The onus should be on the Greens to supply proof

Richard Di Natale and Adam Bandt are scraping the bottom of the barrel trying to blame the bushfires on Scott Morrison. If they are serious they should supply incontrovertible proof that our 1.3 per cent of greenhouse gas emissions is responsible for every fire.

They should know that the principal cause of fires is lightning strikes and that many of the fires now raging were caused by arsonists. They should also know that our Chief Scientist says that no matter what Australia does, it will have no effect on our, or the world’s, climate.

Reports indicate that the world has spent trillions of dollars trying to arrest climate change by building wind farms, solar panels and other measures, but it has had no effect on the climate. It is also reported that human-induced greenhouse gas emissions are only 3 per cent of the total. Perhaps the Greens should look at facts rather than blabbering on with scaremongering nonsense.

Coke Tomyn, Camberwell, Vic

Paul Kelly’s discussion about the politics of nature was enlightening (“After the fires, we’ll have combustive issues to resolve”, 13/11) and he reminds us the Greens are incapable of grasping bushfires because they don’t understand climate change.

The fires rage because of dry fuel. The fuel arose after heavy rains caused greening of brush and shrub that dried out awaiting lightening or a careless spark to ignite. Adam Bandt and the pixies he speaks for cannot guide us to the solution because they are substantially the problem.

Greg Jones, Kogarah, NSW

This is a tragic time for our country, with lives lost, homes destroyed and thousands of animals killed. This is not the time for opportunistic politicians — who know nothing about how tough it is to survive on the land — to score political points. Severe bushfires occur every year here depending on rainfall. It’s a fact.

Lesley Beckhouse, Queanbeyan, NSW

Convenient as it is to blame the Greens for our bushfires by some of your correspondents, they seem to forget that it takes a complex bureaucracy to get things wrong as well as unpredictable climate factors.

Hazard reduction burning is not the jurisdiction of the Greens, but of course they do acknowledge that hazard reduction affects a multitude of animal habitats such as hollow logs. This obvious dilemma requires consultation between various conservation groups and fire authorities.

Mark Chapman, Buderim, Qld

Condemning Greens MPs recent remarks about the bushfires (whatever their merits) as “politicians exploiting natural disasters for political gain” (Letters, 14/11) is misguided.

This is precisely the time to discuss such matters. Claims this insults people who have lost homes, or firefighters whose lives are in danger, forget that the arguments aren’t directed at them. Besides, the indignation emanates not from firefighters or victims but from people ideologically opposed to environmentalism, who themselves aren’t holding back when it comes to attributing blame.

Anyway, environmental issues are conservationists’ stock in trade, what they talk about all the rest of the time. If Greens politicians should stick to their knitting, this is their knitting. Certainly, nobody inclined to feel that they should confine themselves to talking about environmental matters and not comment on, say, refugees, should complain if they do that.

Patrick Ball, Fern Tree, Tas

I’m sure if a maths wonk were able to plot on a graph the increase in bushfire numbers, impact, intensity and volatility going back several decades, it would find a link between the introduction of policy driven by the environmental lobby and the greenie-inspired policies of hazard reduction, with that same increase in bushfire intensity and volatility.

The Greens pretty much say that, by identifying the 1970s as the benchmark decade. This dovetails with the thesis linking the increase in bushfires and the exacerbation of the drought on farmers, with the rise of the Greens and the environmental movement more broadly and their associated policies such as hazard reduction and environmental flows to our rivers.

But the Greens can only exercise leverage with the co-operation of the main parties. At all levels of government there’s been too much playing footsies with the Greens. They are just a noisy minority and the main parties have the power to freeze them out.

Jim Ball, Narrabeen, NSW