Working for ratepayers?
ON December 26, I received the Eurobodalla Ratepayers Association December newsletter by email.
There was no big interest news items in it as is usual just the negative stuff they've been pushing about council since they began.
Even their spin doctor seems to losing his touch these days.
As you read through the tripe it becomes abundantly clear the back room ERA managers are beginning to panic.
The ERA elected councillors have not identified anything wrong with the operations of the last council.
In fact it was only recently around December 12, that one ERA councillor allegedly sent an email to some councillors wanting to call a truce on the ERA negativity at council meetings etc, simply because the ERA elected councillors haven't been able to deliver anything “positive” to the shire's ratepayers and residents apparently.
The committees the ERA councillors represent ratepayers and residents on are advisory committees which don't have any delegated authority, in other word can't make decisions only recommendations to the council.
Allan Brown
Batemans Bay
Mystery facts not right
TIM’S story was a bit over the top and a distortion of the facts. He was obviously in Yowie mode when he wrote it.
According to historical documents there was one bullet hole in the boat, hardly “riddled” and no blood but some vomit.
How about taking this guy to task in your next addition and present the correct facts on the circumstances regarding the mystery of our Mystery Bay…
Bevan Cursley
Fairhaven
Flogging raffle tickets
I WOULD like to voice my strong disapproval of Club Narooma flogging off $2.50 temporary memberships to tourists giving them instant chances of taking out our club draw (at present $9000) simply by attending the club, most likely just once, when we locals are supporting the club all year round.
On Sunday afternoon, December 3, the influx of “new menbers” was so great, the draw was held up while the new temporary members were entered into the machine.
Many locals sitting at the tables were condemning this rort - they need to get up from the tables and tell the management that this is not on, as I will be doing this week.
Don't be surprised if you see management sitting outside the newsagency next Friday, flogging off more memberships!
Kris Gauslaa
Dalmeny
Club Narooma says:
OUR main draw is computerised, they have it mixed up with our $100 draw for members who are present and we have to wait for members to enter their numbers. We allow all members into our draw, as we want as many people as possible to patronise the facilities as it is a “Trade Promotion” not just a tool just to give a singular members money.
Professor manifestly wrong
IN the Narooma News published on 19-12-12, Professor Matt England Deputy Director of the University of NSW’s School of Climate Change, claimed “The world is warming at a rate that is consistent with forecasts made by the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) 22 years ago”. He went further, “Anybody out there lying that the IPCC projects are overstatements or that the observations haven’t kept pace with the projections is completely off line...the analysis is very clear the IPCC projections are coming true”.
Professor England is manifestly wrong. This is revealed in Figure 1.4 from the Second Order Draft of the IPCC’s draft Fifth Report. The IPCC predicted 1990 to 2012 global warming is excessively high by a factor of two to five, placing it in an alarmism category.
Should not ordinary people, and students in particular, expect to be able to place trust in the public statements of people presenting themselves as experts?
Should not a nascent climate science rely on the application of reason and the open-minded study of empirical evidence before making deceitful claims?
I have asked Professor England to publicly apologise.
Neville Hughes
Surf Beach
Surgical workplace bullying
THE decision by the Medical Board to allow Dr Christoph Ahrens, one of the region’s few orthopaedic surgeons, only until June 30 to continue to practice in Australia does not bode well for his patients at Bega, Pambula, Cooma and Batemans Bay hospitals.
According to the Sydney Morning Herald (14/11/12) WorkCover NSW describes workplace bullying as “repeated, unreasonable behaviour directed towards a worker or group of workers that creates a risk to health and safety”.
How does this relate to Dr Ahrens? Well, for the past seven years he has been looking after the disability needs of an ageing population that requires hip and knee replacements.
During this time he has been bullied by the Royal Australasian College of Surgeons abetted by the Australian Orthopaedic Association into taking a fellowship exam requiring 18-24 months full-time study in paediatrics and spinal surgery. These specialties are not conducted in our local hospitals and Dr Ahrens will never need this expertise.
