RAIL TRAIL PRAISE
Dear editor,
I was so excited to read about the establishment of a working group to advance the development of the rail trail cycle path from Coolum to Nambour. My husband and I, both seniors and often with groups of our friends, have frequently ridden rail trails in Australia and NZ. It’s a wonderful and easy way for cyclists, walkers and often horse-riders to see our beautiful countryside, safe from the dangers of traffic and getting some healthy exercise all the while.
In addition, we are contributing to businesses along the way, from something as simple as buying coffee right through to paying for accommodation to stay along the trail.
We will be waiting with bated breath for the next stage of development! Thanks to all the devoted people who are working to get this wonderful project underway, I hope it happens soon.
Louise Younger,
Coolum Beach.
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NO TO NUCLEAR
Dear editor,
Who really believes Australians will accept the folly of nuclear power? Certainly not in the next two or three decades. And only then, if the nuclear industry can prove it can economically build nuclear power stations, produce cheaper power comparable to renewables, and solve the waste problem which it has not been able to do for the past seven decades.
Nuclear energy must become competitive with clean renewables and not harm our planet. It does not make economic sense as made abundantly clear by Emeritus Professor Ian Lowe, of Griffith University’s School of Environment and Science, in his letter (Coolum Advertiser June 19).
As a Sunshine Coast resident, I note that the Dutton Opposition’s proposal is to build a nuclear power station at Tarong Power Station. That is a bit too close for comfort. Tarong is approximately 100 kms from the Sunshine Coast as the crow flies. Or should that be as the radiation drifts?
Climate change will not wait for the nuclear industry to catch up, if it ever can. Mr. Dutton’s nuclear policy is just political manoeuvring to appease and keep subsidising the fossil fuel industry and delay our transition to cheaper and clean energy from solar, wind and hydro.
Robyn Deane,
Bli Bli.
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THE BIG COOLING TOWER
Dear editor,
Queensland is famous for its tourist sites of Big Things – the Big Pineapple, the Big Bull, Apple, etc and now the Big Nuclear Power Plant site at Tarong. Just asking for directions to the Big Waste Dump site!
Margaret Wilkie,
Peregian Beach.
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DEALING WITH CRIME
Dear editor,
Following the agenda of a special task force of Victorian police recently, checking up on perpetrators under special court orders, or on bail, the force netted 2,700 of these criminals, caught not doing the right thing. They were subsequently arrested and incarcerated for breaking the terms of their release into the community.
Our state government and opposition leadership should take a leaf out of the Victorian task force manual for reducing repeated offences by perpetrators ignoring court release conditions. This is a real deterrent to those who think bail and court orders are a joke in Queensland.
This is particularly successful with the hardened band of consistent re-offenders, who cannot be tamed. Without their activities and release persistently being monitored, any wonder they are out in our communities emboldened by a lack of supervision and lack of police resources to carry through with watching they stick to bail conditions.
The result of government failure to provide the resources and tools to monitor these criminals on release, means victims suffer physical and mental hardship from which many do not recover. It does not bode well for Queenslanders’ faith in politicians, legislation and a police force meant to make our communities feel safe.
The changes in our society regarding lawlessness and lack of respect, family dysfunction and the rise of fearless street gangs, mean our communities are paying the price for political and legal apathy when crime is out of control. The opposition should consider a platform for tackling the surge of crime by those already in the criminal justice system, offering real solutions, not empty rhetoric. That is a winning agenda supported by those who suffer the current failed agenda.
E. Rowe,
Marcoola.
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AI AND MUSIC
Dear editor,
Don McLean in ‘American Pie’ wrote of ‘the day the music died’, music is not dying but AI is changing our tune insidiously. Change is not necessarily bad, but it would be tragic to lose the musical gems we treasure through a lack of vigilance.
AI-generated music is no longer new. People can enter a prompt such as ‘compose the music and lyrics for a male blues song about a lost love’. To compose the song, the AI music generator has accumulated a mass of data from pre-existing recordings without the permission of record labels, causing a fractious legal dispute.
Another concern for the music industry is the growth in cloning of singer’s voices onto other songs. You can create a deep music fake of Paul McCartney singing Billy Joel’s ‘Piano Man’ and clone your voice as a backing vocal.
We can generate compositions with AI machines and online in the comfort of our homes with royalty-free music for family videos.
Attending concerts where an artist who has long passed and is now reincarnated as a hologram figure performing their classics is not unusual.
With AI unleashed it will be fascinating to see what heights the new world of music reaches, ironically during a boom in vinyl recordings.
Maybe all is not lost except those LPs I gave away ‘the day the record player died’.
Garry Reynolds,
Peregian Springs.
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YES TO NUCLEAR
Dear editor,
It is nice to know that in this wonderful country of ours called Australia and its citizens have the right to express their opinions on various topics of note and it is the democratic right of every citizen to challenge such expressions as well.
I still maintain that even that Mr. Lowe, whilst he may be the author of several climate change books, he is deluded by popular misinformation that whatever we do here in little ol’ Aus will not have the slightest effect on the world’s climate. To think otherwise is ridiculous. Mr Lowe also states that battery storage is the answer.
The truth is that renewable energy is not cheap but embarrassingly more expensive as anyone can tell you by simply looking at their power bills. What’s not factored into these cheaper costs are the subsidies given to the companies that own the solar panels and wind turbines and the cost of all these new transmission lines all over the country as well as the loss of agricultural land and destruction of environmental habitats within our pristine native forests. No doubt it will be the consumer that pays for the 25-year re-fit of solar panels and wind turbines in due course.
Whilst I have not been a student of nuclear power I am aware that there has been a functioning nuclear reactor nestled in Sydney’s southern suburbs for the past 60 odd years and according to Mr Bowen it is unknown the true costs just to achieve net zero by 2050. Mr Dutton’s plan for seven nuclear power stations at say $8.5 billion each, rounded up to $10 billion each which would add up to $70 billion all up.
It’s as plain as the nose on your face that the only sensible, mature and adult strategy is for a mix of nuclear (base load component), gas, renewables and maybe some hydro in suitable environmental areas.
John Bennion,
Peregian Springs.
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