The NIMBY is not interested in the welfare of his fellow human-beings.

The NIMBY is interested in preserving the current state of almost exponentially increasing property values, and that means keeping out the riffraff. Of course one cannot call them riffraff, heaven forfend.

No, one must convince oneself that one has the welfare of one’s fellows at heart as one blocks every effort of agencies, government and not-for-profit alike, to house the tens of thousands in NSW alone who so desperately require secure, affordable accommodation.

These people are elitist real-estate mercenaries, nothing more or less! Their arguments and excuses are non-sequitur and not even clever.

How much time do they spend perusing residential Development Applications I wonder?

If they are not hypocrites they should certainly be scrutinising all residential development with a view to blocking it if it doesn’t offer enough parking; if there is inadequate access to facilities; if the block is too steep for disabled access etc.

Why? Because as it stands private residential development contributes the vast bulk of rental housing to the system, though not very affordably and never with the security of tenure offered by social housing.

The saddest thing about the growing NIMBY phenomenon – I mean aside from the fact that practitioners exemplify the steady decline of the Aussie spirit – is that they seem oblivious to the fact that they need affordable (social/public) housing at least as much as those who will eventually live in it.

housing tenants who, just like me, contribute productively to their communities and the wider community that is Australia.

Garry Mallard OAM

Coordinator, National Tenant Support Network

The anti marine park lobby are a few grumpy men.

THE recent comments made by Philip Creagh and Dave Clark in letters to the Narooma News (24-2-10) concerning the Batemans Marine Park are at best mistaken and at worst deliberately malicious.

But this is of no surprise to marine conservationists.

With widespread support for the Batemans Marine Park demonstrated by record visitation to Eurobodalla Shire, this minority fringe group opposed to the Batemans Marine Park has become increasingly frustrated and desperate in their attempts to denigrate all things associated with this marine park.

The reality is the exclusion of trawling activity by the implementation of the zoning for the Batemans Marine Park, and the removal of commercial netting from Durras Lake and the Clyde River, has contributed to the stopping of a decline in fish stocks and giving them a chance to regenerate.

This has meant that fishing quality has improved - an important point to emphasise given some of the very heated and negative debate that went on throughout the Batemans Marine Park consultation process.

This now leaves the anti marine park lobby compromising a few grim faced men having a whinge struggling to deal with the changes that life presents.

John Perkins

Secretary, Friends of Durras

I take it all back

I WOULD be one of the first to give it to council for what I would say were shortcomings.

But I would be lesser a person if didn’t recognise the immense task our council and we the community has ahead of us in clear up after the flood event.

The declaration of a Natural Disaster alone indicates the size of the event.

For the tight State Government to give the $3.5million to a bush Liberal-held seat tells me the size of the problems ahead of our council fieldworkers.

I made a blue in believing our bridge on the Tilba Punkalla road was not going to be replaced in the short term not really appreciating that people could not get home to Narrabundah or the extent of the damage to the Araluen Road or Bingie.

After seeing the extent of the damage, I’m sorry Warren Sharp for my ill-conceded response for my own problems.

I now fully appreciate the response our council staff have given to all of us. Thanks.

Ron Snape

Central Tilba

Sea level rise is here, don’t blame National Parks

I'M confused. On the one hand I read in the Narooma News (24.2.10) that council is running workshops telling us to prepare our flood-prone lands for sea-level rise, then I read the letters page and find that when those flood-prone lands do get inundated it's all National Parks and Wildlife Service (NPWS) fault!

NPWS would be way down on my liability list.

I'd be looking to the dodgy developer who first proposed development of flood-prone lands, then the dodgy council that approved that development and subsequent building applications, and finally a bit of navel-gazing about the 'geese' who chose to buy property in those flood-prone lands.

Sea-level rise is here now. You only have to look at the sea wall near the indoor pool being eroded away, Riverside Drive breaking up under king tides, the bridge car park slowly disappearing.

I hope Alan Tilley and Peter Bernard (NN Letters 24.2.10) attended council's sea-level rise workshop and came away with strategies to deal with the issue of ocean lapping at their door-step in 30 years time - blame NPWS perhaps?

Also, Dr Phil Creagh and Dave Clark (NN Letters 24.2.10) crack me up, complaining about dead fish.

