Mass vaccination, population growth and accountability

Using mass vaccination centres to protect Australia from COVID-19, the catastrophic impact of population growth and the need for more government accountability are discussed in letters to Redlands2030.

You can have your say about any issue of concern to people in the Redlands by emailing your letter to theeditor@redlands2030.net

Mass vaccination centres needed for fast rollout

There’s widespread acceptance that a complete vaccination rollout cannot possibly be achieved by the October timeframe, as proposed by the Federal Government using current injection outlets for the public. 

Places like Brisbane Convention Centre, QE2 , Boondall and Chandler Stadiums could be used as centres for a fast mass vaccination rollout, assuming supply and other logistics are on track and the public remains compliant. 

So why are mass vaccination centres not in place already?

Mass vaccination centres are at odds with the financial interests of Australia’s general practitioners and the politically powerful retail pharmacy sector.

Let’s stop pretending and get Australia vaccinated.

R.H.
Sunnybank  

The catastrophe that is population growth

The recent documentary by David Attenborough, Extinction: The Facts, emphasized the catastrophic impact that population growth coupled with consumption growth is having on the earth’s biodiversity.

The tragic reality is that going green does have a very dark side that is going to accelerate the loss of biodiversity, the pollution of the planet, and, eventually, will lead to the collapse of the entire bio-system.

For me, the fundamental issue is not really about whether the current model of civilization with its incessant demand for energy (whether “clean and green” or fossil-fuel based) and resources to feed its voracious consumptive appetite and its idolatrous commitment to economic growth is sustainable.

Every indication to me as a retired engineer who has had a keen interest in environmental protection since the 1970s, is that it is not, and that the “clean” or “green” energy solutions towards which we are currently moving, have a massive devastating impact on this world which may simply be irreparable.

It seems that the dilemma we face if we continue the current ordering of society is to heat ourselves to death or poison our world to death and ourselves along with it. The latter will come much sooner than the former if we continue towards the current “clean and green” technologies.

I would encourage those concerned about fossil fuels to begin developing a better-informed and more nuanced approach to the “clean” energy future they are advocating.

Surely it is time for ACF to start advocating de-growth, rather than playing around the edges of the fossil fuels versus “clean” energy debate.

Why not get involved in a debate about the real and fundamental issue: Is the model of a consumption-driven, energy-hungry civilization sustainable?

I haven’t mentioned the geo-political significance of the rare earth metals production and supply upon which the new energy sector is so dependent. I think Pitron does an excellent job of that.

We must, as a society, come to grips with the fact that most of our “dirty environmental linen” is “washed” in China at a great cost to its environment and the health of many of its frontline workers, and that is we, the ordinary citizens, who are complicit in this consumption-driven, energy-hungry society, who are destroying our own home, the only home of all creatures, the earth.

I am happy for anyone on the staff of the environmental movement to rebut my arguments and to prove Vidal and Pitron to be wrong, but I suspect they are right.

I remain committed to environmental protection and to reduction of greenhouse gas emissions but the current approaches all seem to be dead end streets.

D.J.
Cleveland

Moving from acknowledgement to accountability

I have heard some of our illustrious leaders starting off their speeches with an acknowledgment to the Indigenous people of the region, past present and future. It makes these politicians sound like genuine people until we see the results of their actions. 

I have heard these acknowledgements at the very beginning of speeches from the Mayor of Redland City, the Premier of Queensland and from ScoMo, the current PM of the country.  They are also quick to use the words “jobs” and “tourism”  in their addresses but then we hear that they are taking overseas trips at taxpayer or ratepayer expense in an attempt to sell Australian islands and Australian infrastructure to China or to whoever will pay the big dollars. This is not tourism.

If you want a first hand look at tourism have a look at what is happening in Western Australia and it doesn’t involve selling ports, harbours and multi-million dollar companies to overseas interests.  Do you think for one moment that these same foreign countries would allow Australia to buy parts of their countries or infrastructure ? – no way.

I am currently travelling through the outback and the coastal regions of WA.  If you want to see Orcas in their natural environment there are trips running to Bremer Bay Canyon near Albany, encounters with dolphins at Monkey Mia at Shark Bay, encounters with manta rays at Coral Bay and, as the photos show, snorkeling at Ningaloo Reef with the largest fish in the sea, the magnificent whale sharks.  Also the roads in WA are suitable for caravans and there are caravan and tourist parks littered throughout the state. 

After some major blunders by ScoMo over the last year, starting with his trip to Hawaii during the worst bushfires to hit Australia in the last 250 years and including his refusal to reprimand major failures of ministers he is now trying tearful speeches similar to those employed by Bob Hawke a few years ago. It would pay him to remember that Hawke’s tearful speeches were the start of him being deposed as PM.  But before you hardened Labor voters get too excited remember you need an opposition leader who fully endorses climate change and who has a plan for future sustainable development of the country. Oh, by the way, he or she must also be able to pronounce the name of the country to which he/she aspires to be PM. It is not A’straya. 

So let’s see our leaders do a little more than acknowledge the Indigenous custodians who have been here for the last 60,000 years.  And by the way ScoMo, there is no need for a $50,000,000 statue and exhibition to Captain James Cook in your Sutherland electorate, nor a $5,000,000 replica of the Endeavour.

Captain Cook did not circumnavigate Australia and he did not discover it.  Aside from the Indigenous people Europeans have been coming to Australia since the Batavia in 1629.  The French, Dutch and Portuguese have all landed in Australia well before the Endeavour in 1770. The first Europeans to settle in Australia came from the Batavia after the shipwreck on the Abrolhos Islands 140 years before the landing of Captain Cook. 

Finally, we need to hold the current Federal Government and its Environment Minister accountable.  The Sports Rort will look like a small misuse of taxpayer money if the current Federal Environment Minister, Sussan Ley, bows to pressure from a commercial developer as it seems did a previous Environment Minister by the name of Josh Frydenberg. 

Let’s hope he can do a better job as Treasurer. In the mean time we cannot afford to see an International Ramsar Convention on conservation of environmentally important wetlands, signed by 170 nations, trashed because a wealthy commercial developer wants a highly inappropriate unit development over the wetlands. No Australian insurance company would insure such a development.

Let’s hope for sanity in our elected leaders and some accountability, which up till now has been sadly lacking. 

D.T.
Victoria Point

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