Your letters: Global cooling? You've got to be kidding

Mt Ruapehu shows clear signs of climate warming.

Global cooling?

Peter Doran's climate research showed 58 per cent of Antarctica became slightly cooler between 1966 and 2000. This was used in Michael Crichton's 2004 novel Climate of Fear as evidence of a deliberately alarmist conspiracy behind global warming activism.

The anti-warmist who wrote to the Chronicle recently had apparently been reading Climate of Fear over the holidays. He will be interested to learn that Peter Doran took the novelist to task for misrepresenting his research, pointing out that the Great Southern Ocean acted as a heat sink, keeping Antarctic ice from warming and melting the way the Arctic ice has disappeared, and the increasingly larger hole in the ozone layer over Antarctica was allowing more and more heat to escape.

We no longer use fluorocarbon refrigerants, the ozone hole is shrinking and over the last decade most of Antarctica is now warming.

As I look out my window while typing this letter, I can see that the glaciers on Mt Ruapehu are still receding; with my zoom lens I can see the new chairlifts built to take skiers higher up the mountain, and I go for walks on the nearby Rangipo Desert in midwinter because it is no longer covered with deep snow, as in past decades.

A little further south, the Rangiwahia Ski Field on the Ruahine Ranges no longer exists, and down on the coast the Tasman Sea is 6C warmer than normal, while across the Tasman, despite temperatures there being routinely in the 40s, the Aussies are taking extreme measures to stop the influx of some of the 50 million refugees displaced from North Africa and the Middle East due to droughts caused by even higher temperatures.

For the life of me, I can't see how any of these events can be taken as indications of global cooling.

JOHN ARCHER
Ohakune

Recycling

There have been a few letters lately regarding the fading out of the plastic bags for the rubbish collection and instead using wheelie bins.

I agree with all the people who have swapped their wheelie bins for the plastic bags, because they managed to reduce the amount of rubbish going to landfill and using the recycling facilities instead. That is great!

But what is going to happen to the recyclables now that China is not going to take them any more? We can't possibly deal with them all in New Zealand. I am surprised we haven't heard anything about that from either local or regional or national governments.

ANNE MOHRDIECK
Whanganui

School advice

With school beginning again this week across NZ, I want to make a few recommendations for students on how to have a successful and fulfilling year and prepare for your futures.

These include: Sit in the back of the class; maybe the teacher won't notice you and you can goof around with another friend. Don't ask questions. Suppress your curiosity; your friends will think you're uncool if you ask questions. Don't take notes. You won't need notes to study for the tests. You'll remember what you heard. Or if not, so what? Spend your time guessing what questions your teachers will ask on the tests.

If you guess wrong and study the wrong information, so be it. You will get a bad grade. No big deal. The world won't end. Instead of reading assigned books, just browse the Cliff Notes. Reading isn't that important. You won't need to read much in your adult life. Skip classes. Slide by as much as you can. Your future is secure.

You will get a job later in life. You will get paid. You will have a place to live. Everything will be fine. Well, you may not make enough money to pay your bills and have to move out of your house to a smaller one, but you can live with that. And you may have to sell your house and rent an apartment, but apartments are fine.

You may want to get married and have kids but won't be able to afford that. But getting married and having kids aren't all that great.

School doesn't matter. Just take the year off. Whatever difficulties you have later in life, such as a low standard of living and dull, dead-end jobs, it won't be your fault.

All you need to worry about now is hanging out, being cool, having lots of friends. Live for now. Let tomorrow's problems be tomorrow's problems.

Enjoy this school year. Make it count. Study and enjoy.

MATTHEW URRY
Whanganui

Send your letters to: The Editor, Wanganui Chronicle, 100 Guyton St, PO Box 433, Wanganui 4500; or email editor@wanganuichronicle.co.nz