Someone should do a research project going back through all the issues of the Narooma News since the 1960s and compare the photos of people standing next to dead fish over those four decades.

Maybe then Dr Phil Creagh, Dave Clark and Richard Tilzey would stop whining about the marine park and just get out and enjoy having their photos taken next to the apparently bigger catches of larger dead fish we're seeing in the Narooma News these days.

Stephen Walker

Narooma

Bishop Browning to address Coastwatchers

BISHOP George Browning will be the speaker at Coastwatchers quarterly public meeting on Saturday, March 6 at 2pm at the Tomakin Community Hall.

All interested members of the public are invited to hear Bishop George, a long time advocate for the environment, speak about the present challenges to the environmental movement and the need for hope and resolve.

Bishop George sees similarities between the activity of industries in the times of seminal campaigner Rachel Carson and the present attempt to deny or ameliorate the true state of climate change.

“The truth of course is that industry is investing countless millions in the lobbying industry to convince politicians that they can ignore what science is telling them. An example of this is easily illustrated from the much publicised but vacuous visit of Viscount Monckton.”

Bishop Browning will be addressing this challenge and urging a strengthening of resolve to stay on song and for the various participants in the environmental debate to sing from the same simple song sheet.

Linda Chapman

Secretary, Coastwatchers Association

$25,000 better spent

I READ with great amusement, Eurobodalla Shire Council’s plan to spend $25,000 of our money to employ a public relations firm to “con” us in to accepting a rate rise above the pegged rate.

They have obviously made up their minds to do just that, so why waste money trying to soften us up?

Also, being such a democratic and benevolent council, I’m sure they are contemplating allocating $25,000 with a competitive PR company to support the cause of those in the community who oppose any extra rate rise above the CPI and who honestly believe there are more expedient and constructive ways of saving enough money to afford the infrastructure they say we need.

To that end, let us look at spending $25,000 on a Time and Motion Study expert.

He could look at merging departments, and at the tentacled structure of our ever burgeoning bureaucracy, with its attendant nepotism that breeds from it.

Curb “empire building”, analyse ESC’s work procedure, work criteria and ethic, natural attrition, etc.

Any fool can raise rates and go “cap in hand” to State Governments. It takes discipline, expertise and professionalism to live within your means.

Something sadly lacking in our public service.

Kim Christian

Long Beach

Where is the science?

SOME climate sceptics have an entrenched position that is more to do with ideology than with science. I don’t think it matters how convincing the science of climate change is. No amount of scientific evidence or observation will change the minds of some of the people I have spoken to in recent months.

There are three arguments that emerge from the sceptics’ camp.

The first is to cast doubt on the credibility of the mainstream science of climate change. Sceptics are very enthusiastic to point out that some scientists have behaved badly, and some of the mainstream science is wrong. The implication is that if there is a minor error in some of the science, then all the climate science is flawed. Climate change is a grand global scientific conspiracy, or so the argument goes.

The second argument is to confuse short-term weather fluctuation with a long-term climate trend.

Sceptics have had a good time with the cold winter in Europe this year. An extreme example of this is to say that the recent heavy rainfall in SE NSW shows that the global climate problem doesn’t exist.

The third argument is a combination of the first two. Some sceptics claim that global warming has stopped, basing their information on an extremely short-term fluctuation and in defiance of the three scientific organizations that monitor global temperature.

The Hadley Met Office, the Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS), and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) all state very clearly that the world is warming at an unequivocal rate of 0.2 degrees per decade.

To say that global warming has stopped means that all the scientific organisations that monitor global temperature must be wrong. This comes back to the grand global scientific conspiracy argument.

None of the sceptics’ arguments are based on solid science.

Is there a single peer reviewed article, published in the last 10 years in “Science”, “New Scientist”, or “Nature” that casts doubt on the fact that human emissions are causing the planet to warm, or that warming will continue as emissions rise?

Is there a single peer reviewed article that casts doubt on the fact that sea level will continue to rise, or ice will continue to melt as we warm?

We can face up to what the science is telling us, or we can pretend that what we are listening to is a hoax, a conspiracy of scientists from around the world who have banded together to fool us.

We have a choice.

Matthew Nott

Clean Energy For Eternity