Every day, we publish a selection of your emails in our newsletter. We’d love to hear from you, you can email us at yoursay@theconversation.edu.au.
Monday September 15
Reef SOS
“Yesterday we read in the Geraldton local newspaper of Premier Roger Cook’s welcome announcement of increasing the area of Marine Park dedicated to protecting Ningaloo’s waters and increasing funding for studying the problems associated with rising temperatures and resulting coral damage by bleaching events. Yet on the very same page of the newspaper was a paid advertisement by Chevron delimiting a huge marine area adjacent to Exmouth where it will be engaging in exploration and drilling for gas and oil. The advertisement is asking for public opinion, honestly where is the credibility? Climate change is real, reefs are dying up here. We are on a caravanning trip to the Ningaloo region and have been snorkelling off from Exmouth and we saw the alarming state of the coral, covered in green algaes. We will be opposing this project, but how many people will not even know it’s happening?”
Izzy Luescher
Not so united
“Surely the ‘United States’ of America is now an obvious misnomer. They are obsessed with red and blue states. The politics of the two political parties ensures they will never agree on anything, making it impossible to have an equitable, thoughtful democracy. 77,303,568 Americans voted for this.
Steve Bentley, Camira QLD
Tuesday September 16
Which type of disease?
"I worked on the National Public Health Partnership in the 90s and I am concerned that yet again most of the work of the Centre for Disease Control will become communicable diseases and not chronic diseases. This has happened time and time again in the public health space. Most money goes towards counting numbers and only what is left over, which is usually minimal, goes towards improving those numbers and promoting health, particularly in preventing conditions occurring, then limiting their progression.”
Margaret Bonner
Smoke screen
“Many films and TV programs display and therefore normalise smoking these days. It was understandable that smoking was common in film and television up to the 1970s when the harm was finally acknowledged publicly, however now it is completely irresponsible to be showing it.”
Manuela Epstein, Pyrmont NSW 
Mixed-age childcare?
“Bundling babies and young children by age in childcare may inform poor outcomes. Infants learn from observation and practice. In family settings, infants with older siblings see more mature behaviour models in life. They are also more likely to be engaging one-on-one with older kids and adults which promotes development. This is not available to them if most of their waking time from early infancy is spent in groups of their own age in formal care.”
Marle Prunean
Wednesday September 17
Climate shock
“Perhaps Australia could listen to the Pacific Islanders’ recommendations since the impact of climate change on their nations is even greater. I also do not understand how the old Darwin LNG storage tank was approved for re-use, even though it’s leaking large volumes of methane. Time to backtrack on this before it’s too late.”
Jeanette Swan
Can we afford net zero?
“The information in your climate change articles is scary, as intended, but it’s time to get real and time for our leaders to be honest. When Australia achieves net zero, there will still be bushfires, droughts, floods, cyclones and really hot summer days. Australia is too small to make a significant difference in CO2 emissions on a global scale and our attempts to reach net zero are simply moving our emissions offshore (and the jobs with them).”
Karin Mogg
Time for action
“I agree that much must be done but the effectiveness of any efforts by Australia are akin to moving the deck chairs on the Titanic. However drastic the actions of our governments, our contributions will not affect the world situation. I believe we need to actively enact activities to draw back from the coasts, start to severely restrict development in flood and fire prone areas and generally over-govern the population because we are too stupid to do it for ourselves.”
Edwin Daly
Thursday September 18
Fear, power and glamour
“English language media have one commonality – the dominance of Murdoch-style news from the US. Murdoch gained global prominence when he steamrolled the British tabloids with his trademark of ‘fear and titillation’; worry on page 1 and a topless girl on page 3. Today Murdoch focusses on ‘fear, power and glamour’. The recent shooting of a celebrity is a case in point. I fail to understand why this one case is sufficiently relevant to Australian audiences to warrant the voluminous print space.”
Dr Bruce Moon
Climate chaos
“I think we all agree climate change is causing chaos on our planet. What I don’t understand is why politicians, media people and the like make out that once Australia reaches net zero, all will be well. In the scheme of things we don’t really matter as far as climate change is concerned. Until China, Russia, US, India, Brazil bring down their emissions drastically, once again nothing will change. I do believe we all have a part to play, but I think this government’s spending on all of this is just adding further to our already massive debt.”
Sandra Sheppard
Old school assessments
“Isn’t the answer to this matter simple? We should return to the assessments of past – written examinations, preferably on a provided device, with personal devices prohibited, plus supervised in-class work. For essays, collect your information and bring it to class, then in one hour write the essay. Close monitoring would be needed.”
Tony Eggleton, Research School of Earth Sciences, Australian National University
Friday September 19
Up in smoke
“Increasing the price of cigarettes to about $25 a packet with health warnings on the packets was good policy to discourage smoking. Increasing the price to $40–50 was counterproductive. It created a financial opportunity for criminal gangs to make big profits selling $20 packets without health warnings. As a result we have less government revenue, a big subsidy for criminal gangs, and more work for the police while cigarettes are now cheaper and without health warnings. Sensible policy will reduce the tax on a packet and increase penalties for illegal selling of cigarettes. I have 50 years legal experience and I can tell you that prohibition subsidises criminal gangs.”
Dr Andrew Cannon, SA
Get serious
“If there is to be anything left of a liveable planet for our younger generations, the time to act is NOW!!!! Go to the Museum of the Future in Dubai and see examples of amazing technology being developed to aid in addressing climate change, including innovative food and crop production, weather technology including in areas such as sea & water management, wind technologies, among others – all aimed at trying to address the increasingly urgent needs triggered by ongoing climate change. Victoria can barely get a functioning underground rail system up and running!”
Oriana J Collins, Hawthorn VIC
Stash in the roof
“Thank you for the history of Bella Ciao. My late wife was from northern Italy, and brought to our marriage a vinyl recording of the song, which I still have. She was brought up by her Nonna, and her uncles fought in the anti-fascist forces in northern Italy. Decades after the end of the war, when the roof of an out-building on the family property was being repaired, a cache of rifles was discovered. The family story was that Nonna knew of the cache, but kept their presence a secret, just in case they were ever needed again.”
Andrew Nelson