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So it seems the disastrous fire that burnt much of Namadgi, killing presumably thousands, perhaps millions of endemic Australian animal species (many of them endangered no doubt) and destroying a number of houses and assets was caused by an army helicopter crew person wanting a toilet break.
What does this say about Australia’s defence capability? How would our helicopter crews cope in battle conditions?
The event illustrates the awfulness of our environmental crisis. Unthinking actions by the human species could destroy much of our only home in the universe.
Let’s hope the coronial inquiry also enquires into what contribution Defence was making to combat the fire. What was the helicopter doing there in the first place and why did the crew think that landing with lights as hot as 550 degrees was a good idea in extreme fire danger conditions?
Some insults must not be tolerated. Early versions of an article reported that, instead of a mature and elegant “whiz break,” our glorious sons and daughters of Anzac uttered an appalling obscenity (“Orroral Valley bushfire inquiry in ACT Coroner’s Court adjourned due to unforeseen circumstances“, canberratimes.com.au, November 14).
I cannot mention the word itself; it pisses me off too much.
This can be nothing but libel. The ADF has codes of conduct which are an impregnable shield against such behaviour.
On further investigation, the conclusion is obvious. It is an insider job. “Sherlock! The Secretary of Defence is named… Moriarty!” “Come, Watson; the game’s afoot!”
Now that we are advised that it is a loose Russian criminal group with Russian Government inaction that hacked Medibank Private maybe it is time for action.
For example the Russian Embassy in Canberra could be isolated from all services pending Russian government action to rein in the hackers and have them return stolen data. Otherwise hacking will go on.
The other option is to hack them back and render encryption of their computers.
Bill Deane (Letters, November 15) asked “is it possible that massive flooding is a normal weather occurrence in central NSW, albeit with long gaps between”. The short answer is no. The huge flooding in central and western NSW is not a “normal” occurrence. It is highly abnormal, and is caused by two main factors.
First, warming ocean waters produce more evaporation, and a warming atmosphere can hold more water vapour, which will inevitably fall as (sometimes torrential) rain. As the land surface warms, the moisture-laden air can travel farther inland until it is forced by rising plumes of warm air into cooler parts of the atmosphere where the excess water is released as rain.
Second, the release of floodwaters from dams on the western slopes, such as Wyangala Dam near Cowra, into west-flowing rivers such as the Lachlan, adds to the risk of destructive flooding.
I was having a bad day. Couldn’t find a parking space. Cold. It looks like rain again. Back aching. Forgotten where I was going. Turn left off Melrose Drive into Theodore Street. Then – nothing. Chug, chug. Nothing.
Out of petrol in the middle of the road. Dead stop. Bloody modern technology. Petrol must have been stolen… Beeeep, beep. Alright, alright. Wave them past me.
A truck stops behind me and a big bloke gets out. “Need a hand?” It won’t move – pushing won’t help. “I’ll get you some petrol.” Off he zooms. More cars pass. Some stop. “Need a hand?”. Thanks but help is on the way. More waving . A lot more people are stopping. Old folk like me. Younger people – my grandchildren’s age. And middle agers. “You okay? Need a hand?” All sorts. A couple of cranky dudes roar past.
The truck is back. You beauty. One litre of unleaded and it starts. Scott McPherson, plasterer, son of a plasterer. Heart of gold. An original Aussie. How can I repay him? A $20 in the pocket doesn’t do enough for me. I’ll have to speak to the Governor-General or Albo (if I knew it might make a difference).
Maybe a letter to the editor might get a good bloke some recognition.
Mary Robbie’s letter (Letters, November 15) surprised me in two ways.
One was the information that people in the vulnerable aged group were advised to have antiviral tablets on hand.
The other was that Ms Robbie had been able to obtain a script without testing positive.
To have the taxpayer pay over $1000 for people to have on hand expensive medicine which is unlikely to be used is wasteful.
One of my family tested positive while on holidays. A prescription for the antiviral was obtained via telehealth and the antiviral obtained the same day.
Julian Cribb’s “Has the population bomb exploded?” was a sobering read (canberratimes.com.au, November 12).
To read that eight billion humans are releasing “over 200 billion tonnes of waste into the biosphere every year” was perhaps the most shocking statistic.
The better news is that the world’s fertility rate declined from a high of 5.1 in 1964 to a low of 2.4 in 2020. China now has a very low fertility rate of 1.15 which means its population has already started to decline from 1.4 billion to a forecast 600 million by the end of the century.
Furthermore, Cribb’s figure of earth’s carrying capacity as two to 2.5 billion people appears on the low side.
