Letters To Editor: Minister's dogma

Minister's dogma
There is an old saying that there are none so blind as those who will not see. Never was this more appropriate than when applied to the current Minister of Education.
Anne Tolley deliberately, defiantly and almost dementedly refuses to accept the overwhelming evidence that refutes her claims about national standards.
Worse, she is utterly devious when she says that there is widespread support for the scheme on the basis that a majority of schools are adhering to the reporting requirements.
Of course boards are reporting - she has made it illegal for them not to do so. Their enforced compliance does not mean that they agree with what they have to do!
The fact is that the majority of them have protested against national standards.
The tragedy lies in what her blind dogmatism will do to education in the future, as was outlined so graphically in HB Today by the principal of William Colenso College.
What will it take for honesty and realism to replace her?
Paul Canham, Greenmeadows
Climate doom
I would like to help Margaret Gwynn stop worrying about human-induced climate doom.
According to her letter in Monday's HB Today, she worries that the proportion of carbon dioxide (CO2) has been increasing in the atmosphere.
Global warmers believe this is heating up the planet and will soon make it uninhabitable.
CO2 currently makes up 385 parts per million (0.0385 per cent) of the atmosphere. Before industrialisation, CO2 levels sat at 280ppm. Therefore they have increased by 35 per cent over the past 100 years.
But CO2 levels were much higher in the past. Early in the Paleozoic era, which was 600 million years ago, CO2 levels were 7000ppm. The planet is about 4.5 billion years old. It would seem that a CO2 increase from 280ppm to 385ppm in 100 years is quite small and survivable.
Gwynn repeats that the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change claimed "weight of scientific evidence" but may not be aware that many of the 1656 authors of the Fourth Assessment Report were in fact political and environmental activists, not scientists.
If she is concerned about the weight of scientific opinion, she may consider the 32,000 United States scientists who signed the Oregon Petition, circulated from 1999 to 2008, which urged the United States government to reject the 1997 Kyoto Protocol global warming agreement. (Abridged.)
Mike Butler, Hastings
Marineland input
"Appalling, worrying, secretive, dodgy" - just a few of the words used by members of the public when they speak about the way they feel the Napier City Council has handled the Marineland issue.
I was out helping the Marineland Rangers Club (children) collect submissions asking the NCC to "please keep, upgrade and save Marineland as a sanctuary".
Does the NCC want to be remembered this way? As a Napier ratepayer, I am very disappointed.
An issue this big which concerns the whole city should involve us more in the decision-making process.
Regarding cost, it's only 1.09 per cent of my annual rates (about $15) being used to pay for Marineland (closed). Why not reopen it and let visitors help pay for it, too?
We owe these beautiful animals our support. We are lucky to have this facility on our doorstep and we are lucky to have people in our community willing to invest in it if given the chance.
Marineland is a sanctuary for marine animals as the SPCA is a sanctuary for dogs and cats.
The Mayor said recently on national television that people have "moved on and evolved in the way we keep animals".
Why don't we show the rest of the country and the world how it can be done, and done well, with a new Marineland - one we can be proud of?
I will be sending a submission to the NCC in support of keeping Marineland as a marine-animal sanctuary and marine-education centre.
I hope many others will do the same by the May 16 Draft Plan Submission deadline. It's worth it.
E. Otto, Napier