Letters: Jackie Trad imbroglio threatens Labor’s re-election

Today readers have their say on the imbroglio surrounding Deputy Premier Jackie Trad and the warning signs of climate change.

Deputy Premier Jackie Trad. Picture: AAP Image/Jono Searle

AS COLUMNIST Steven Wardill said, the situation surrounding Deputy Premier Jackie Trad fails the “pub test” for the average person (C-M, Jul 26).

If a member of the public was in this position there would be no argument about what to do.

Guilt or innocence is not the issue. The perception by ordinary people that something might be wrong should be recognised and should matter to Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk.

It may well cost her an election.

Michael Matthews, Bribie Island

JACKIE Trad has always had an answer for everything, but the more she talks about the purchase of the Woolloongabba property (C-M, Jul 25) the deeper she digs herself into a hole.

Does she really want us to believe her husband bought the investment property for $700,000 without discussing it with her?  If $700,000 isn’t worth mentioning, we are paying her too much.

The Premier should have known about her deputy’s house and land acquisition before The Courier-Mail exposed the story.

She should have stood down Trad and cancelled her overseas trip pending an investigation.

Liz Haydon, Runcorn

AS STATE Treasurer and a property owner, Jackie Trad would be well aware that she would have to sign contracts and transfer papers to have a property bought in her name.

To deny knowledge of such a purchase seems to me to be disingenuous and ridiculous.

I trust she is not so laissez-faire with the signing of state documents.

Stan Prickett, Margate Beach

IN THE witch hunt over Jackie Trad, the Opposition has conveniently forgotten what goes round comes around.

No doubt the LNP would be relying on the fact they think they sit on the side of God, even though they bleed the same as Trad and the rest of us mortals.

It is surely only a matter of time before the boot will be on the other foot.

D.J. Fraser, Currumbin

***********

WARNING SIGNS ON CLIMATE CHANGE

TO PREDICT whether human activities such as CO2 emissions will cause dangerous climate change, one must try to understand the complex physicochemical processes and interactions that control weather and climate.

For example, arguments that air currents and water vapour (also a greenhouse gas) make higher CO2 levels irrelevant or even a coolant, run counter to arguments that warming initiated by higher CO2 causes water vapour levels to rise, amplifying greenhouse warming.

I agree with Stephen Morgan (Letters, Jul 25) that we should give more credibility to the scientific community who weigh the available evidence and conclude that warming processes dominate.

Sceptics cannot prove that continuing high CO2 emissions will not cause dangerous climate change.

We must wait and see what happens. This reminds me of Malcolm Turnbull’s view that we are conducting a global experiment, which is why climate scientists give a range of possible outcomes.

Given alternatives to fossil fuels are now cost-competitive and available, surely it is prudent to expedite their adoption.

We cannot go back and start again if the worst predictions come true, and there are warning signs that something may be happening now, eg the current heatwave in Europe.

Donald Maclean, Fig Tree Pocket

STEPHEN Morgan (Letters, Jul 26) should critically analyse the reports of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.

My comments on whether cooling is occurring are not a personal opinion. They are scientific deductions from evidence including satellite observations by a scientist with more than 50 years relevant experience in the physics of weather, geology, satellite remote sensing and climate change policy.

The IPCC reports ignore this evidence by inappropriately defining the top of the atmosphere at an altitude of about 10km.

Over 30 years, the IPCC has slowly accepted that there are other causes of warming but it still exaggerates the effect of CO2 by failing to adequately adjust for the interference by water vapour which is up to 50 times more abundant in the lower atmosphere.

Many recent scientific papers provide evidence that the IPCC and early climate modellers came to the wrong conclusions by omitting parts of the complex, chaotic climate system.

Ian Wilson, Chapel Hill

***********

Join the conversation. Send your letters to couriermail.com.au/letters or email to [e-mail]