According to the Australian Academy of Science there is a huge variation in estimates. The majority of studies have it, coincidentally, around eight billion.
While there may be an upper limit on how many humans earth could support, it varies based on how we produce, consume and manage our resources.
As Joel E Cohen, head of the Laboratory of Populations at Rockefeller University puts it: “It depends on ‘how many people want Jaguars with four wheels and how many want jaguars with four legs’.”
While many people seem to focus on their dislike for Trump as the reason for the failure of the predicted red (Republican) wave in the US elections I think that in the non-compulsory voting system there, more would have voted against the anti-abortion stance of the Republicans than would have voted for them.
A lesson for all politicians; beware of forcing moralistic laws on the people because the people bite back in the privacy of the ballot.
The story on mice misery for the public housing tenant (“CFMEU calls for public housing maintenance to be managed by government“, canberratimes.com.au, November 12) raises the “dumbing down” of the ACT public service.
For decades experienced housing inspectors assessed properties for repairs and maintenance. Work was overseen by them, regardless of whether it was performed by government employees or contractors.
Attempts were made in the 1980s to absorb the inspectors into the general clerical stream. Are clerks now running the assessment of public housing’s suitability for habitation?
I often wonder why ACT jury verdicts need to be unanimous. While I recognise it would have been set up for highly altruistic reasons, it would appear to be no longer appropriate for the much more demanding 21st century.
If 11 to one or 10 to two splits were to be allowed, as in the rest of Australia, we would have a more efficient jury process, potentially saving the parties significant costs, stress and angst, and the court and jurors valuable time.
Some say climate change is an existential threat that can be solved by a quick transition to renewables and the banishing of fossil fuels. Others say renewables will never fit the bill as they cannot provide guaranteed base load power. And, also, that sheer scale of transitioning entirely to solar panels and wind turbines, backed up by batteries made of rare earth minerals, on a world-wide basis, is unachievable.
Where does the truth lie?
Surely, it lies in compromise, balance and timing. We need all available energy types as the occasion suits. We can use hydro where water is plentiful, renewables for localised power, and continue with fossil fuels for heating, lubrication, asphalting, blast furnaces, trucking, farm vehicles, ships and aeroplanes until something better comes along. That could be modular nuclear reactors, hydrogen, and (the holy grail) nuclear fusion.
Is there any other answer than a multiplicity of energy sources, and sensible adoption as new energy forms come on stream?
Roderick Smith compares “trackless tram” to “wingless airplane” as a marketing term to sell buses (Letters, November 14). I did once travel in a wingless airplane and it was, indeed, a bus. Boarding at Montreal-Mirabel airport, It was the final leg of a British Airways ticket from London to Ottawa. It had a flight number and a hostess.
It’s time this Labor government brought to Australia the refugees seeking asylum here, but sent to PNG for offshore processing and languishing there for years. They number in the hundreds. This cruel, deplorable policy introduced by the Gillard government must end. We have “boundless plains to share”. As global citizens, morally we should.
B Hutchison (Letters, November 13), extols the virtue of being able to vote on the tram and still having a majority in favour despite the number of anti-tram letters. As a wise man once said: “In a democracy the people have the right to be wrong”.
B Hutchinson (Letters, October 13) suggests the re-election of the Barr government gave it a mandate to extend the tram line to Woden. I beg to differ. In 2020 it was more about the unelectability of the Liberal opposition than popular support for the tram. A referendum would be the best decider. But that won’t happen because the government would probably lose.
Activists are trying to perfect the world via cancel culture, pressure on sponsors, shareholder activism, community protests, and generally attempting to guilt-load and shame us to mould and correct our behaviour and opinions.
I thought when God showed Noah the rainbow it meant he’d use fire to destroy us the next time.
Unfortunately the cri de coeur of the lone mourner who poignantly wrote “We pray for no more wars or sacrificing the truth”, has been treated with disdain by (so called) democrats, and autocrats alike, as evidenced by (illegal) invasions and obscene war machine expenditure (Times Past, November 12).
Walter Burley Griffin did design Canberra houses, though unfortunately they were never built. They ranged from single bedroom to five bedrooms. In 2013, Canberra Museum and Art Gallery was kind enough to display four models of them, built by students at the University of Canberra.
There is a huge wharf at Echuca that is very high. When I saw it years ago, they were proud of its use by paddle steamers in the 19th century, to transport wool to ports downstream. It had to be high because of the variability of the Murray. Is the wharf still there? If so how high is the current flooding against it?
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