Drumgold analysis will help restore public faith in justice system

Thursday’s detailed analysis by Janet Albrechtsen and Stephen Rice will go a long way towards restoring public confidence in the administration of justice and alleviate associated public concern (“Trial treachery: the lies of unethical Drumgold”, 03/08). The clarity of the analysis in the paper is some of the best.

Thursday’s detailed analysis by Janet Albrechtsen and Stephen Rice will go a long way towards restoring public confidence in the administration of justice and alleviate associated public concern (“Trial treachery: the lies of unethical Drumgold”, 03/08). The clarity of the analysis in the paper is some of the best.

Ian Dunlop, Hawks Nest, NSW

Fantastic stuff from Janet Albrechtsen and Stephen Rice today. It leaves one with many questions! It truly is such a relief that there are a few real journalists in this country.

Pam Norris, Perth, WA

Clean energy plan B?

The ALP needs a plan B in transitioning to clean energy. Chris Bowen worryingly concedes that attaining the 2030 renewable target is a stretch; so too, it appears, is CSIRO’s creative accounting of sunk costs. CSIRO’s designation of the costs as already incurred and not recoverable is contrary to the rollout of renewable technologies, whereby generation, transmission and storage is ancillary to new-build costs of solar farms and wind turbines between now and 2030 and beyond. Whether exclusion of the costs by CSIRO has the potential to derail investment in renewable technology remains to be seen. Should this occur, needs must see the ALP embrace nuclear power.

Bearing this in mind, the government can, by 2040, secure Australia’s energy, economic and national security via an investment – enabling also an independent source of public revenue for 60 years – of $1 trillion in 20 nuclear power plants, to transmit 54GW of clean affordable energy to business and consumers. It is an investment in a future powered by nuclear fission technology, the safe, radiation-free, emissions-free, clear energy successor to fission technology. Having said that, should Bowen and the ALP fail to reduce inflation and cost-of-living pressure on working families, it is three more wasted years. The only people not doing it tough are high-income earners and political elites.

Robert Boone, Bomaderry, NSW

Once again, the voices of leading US climate scientists show how divided the scientific community is on climate change. An explosion of new weather stations, which go back to only the 1970s, the distorting effects of urbanisation, which subject weather stations to additional heat, and the evidence of hotter periods during the 1930s dust-bowl period and the Medieval Warm Period all reduce the latest sensationalism to “exaggeration and hype”. (“Talk of hottest temperatures ‘all hot air’ ”, 3/8).

Yet it’s this hyperbole that is being used to justify the argument for renewables technologies, which, for many reasons including high materials intensity, a fossil fuel dependency in their manufacturing processes and a widespread destruction of natural carbon sinks, actually increase global emissions. Whatever is the prevailing view on anthropological global warming, nuclear power is the superior energy source, explaining the resurgence in its uptake globally.

Ron Hobba, Camberwell, Vic

Despite almost universal consensus from the world’s climate scientists that July was the hottest of the hot, Adam Creighton has found a couple of naysayers. The two outlying scientists are, of course, “top US climate scientists”. How do we know they are “top scientists”? What evidence does Adam provide?

Ross Hudson, Mount Martha, Vic

Air of inevitability

With my nearly 40 years’ experience in studying and advising governments on high-speed rail in Australia, I think I’d be suggesting to the minister that spending many billions of taxpayer dollars to attack a fully privatised airport and airline system is not the way to go, at least not now. Aviation is and will remain a critical mode of transport in keeping Australia – with its vast distances – connected and that needs, to do it with the safety standards Australians take for granted, a financially strong aviation industry. Delivering much better rail travel in regional corridors – which air travel does not address well – around our major cities is the way to go and this (and the previous) government’s focus on Sydney-Newcastle is totally correct. That will take more than a decade to achieve so there is no shortage of something to do. Perhaps ultimately, and provided the states don’t insist on incompatible technologies, we – but probably not me – will see such regional links connected into intercity linkages.

Peter Thornton, Killara, NSW

Trump v honesty

Trump once said to Pence: “You’re too honest.” That’s the person a significant minority of Americans are still supporting. The whole world needs to stop and think hard about that. Is that someone we really want running what is still the most powerful country in the world? A man who thinks his vice-president can be too honest?

Stephen Yolland, Templestowe, Vic