Climate scientist’s credibility questioned
Re Abigail Smith’s article Election 2023 should be a vote for the future of Planet Earth (ODT 6.9.23). I attended the Meet the Candidate forum in Wānaka last night. It appears you have wasted your life learning a lot of stuff that isn't true. A Professor of Climate Science you may be, but what do you know?
Of the seven candidates on stage last night, five (with experience in specialties such as real estate, farming and business) were able to assure me that either climate change has always been with us and was nothing to worry about, or that climate change is a concern but becoming personally better off or waiting for technology to save us, is the answer. Only two, the Green and the 18-year-old Labour candidates, spoke with the same urgency and concern as you. But like you, neither of them clearly have any experience in the real world, or they would know better.
Prof praised
This is a plea to all politicians of all persuasions and to those who vote for them: please read and absorb the powerful message in the feature by Prof Abigail Smith. Taxes, health, education, transport etc etc pale into insignificance when one considers what is happening to our planet. And yet issues to do with climate change get scarcely a mention by our aspiring leaders. To those who seek to lead our country: please have the courage to show some initiative in this for the sake of us all before it’s too late.
His good points
It is with sorrow that I have read recent reports in media regarding Mr Barry Williams, chairman of the Strath Taieri Community Board. While not condoning the comment , I note that this was said at a private function and not as the representative of the board. I would suggest if this had been said by another hotel patron it would not have had the same reaction.
As a former resident of the Strath Taieri, I remember Barry and family as being fully committed to all community fund raising and working bees over many decades. The Williams family were the glue that held the community together. One such event is prominent in my recollections. Who could forget the time and effort (and persuasive powers) that saw Barry Williams arrange for Peter Fitzsimons, Wallaby rugby icon, journalist and author to be the guest speaker at a small New Zealand country town rugby club reunion?
Yes, Barry has made a very big mistake, but weigh this up with what he has done for Middlemarch and the wider Strath Taieri community. Surely everyone can make one major mistake in life without it defining their reputable past life?
Photo significance
I am writing regarding "Portraits give way to photos" (ODT 6.9.23). Councillors’ arguments against adopting photographic portraits of mayors are at best bemusing.
While they may not be familiar with the names Irving Penn, Dorothea Lange, Annie Leibovitz, and Ans Westra, they will know their work. Arts Foundation Laureate Fiona Pardington is a photographer who has held the Frances Hodgkins Fellowship. To claim that photographic portraiture is less artistic or significant than painting is entirely incorrect. Furthermore, that some of the comments were made by councillors who claim to support arts practitioners and the local arts community is dismaying and displays a fundamental lack of understanding of the practice. Finally, regarding cost-saving, all professional artists, including photographers, deserve sufficient remuneration.
Nats tax policy: he don’t get fooled again
I’m not fooled by National’s tax package. Why? Because it will not be funded by from an increase in the taxes of those who do not pay their fair share towards the running of the country that made them wealthy. If it does not come from that source then, ultimately, it will come out of the pockets of the "squeezed middle" whom Ms Willis is trying to win over.
In the longer run, this short-term hand out will be paid for by inadequate spending on health, education, policing and infrastructure. National has prior form as a serial neglecter of all these aspects of a successful society and there is nothing in their election year rhetoric that indicates a fundamental change of ideology.
The default mode for National is to run down the institutions of civil society to the point where they can no longer function effectively and then to claim that privatisation is the only way to operate efficiently. It’s a tried and trusted formula of right-of-centre governments, justified by self-serving economic theories, that repeatedly leads to an inequitable distribution of wealth. National’s election year candy is a certain indicator that they are off down the same old road. The sugar high won’t last. I want a square meal of pragmatic, long term policy.
Strengthen the rules
Thinking people can forgive its lazy reinforcement of the Western Minority World "China Threat" meme, but the real flaw in Robert Patman’s otherwise intelligent contribution on the Hipkins government’s cuddling up to World War 3 with Aukus (ODT 29.8.23) is his implication that a "commitment to strengthen the International Rules Based Order" is a positive. The IRBO is a US construct, is highly discredited, and has no relationship to international law — which would be a good thing to strengthen.
An English gorge rail fan writes
I have recently heard on the grapevine that there are possible plans to scrap and remove the part of the Taieri Gorge Railway: please, don’t.
As a visitor who has friends and relatives in New Zealand, my wife has done the TGR with her sister (a Kiwi) in 2002 and we did it together in March 2019.
The trip through the gorge is a must do for many visitors from overseas and I can’t emphasise it enough.
Get it back on track, market it, and run it at least to Pukerangi (where we went in 2019) if not Middlemarch (accomplished in 2002 by my wife and her sister).
I have heard that the railway had fallen into disrepair in the Covid times. Repair it, don’t rip it up — it’s a golden asset to the Otago area.
Making it a cycle way through the gorge will exclude many people from the beauty of this route — hardly an inclusive scheme in a modern and enlightened society.
Viewed from outside New Zealand, the complete run through the gorge is on many people’s bucket lists.
Surely there must be people with vision in Dunedin who can re-invigorate this community created railway?
Do not waste your money in a hair brained up-hill cycle ride. Let the train take the strain and use the assets (people) to run it as before.
Do not destroy what you have, invest in your railway.
Boys in blue
I read with great excitement about "Otago’s men in blue going green with new EV rollout" (ODT 1.9.23).
It is great news for the environment. When will Otago’s female police officers be allowed to drive the electric vehicles?
Address Letters to the Editor to: Otago Daily Times, PO Box 517, 52-56 Lower Stuart St, Dunedin. Email: editor@odt.co.nz
