Royal commission will not examine the cause of global warming

The terms of reference for the bushfires royal commission are strong on resilience and adaptation, but silent on the mitigation of human-induced climate change. Its focus will be on dealing with the consequences of global warning, not the cause.

We have to hope the Coalition’s road map will focus on tackling the cause. If not, we face a future of more frequent and more intense natural disasters with worsening consequences for the environment and economy followed by desperate steps to shore up resilience and to adapt.

Roger Tonkin, Newtown, NSW

Questions on Holy Grail

Thanks to Graham Lloyd for his article on Heinrich Hora’s breakthrough work at the University of NSW with his boron-hydrogen fusion process (“Holy Grail of clean energy”, 21/2). What’s not made clear in the piece are the temperatures involved in the process. Normally magnetic containment of a substance — plasma in this case — is needed where there is no solid material capable of handling the temperatures involved.

I would like to know how much power is being pushed in the far end to achieve the reaction, and how much can be harvested at the output end.

John McHarg, Maylands, WA

Manufacturing insurance

An excellent and timely article by Greg Sheridan on the parlous state of our manufacturing sector (“We lack the will to have a manufacturing industry”, 20/2). Quite apart from the implications for the national economy, jobs and national security, it raises the question of how our ever-burgeoning urban populations will be usefully employed in future. They can’t all be baristas, tour guides and no-fault lawyers.

Hardly a week goes past without us reading about another factory closure putting hundreds of workers on the street, yet still the migrants pour into the “lucky country”. Targeted subsidies to deserving manufacturing sectors could prove a wise insurance against the social turmoil that might otherwise lie ahead.

Peter Austin, Mount Victoria, NSW

Call Greens’ bluff

While the full impact of the coronavirus on Australia’s economy is yet to unfold, we should adjust our economic priorities for the national interest of future generations: we have too many eggs in the China basket (education, tourism and trade).

This is giving us a taste of what is to come if the eco-warriors get their way and shut down the fossil fuel industry and ban the use and export of coal.

I urge the Labor Party to call the Greens’ bluff and join the Morrison government in bipartisanship to build new, clean coal-fired power stations. We need to secure reliable power for consumers and businesses; to develop manufacturing and to preserve our future standard of living. Economic growth is not a dirty concept.

Glenn Marchant, Pascoe Vale, Vic

New dams a necessity

Graham Richardson is correct with his support for more dams (“Voters would back action — if they were to see any”, 21/2). Every year we increase the population by hundreds of thousands and yet we have no new dams.

When Tony Abbott won government in 2013, he promised new dams, but he wasn’t there long enough to do anything substantial before he was overthrown. Richardson’s argument that the Greens will never support a dam because of an endangered frog is correct. The solution is to throw the Greens out at the next election.

We have been saved from drastic water restrictions by a downpour, but we must never come so close again. The “green tape” that must be navigated to get dams constructed has to be torn up and state governments warned to get moving.

Lesley Beckhouse, Queanbeyan, NSW