Debate on CO2 shows that the Paris climate accord is pointless

Congratulations for publishing such an interesting suite of climate letters (24-25/6) which made it clear that CO2 is a very minor player (if at all) in the climate story. The point was made that globally, the oceans control the climate and temperature change controls atmospheric CO2 levels.

Research in many journals collectively attests to the evidence for this which seems to be characteristic of records for any period or duration for which temperature and contemporaneous CO2 readings exist. This is so whether or not records are directly measured or otherwise derived from proxy sources dating back as much as 400,000 years. In fact, several authors have demonstrated that the growth pattern of CO2 over time can be replicated based only on the temperature record. Clearly this process cannot occur concurrently with the converse — if CO2 were to also cause global temperatures to rise (the prevailing orthodoxy). The outcome would have been an unstable climate eons ago.

The upshot is that the Paris accord is falsely based and policies blaming emissions for climate change are also false and pointless. This has been repeatedly stated by many leading climate scientists — Richard Lindzen, William Happer and Nils-Axel Morner to name three — but Western governments seem oblivious.

Jim Brooks, Toorak Gardens, SA

Labor’s tax troubles

Labor’s Treasury spokesman Jim Chalmers can’t be believed when he claims the government isn’t being serious wanting the tax package passed as soon as possible. The Coalition put its budget to the voters and won.

Labor put forward an alternative package that meant there would be a rapacious tax grab. Chalmers now wants more modelling before Labor would look at the third tranche of the tax cuts.

During the campaign, Labor proposed a radical 50 per cent emissions target by 2030. When pressed to provide costings as to how much this policy would cost, neither Bill Shorten nor Chris Bowen would tell us. Well, Labor lost.

The Coalition is entitled to have its budget package passed because it has a clear mandate. Chalmers is looking like an understudy as an emperor with no economic clothes.

Coke Tomyn, Camberwell, Vic

Hurdles for children

While Karen Nettleton did what many of us would have tried to do if we had grandchildren in a similar situation, the hurdles she faces as these children are resettled into Australian society are mind boggling. While your editorial (“Integrating caliphate children”, 26/6) points out the medical issues common to children with a similar background, that is probably the least of it.

There are going to be people angry they are being bought back to Australia and given the way social media works will try to make her life as difficult as possible. The children won’t be able to go to a normal school because many parents will be fearful of their own children associating with them. Any transgression by any of these children as they grow older, no matter how minor, will be used to paint them as aspiring terrorists.

I admire Nettleton and wish her all the best; the question we should think about is what would you have done if they were your grandchildren?

Glenys Clift, Toowoomba, Qld

“Give me a child until he is seven and I will show you the man”, expresses the wisdom of Aristotle. What would he have thought of the intention to integrate the children of Islamic State monsters into our society?

It is highly probable they have been irrevocably damaged by arguably a most evil philosophy. Hopefully, their arrival will not portend serious problems for our country, especially as they will see Australia as having been responsible for the death of one or both parents.

Dick Crane, Killarney Heights, NSW