‘Pensioner rebate needs fixing’
It’s time for a change.
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For almost 30 years our local council has set the $250 pensioner rebate in concrete.
Other councils in NSW are giving annual rebates of at least $350 to $400 or better.
Why is our council, now the Cootamundra-Gundagai Regional Council (CGRC), lagging behind on this matter? With all these alleged benefits courtesy of the forced merger, what’s the hold up? Maybe our new general manger, Allan Dwyer could shed some light on the situation.
Colin Field
Gundagai
Climate change not new concept
When Swedish scientist Svante Arrhenius in 1896 first warned the world that burning fossil fuels would increase carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere and heat the planet, he was disbelieved by other scientists and mocked by the public.
So recent comments by former prime ministers John Howard and Tony Abbott would not have been out of place then – in 1896.
But now it is 2017 and very different. Our own Australian Academy of Science (like every other similar institution in the world and 97% of climate scientists) states:
“Today, human activities are directly increasing atmospheric concentrations of … greenhouse gases… These human generated gases enhance the natural greenhouse effect and further warm the surface."
So on what are our former prime ministers relying with these views? Certainly not the teaching of the churches.
In 2014 the Anglican Church’s general synod called on the government "to respect and act upon relevant independent evidence-based scientific advice’’ on climate change.
And in 2015 the Pope in his encyclical on the environment - Laudato Si’ - said “a number of scientific studies indicate that most global warming in recent decades is due to the great concentration of greenhouse gases …released mainly as a result of human activity”.
So, if not science and if not religion then what? Intuition? Radio commentators? The tiny minority of dissenting scientists?
Surely it's not too much to ask, for the sake of our (and their) children and grandchildren, that Mr Howard and Mr Abbott follow the pleading of their religious leaders and actually read what the scientists say?
