Saturday, December 12, 2015

After all, if it were not for those clever innovators who harnessed the sun and wind to produce electricity we would still be forced to burn carbon-emitting coal. 

Thanks to those brilliant innovators we could shut down existing coal mines and stop selling the stuff to developing nations. 

We could reduce our energy use and have reasonable chance of making a respectable contribution to the delaying of catastrophic climate change. 

The developing nations seem to be leading the way in this kind of thinking. One could be forgiven for concluding that investment in the education of scientists and innovators of the future is pointless if governments do not make full use of brilliant innovations which are right now up and running, to delay climate change.

If our prime minister likes a challenge I suggest he will never have a more exciting one than this. 

FOLLOWING Tony Abbott’s hateful and disingenuous speech, it is insufficient for members of Parliament and commentators to simply say they disagree.

Not only did he make the outrageous claim that “our culture” is somehow superior to that of the Islamic world when all evidence indicates the opposite, but he said this was because “they killed in the name of God”.

He then destroyed his “moral case” by proposing that Australia should become more involved in the US-led war on Syria, a war that would be long finished, or would never have begun, were it not for our allies’ covert “intervention” by backing the jihadist insurgency. 

The pretence that our war in Syria is to bring democracy, or now to fight Islamic State, has just been ripped open by Russia’s cruise missiles targeting the Islamic State’s oil tanker pipeline, which had been bringing millions of dollars a day to IS and its support network in Turkey.

These funds in turn have been paying for the arms flowing back into Syria with Turkish assistance. When Turkey hit back at Russia’s destruction of a lucrative oil smuggling business by shooting down a Russian fighter jet over Syria two weeks ago, it was a de-facto declaration of war. But far more serious was the immediate support for Turkey offered by NATO and President Obama.

Turkey’s action was a pre-planned and deliberate act of aggression and must be denounced and Turkish leaders held to account. I also call on our local representatives and community leaders to denounce our former PM’s statements, which are misguided and dangerously inflammatory at this critical moment in history.

I JUST saw my son’s water bill for his new house, which is currently being built. One water unit cost $1.30 then $83 worth of charges.

I find it interesting that one unit is used and yet the council will bill you for all the extras, instead of leaving it for the next period when more water may have been used rather than adding charges of 6450 per cent to the cost of water.

Note for Albury Council, common sense says you could add $1.30 to the next bill rather than $83 to this bill. Oh sorry, you don't know what common sense is.

This week’s letter of the week winner is Gordon Kerry of Sandy Creek.

Please collect your double pass to Regent Cinemas Albury at the front counter of The Border Mail office at 1 McKoy St, Wodonga, VIC.