YOUR SAY: ‘We tried to warn them about climate change’

‘We should be smart enough to avoid ending up in strife’

Fire on the Old Genoa Bridge in Victoria. The bridge was built between 1926-1928. Picture: Heritage Council Victoria/ Twitter

Ode to ScoMo

I’ve written another poem. This one is about Scott Morrison. I have a feeling we’ll be hearing about this one for a while.

Remember back in May last year when Australia was given a choice.

We could have made an amazing change but very few used their voice.

Instead they voted for stale bread and for the same old rotten stew.

And we’ve ended up with the same old window but a very different view.

We tried to warn them about climate change and the road we needed to take.

But they laughed it off and said “Climate change? Everyone knows that’s fake”.

So now we sit here utterly helpless as our beloved country burns.

And Scott Morrison still doesn’t get it. I guess he just never learns.

We wanted people to think about change, not because we’re anti-coal but because we believed it’s now essential that we aspire to different goals.

Not only is our world changing, in an extremely dramatic way. But our own planet now seems to be struggling to deliver us another day.

Now I’m not saying that we all of a sudden need to abandon our way of life.

I’m just saying we should be smart enough to avoid ending up in strife.

In May last year we started asking people to consider their future selves.

And to look at the things we can easily change to avoid this current hell

They called us soft and mocked us, “Labor’s in bed with the Greens”.

But really all we wanted to do, was take steps to avoid these shocking scenes.

We tried to explain why it’s important to consider the future of our kids w hile the government tried to sell franking credits to the buyer with the highest bid.

Now, of course, we have Scott Morrison, a man who believes it’s OK to jump on a plane to Hawaii during our country’s darkest days.

And now that our world’s on fire and thousands are homeless and broke.

Our own Prime Minister still can’t work out why nobody else gets the joke.

Murray Mason, South Mackay

Bull blast

Did the Deputy PM, one of the scientific luminaries in Good Guv’mint, blame exploding horse manure as one of the causes of the raging bushfires? Fair dinkum?

Margaret Wilkie, Peregian Beach

Solar panel shout

Hello, LM (DM 19/12/2019), I was intrigued by your question, and wanted to answer what I could on solar panels reflecting heat.

The percentage of sunlight that is reflected away as light upon a surface is known as “Albedo”, with the remaining per cent converted into heat.

You talked about it replacing cropland, so let’s analyse that.

The University of Hawaii gives the albedo of grassland as 10-25 per cent, so I’ll go with 18 per cent, meaning 82 per cent of the sunlight goes into the atmosphere as heat.

The website EnergyUsage gives the efficiency of solar panels as 15-20 per cent, so I’ll go with 18 per cent being turned into electricity, with the other 82 per cent going into the atmosphere as heat.

Therefore, if you build a solar farm on grassland, you’ll break even.

Do be aware though that different terrains and biomes have different albedos.

NASA gives the average albedo of Earth as 30 per cent, while according to the EPA the albedo of roofs vary from 5 per cent all the way up to 65 per cent, if special high albedo roof materials are used.

Also, my calculations were only rough, so overall, I recommend some independent research. I hope this helps!

Ethan Puddicombe, Bucasia

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