“The government owes a duty of care to all citizens,” warns letter writer MAX FLINT.   

IT is not just the multiple pot-holed roads that are neglected throughout Canberra, give a thought also to the probable hundreds of streets like Taverner Street, Wanniassa, where gumtrees are halfway across the street and posing a definite hazard from fallen branches. 

It is only a matter of time before some poor motorist cops it. The government owes a duty of care to all citizens.  

Of course, if we were not wasting millions on ripping up good roads to lay expensive, useless bike tracks on which one rarely sees a bike, let alone the billions to be wasted on useless trams and 60,000 tonnes of dirt from somewhere, there might be money for the most important priorities.  

If Rattenbury and his Green cohort think that the GHG emissions created in laying bike and tram tracks will ever be offset by the few users, they are kidding themselves. 

Untrammelled ideology is a terrible thing, except for those wielding it. Luckily these people get their comeuppance sooner or later. In the meantime, what damage they can cause! 

Max Flint, co-ordinator, Smart Canberra Transport

Rethinking approach to emissions

THE ACT’s new “Scope 3 Greenhouse Gas Emissions in the ACT” report comes to the stunning conclusion that the average Canberran causes 35 tonnes of CO2-e emissions per year, and that 94 per cent of those emissions occur outside the ACT border.

That means the official ACT Greenhouse Gas Inventory, and the ACT government’s greenhouse emissions targets, address only 6 per cent of the emissions that we cause.

This report will force us all to re-think our approaches to emissions reduction.

The ACT’s “Scope 1” emissions are the emissions that occur within the ACT border. Our “Scope 2” emissions are the emissions caused in generating the electricity that is used in the ACT. Scope 2 emissions have been zero since we reached 100 per cent renewable electricity.

Scope 3 emissions are all the other emissions that we cause to occur outside the ACT.

When Scope 3 emissions are included, the average Canberran causes 34.7 tonnes of CO2-e emissions a year. That compares with under 30 tonnes in each of the six states, and 45 tonnes in the NT.

Fifteen per cent of the ACT’s Scope 3 emissions are caused in transport, postal and warehousing. Food and retail trade each account for 12 per cent of those emissions. Construction, manufacturing and public administration each account for 9 per cent of those emissions. Households are responsible for 59 per cent of those emissions, government 33 per cent and business 8 per cent.

Leon Arundell, Downer

We have to trust the experts

CLIMATE models may be incomprehensible, John L Smith (Letters, November 9). But so are many other aspects of life, yet we trust the experts’ advice.

None of us would question our heart surgeon when she told us how she was going to perform our bypass, and none of us ask the airline pilot if they’re sure they know how to fly the plane; yet none of us doubts that the surgery is necessary or that the plane will fly. And none of us should doubt that climate change is very real, and that we are in deep trouble if we don’t do something about it.

John might enjoy reading “The Death of Expertise” by Tom Nichols, and stick to speculating on those topics on which he can claim to have any.

John Noble, Braddon