LETTERS
Letters - 300 words maximum and including full name, address and contact number - can be sent to The News, PO Box 588, Hastings 3915 or emailed to: team@mpnews.com.au
Supermarkets offer chance for recycling soft plastics I frequently take my soft plastics to Woolworth and Coles to place in the recycling bag where this soft plastic is used to make bollards and decking, which is brilliant and on display at the eco house at The Briars, Mt Martha. It is also used to make many types of moulded plastic furniture and play equipment. This service has been available for many years and I am surprised it is not been made known to the public with more advertising, as many people I speak to have never heard about it. The amount of space that is saved in my general waste bin is quite startling and, since doing this, my bin has never been full. Less plastic to landfall is the idea, as this simply does not decompose. Fewer plastic bags to kill our marine life, in particular. How hard can it be? Even though it is extra advertising for Coles and Woolies, perhaps Aldi and others will get on board. What really upsets me is that for all the years we were paying a huge amount of money to China to take our recyclables, we could have been using that money to build our own recycling plant. There is simply no long term planning by any government to ensure the future for my grandchildren. People are basically lazy in this regard and want the government to do all the work. It is time people washed out their recyclables themselves, so things are not re-contaminated. Why should a worker at the waste management centre be doing this job and then throwing it in the landfill anyway? We need to take responsibility for ourselves. Me, you, municipalities and governments, the whole damn community. Janet Groves, Mornington
‘Global scorching’ The Arctic is burning, with fires so big you can see them from space. The planet hasn’t seen anything like it in 10,000 years - July was the hottest month ever recorded. This isn’t global warming, it’s global scorching. And it’s going to get much, much worse. Why should Australia take drastic action when we are not the worst? Every little action helps, even those by individuals. Waiting on the rest of the world or weasel worming your way out with excuses is stupid (given to unintelligent decisions or acts: acting in an unintelligent or careless manner). Joe Lenzo, Safety Beach
Views reflect the news Following the May election I had resolved to turn over a new leaf and try to be nice to the loopy left and at least try to tolerate their opinions without disagreeing with everything. Whilst this proved easy with [letter writer] Rupert Steiner, whose ramblings on illegal
immigrants in detention are wearing thin with the majority of Victorians anyway, it was not so easy with John Cain. In his letter (“No denying change” Letters 13/8/19 ) Mr Cain offers “a few things I gleaned from the news over the last few days” and then states: “Greenland’s ice sheet is melting so fast it has caused global sea levels to rise 0.05mm in just a month.” But back in March, as reported on Fox News, a NASA survey comissioned Greenland’s government found that the world’s largest glazier had actually grown while those in North America and Europe had shrunk. That’s the problem we all face today. Mr Cain isn’t wrong as he is only repeating what has been on the news he watches, but that doesn’t make it fact. Never has the bias in our media been more apparent than in the lead-up to the last election. Channels 2,9 and10 had Labor winning a landslide on their nightly news whereas Channel 7 was more middle of the road. Try reading the same political story in the Herald Sun and The Age and you will see what I mean. Yes, global climate change is a fact, but just how much it will affect Australia is yet to be proved. Michael Free, Mt Martha
TV for deniers I wonder how many climate change deniers watched “Climate Change:The Facts” on Sunday 11 August on the ABC? Actual visual facts were on display, not fake news presented by scientists paid by mining groups and deniers spouting figures to muddy the waters. I suppose the deniers could have taped the program and ran it backwards to show melting icebergs and glaciers leaping back into where they had just fallen from. Apart from the usual sea inundation of islands and melting ice there were methane bubbles trapped in the ice. When the ice melts the methane will be released into the atmosphere creating more problems in regard to temperature rise. It was quite alarming to read that Andrew Bolt, one of the denier’s gurus, has called teenage climate activist Greta Thunberg “deeply disturbed and strange”. What a hero. Greta Thunberg was the young girl that organised hundreds of thousand of school children world wide to strike and and demand that the world leaders do something to protect their future. What did our coal hugging Prime Minister do? Ridiculed all the kids that demonstrated, telling them they should be in school and chiding the parents for allowing them to demonstrate. Over the past few years, the conservative government has provided us with inept environment ministers, One who was close to home wanted a swimming pool on the oreshore at Rosebud.
