the 2022 flood there are still people yet to return to their homes. Council claims that they can ‘manage’ flooding issues, but they can’t. The heaviest one-day rainfalls in Mullumbimby have increased in size by more than 90 per cent over the last 125 years, but Byron Shire Council think that including a 20
per cent increase above current design rainfalls (that don’t take into account the lessons of 2022) will cover changes due to climate change until 2100. Lifting building heights might seem a good idea, but how high do you go? Many of the houses in South Lismore were on poles two metres or more off the ground, but in 2022 the residents were rescued from their roofs by the ‘Tinny Army’. To be guaranteed of being flood-proof, houses in the areas proposed for development by Council in east Mullumbimby would have to be about four metres above ground level, hardly a practical solution. There is plenty of land not too far from infrastructure and services that is not floodplain, and the additional cost of developing that land will be a good investment compared to the on-going costs of flooding. Matthew Lambourne Mullumbimby
Feros vitriol We shouldn’t be surprised by provoking vitriol from their supporters (Keith Duncan’s letter, 31 January) when we challenge a politician to live up to their claims. Kate Smorty and I wrote letters to the The Echo expressing shock and disbelief at the full page advertisement by Justine Elliot and the Labor Party (17 January) announcing she was ‘our voice in Canberra’ and had been primarily responsible for saving Feros Village for the community. To my knowledge and many others, she had been both absent and silent in
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the widespread community protest to save Feros, and had commented to Kate that she couldn’t do anything to help. Vigorously active in the campaign to save Feros from the beginning were some residents and their families, members of the community, some councillors, and the Greens represented by Mandy Nolan and Tamara Smith. Yet, when the decision is announced this year that Feros Village has a future, Justine claims the credit. The Member for Richmond’s opportunistic behaviour highlights the growing bankruptcy of our political system, long dominated by the Labor Party and the coalition. That’s why the support for the major parties has steadily declined over the past 50 years and voters are increasingly drawn to independents and The Greens. Labor’s national primary vote was just over 32 per cent in the last elections and Mandy Nolan almost defeated Justine Elliot. This explains the hostility Labor directs at the Greens, a party and movement which has forced it to address and live up to its nominal commitment to social justice, affordable housing, serious tax reform, protection of whistleblowers, serious action to curtail climate change, promotion of national sovereignty and so on. As a final comment, I’d like to highlight the quote from Michael West, printed in Backlash in The Echo, which captures the substance and credibility of
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