Letters
Sydney Morning Herald
Tuesday June 2, 2009
Climate change is coming to a hip pocket near youRichard Ratajczak (Letters, June 1) has done us all a service. For if we cannot laugh about climate change, we would certainly cry.He complains that climate change is being blamed for every disaster under the sun, even malaria. A moment's thought, or a peek into Wikipedia, reveals that malaria is a vector-borne disease whose spread is limited by the geographical range of the anopheles mosquito. Warm up the temperate latitudes and, hey presto, the mosquito carries the disease further south.Last month a report by University College London and The Lancet argued that climate change was the biggest global health threat of the 21st century.Ben McNeil in his book The Clean Industrial Revolution notes that not only tropical diseases but tropical cyclones are coming further south. Just one cyclone of modest strength tracking through Brisbane, the Gold Coast and the Sunshine Coast could cause $200 billion in damage. That is 20 per cent of our annual GDP. No wonder insurance premiums are on the rise.Climate change is real, it's happening and, unless we get our act together, it's coming to a hip pocket near you.David Teather Reid (ACT)Cuts, not delays, the keySurely it is time for this inept state government to refocus on cutting back its bloated contracted senior management rather than delaying hundreds of thousands of public sector wage rises ("Pay rise delay to save Rees budget", June 1). The mini-budget in November promised to reduce their numbers by 20 per cent, but little evidence has emerged of these cuts. So once again it will be the workers who get flogged.Jim Gentles CoogeeNot such vivid imaginationBrian Eno has come a long way to tell us that "quite a lot of the barriers that used to separate the art forms have withered away" ("It ain't got that swing, but it sure means something", May 27). However, Eno's projections of coloured napkins and assorted colours on the Opera House are a doubtful contribution to the visual arts.To bask in the reflected glory of the Opera House is hardly an achievement, and a great work of art (in this case architecture) does not need his help to be improved.Fans of Vivid Sydney might be more impressed if he could enliven something that really needs help. Perhaps our visitor has become a bit confused, given the magnitude of his production, and now all he can do is obfuscate.The differences between the arts will not disappear because of his say-so.Swetik Korzeniewski BowralTaxing timesNice idea, Jack Bacchus (Letters, June1), but what about those of us who lodged their first Australian tax return after working overseas and emigrating? On that basis, I would get to retire in my mid 70s.Tom Wilson TurramurraShow a bit of Brut strengthIf Channel Nine and the NRL are serious about developing a culture of greater respect to women, they could do worse than pulling the Brut advertisement played several times during the telecast of the Sunday afternoon league game.In this animated ad a man, in the guise of a robot, has the benefit of a machine that supplies him with a surfboard, a can of drink and a motorbike. The machine then offers him a modestly dressed woman, whom he rejects. She is instantly transformed by the machine into a bikini-clad girl, whom he readily sweeps into his arms. A changeable commodity. Still brutally male? You bet.Don Coles CarlingfordHave I missed something? Ben Cousins's manager described his offensive gesture as a "lapse of concentration" ("Cousins says sorry for gesture", June 1).Since when does someone have to "concentrate" to not give the finger? What goes on in the minds of Cousins and his apologist manager?Charles Jardine Seaforth
© 2009 Sydney Morning Herald
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