Anyway, I do hope the deniers do take the opportunity to watch the film, it might just open their eyes. Although I doubt it. John Cain, McCrae
Waste solution I believe incineration is the better option for getting rid of waste. The Olovine Burner puts no emissions into the atmosphere and the energy created is put into the electricity grid, with the money raised going to the authority that has installed the device. The cost would have to be born by all levels of government. In the long run, with our nation being very environmentally conscious, this is the answer. One of these burners is operational in Western Australia. I put this proposal to Mornington Peninsula Shire Council last year at an environmental forum at its Rosebud office. I have always been in favour of this elimination of waste products since it was brought to my attention while I was serving as a councillor with the City of Mordialloc. Ian Lyons, Safety Beach
Climate cycle The Mornington Peninsula may be declared a “Climate emergency” but, as well, I notice there are a lot of nasty unrepaired potholes on the roads (“Peninsula’s ‘climate emergency’” The News 13/8/19). I do my bit by recycling a whisky bottle every month or two, but perhaps some among us are doing much more. Politicians at all levels will commonly indoctrinate the people with a very important fact which, in fact, is a fiction. Such as the reasons reason given to invade Iraq. Conspiracy theories often turn out to be right. Here in Australia, since our great leap backward around the beginning of this century, our massive industrial power and wealth is all gone. We can’t even make cars. For some time Australia has desperately needed some new stimulus, industry, anything except a war. Not too long ago our climate started to change, as it does, cyclically. Some learned academic somewhere theorised that it was all caused by carbon dioxide in the air. Eureka. That’s it. We now have the great carbon dioxide fear. Even an emergency on the peninsula. Anything that emits carbon dioxide is despicable and must be replaced. Last year I watched on TV a visiting American expert professor vehemently advocating and demanding massive reductions in carbon emissions or we all die. He was just about frothing at the mouth. A professor of climateology, physics, science ? No, a professor of economics. That says it all. Brian A Mitchelson, Mornington
Set up by GetUp The MP for Flinders, Greg Hunt, spoke at the National Press Club last week regarding a number of health initiatives the country must take in such areas as mental health and smoking, both of which I welcome. Mr Hunt was asked during his speech about Getup’s involvement in the recent
federal election campaign. To my surprise, he claimed that Getup was “completely and utterly” engaged with the Labor Party in the Flinders electorate. As Labor’s candidate, I can categorically say that my Labor team and I did not work with Getup in any way. In fact, Getup encouraged people to vote for the independent candidate Julia Banks ahead of me, for reasons I still find baffling. They even gave me an amber light rating for my environmental record. Golly gosh, with friends like Getup who needs enemies? Getup’s involvement in the federal campaign in Flinders was extremely unhelpful and I have been critical of it publicly since the election. My personal view is that anyone handing out how-to-vote cards on election day should be from a registered political party - including Getup. Any suggestion it was involved in the Flinders Labor campaign is laughable. Joshua Sinclair, Labor candidate for Flinders
Purl, plain warmth Thanks to dedicated and generous Hastings knitters, another two loads of beanies, scarves and mittens have been delivered to Food for All for needy Mornington Peninsula families this icy-cold winter. We are also most grateful to Hastings and Dromana branches of the Bendigo Bank where items have been left for distribution over many winters of this project. Unwanted wool can still be donated for knitters who can’t afford to buy it, yet love to contribute their skills to help those people identified by St Vincent de Paul’s Mornington Peninsula Conferences. Oddments have been turned into knitted toys as well. So warm thanks again to everyone concerned and keep knitting! Fran Henke, Winter Woollies Appeal, Hastings Decisive hypocrisy The sheer hypocrisy truly leaves me speechless (“Residents win beach roads battle” The News 13/8/19). Almost 90 per of Coppin Road, Sorrento property owners voted against the special charge scheme for a footpath on their road. Now, “our” councillors support what they say is a democratic vote not to proceed with road making at St Andrews despite this project receiving a far lower vote. Breathtaking. Bill Holmes, Sorrento
Waste mismanagement During my 50 years of journalism, I covered thousands of local government council meetings. One of the key perks of travel for councillors was trips to Europe or elsewhere, investigating waste management solutions. Given the number of road miles travelled on this issue, why are we deep in waste today? Would the last councillors at Frankston and Mornington Peninsula Shire to make such journeys please explain? Fran Henke, Hastings
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Mornington News
20 August 2019