No need to pave paradise
For weeks now our local bushland has been ablaze with native wildflowers.
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But few people seem to know about this gift of nature on our doorsteps.
Where I walk, along fire trails and smaller trails surrounded by Fingal Bay, Shoal Bay and Nelson Bay, the flowers are a delight: boronia, dillwynia, tiny orchids, acacia and more. Some of the flowers are fading now, but there is still time to see them.
To the powers that be: Please don't destroy another chunk of our heritage by cutting the Fingal Bay link road through this bushland.
The words of the song Big Yellow Taxi by Joni Mitchell come to mind:
"Don't it always seem to go
That you don't know what you've got 'till it's gone
They paved paradise, and put up a parking lot".
Ross Ferrier, Fingal Bay
Masks just another layer of litter
I agree one hundred per cent with Carolyn Lewis (' Can't mask anger at litter', Letters, Examiner, August 26).
For the past two years I have been documenting the lazy disregard of our community's environment.
When it comes to litter, all too often it is dropped, thrown and sometimes illegal dumped, have a look for yourself on my Instagram account @two.steps.forwards.
There is litter everywhere, and discarded face masks are sadly just another layer on top of the litter we are already living with.
As a community we can do better.
Jessica Doering, Shoal Bay
Necessary work or revenue raising
Like many others, I grow weary of this ever extended lockdown, although I support it in principle.
However, I was tested on August 27 when I observed a mobile speed camera parked before the roadworks on Raymond Terrace Road. With much less traffic, is this really essential work or just revenue raising?
The next evening I was pulled over for random breath testing at Heatherbrae. Really?
How many people got to breathe into those machines and onto the police officers holding them?
Do they not get why we are required to wear masks?
No wonder the number of COVID cases isn't dropping.
Paul Fuller, Raymond Terrace
Diversity the answer
The UNSW Canberra YoWIE program to encourage women into engineering has many benefits ('Women belong at engineering design table', Examiner, Opinion, August 26).
Bringing diversity to solve complex problems facilitates more powerful and more inclusive solutions.
According to a 2015 McKinsey report, in a "full potential" scenario in which women play an identical role in labour markets to men, as much as US$28,000 billion could be added to global annual GDP by 2025.
This is more than enough to bridge the climate finance gap needed to fund the battle against climate change, estimated to be US$600 billion per year by 2020 and US$900 billion by 2030.
According to Project Drawdown, educating the world's girls and empowering women, especially in developing countries, is one of the most high-impact and cost-effective ways to take positive action on climate change.
The project ranked educating girls as their number six solution for tackling climate change.
However, when combined with voluntary family planning, it becomes the number one solution.
So in addition to reducing our own carbon footprints, we should also fight for the education and equality of young women around the world.
Ray Peck, Hawthorn, Vic
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