Dr Ahrens simply wants to live with his young family in the Bega Valley and continue serving our communities. His qualifications prior to coming to Australia are impeccable and include training registrars in the UK and serving as an honorary consultant to Oxford University medical school.
During his time in the Bega Valley and working in the regional hospitals, Dr Ahrens has been put under severe stress by RACS/AOA. He has soldiered on with medical and trauma surgery with a cheerful demeanour that hides the problem about whether he and his family will have to move overseas, when all they want is to remain here.
The Federal Government’s Minister Tanya Plibersek says she can’t act, but in New Zealand, which has the same RACS, government intervention has succeeded to the ultimate benefit of patients. Dr Ahrens would be allowed to practice there.
Minister Plibersek also has failed to consider two parliamentary inquiries over the past 12 months that both indicate that a person of Dr Ahrens’ qualifications, experience and workplace assessment should be allowed to practice here unhindered by RACS and AOA. Obviously she also ignores workplace bullying.
Not only do RACS/AOA threaten Dr Ahrens by bullying but they also threaten our region’s communities by imposing stress on Dr Ahrens ignoring the 10,000 or so satisfied patients he has seen over the past seven years.
Rob Owen
Tathra
CEFE: Climate panel have made some mistakes
FIVE years ago, the last report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) painted a gloomy picture of our planet's future. Here are 6 points that show they have underestimated the magnitude of the problem.
1- The Arctic is melting faster than predicted.
In 2007, the IPCC consensus was that the Arctic would not be ice free in summer until the end of the century. But climate change models have clearly underestimated the pace of change. If current trends are a reliable guide, we will start seeing ice free Arctic summers within a decade.
The knock on effect of an ice free Arctic will be a rapid Arctic warming, because dark oceans absorb more heat than reflective white snow and ice. A warming Arctic will accelerate Greenland melting, will lead to a release of CO2 and methane from permafrost and result in more extreme Northern Hemisphere weather.
2- Extreme weather is getting more extreme.
Even at the time of the last IPCC report in 2007, the trends for extreme heat, droughts and intense rainfall were clearly upward.
Not only are these trends continuing, but the weather is becoming more extreme than was predicted.
3- Food production is taking a hit.
In 2007 the IPCC predicted that if global temperatures rose 1.5°C or more above pre-industrial levels, greater warmth and higher CO2 would increase crop yields, at least in temperate regions. Only warming of greater than 3.5°C was expected to lead to a big drop in food production.
Unfortunately climate change is already having an adverse effect, even though the world has warmed just 0.8 degrees. Average yields are now more than 1 per cent lower than they would have been with no warming. The negative effects of climate change are significantly outweighing the positive ones.
4- Sea levels are rising faster than expected.
The 2007 IPPC report assumed that the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets would contribute just 0.3mm a year to sea-level rise, with the bulk of sea-level rise coming from thermal expansion.
Satellite measurements have since shown that the two ice sheets are already losing enough ice to raise sea level by 1.3mm a year, and climbing.
Most glaciologists now think that sea level will rise by a metre by 2100. This is higher than the IPCC's worst case projections.
5- Greenhouse gas levels will keep rising even if our emissions stop.
The 2007 IPCC report made no attempt to predict how much carbon locked away in permafrost and in methane hydrates in the seabed might also be released.
This year, researchers from the University of Victoria in British Columbia concluded that carbon released from melting permafrost will lead to an EXTRA warming of as much as 1°C by 2100.
Even if all human emissions stopped, CO2 levels would continue to rise as permafrost melted, leading to further warming and carbon releases.
6- We’re emitting more than ever.
Global emissions are rising at a rate of about 3% per year which puts us at the top of the IPCC’s worst-case emissions scenario. We are on a path that the 2007 IPCC report concluded would most probably lead to a 4°C rise in temperature by 2100– way above the 2°C level it declared we should avoid at all costs.
Best estimates are now for a warming of between 5°C and 6°C by 2100, given the current emission trajectory.
Matthew Nott
