Council needs to provide more shade when it's approving designs for public facilities

The netball courts and cycling area have none while the Athletics club had to spend over $108,000 to provide any shade within the track area and there isn't any for spectators.

The clubs were made to move to the new facilities from areas where they had shade however TRC didn't include any provision for spectators and visitors.

With planning and community consultation now being undertaken for an aquatic centre one hopes the same does not happen again.

The Fitzroy Street Mall also didn't have any shade and enormous costs were incurred retrofitting some. Tamworth is not Sydney or Melbourne and we have a severe climate which is likely to get worse in the future.

It is time for a few shady councillors to insist that protection from the sun be included in all new community resources and facilities, and retrofit shade to existing areas. It should be a requirement of planners to be held accountable for their designs and recommendations to council for suitable weather protection.

Graeme Harris, Calala

Despite the energy market operator's 2022 Integrated System Plan which offers a roadmap out to 2050 without nuclear power, Barnaby Joyce believes "We will not reach net zero without nuclear" (26/11). He tries to sound like an energy consultant using words like "entropy" and ends up making silly and misleading claims.

For example, he says that we will need "solar farms the size of Tasmania." Earlier this year, the Net Zero Australia (NZA) project, a partnership between three universities and management consultancy Nous Group, reported that Australia will require "an estimated 1,900 GW of solar PV to deliver on its net-zero ambitions by 2050."

But Sun Cable, Australia's largest planned solar farm, will have an area of 125 sq km and generate 20 GW. This means that 1900 GW would require just under 12,000 sq km. The area of Tasmania is 68,000 sq km.

Joyce also compares Australia's electricity price with Canada's as an argument for nuclear power. He omits to tell us that two-thirds of Canada's power is renewable, mostly hydro, and that the cost of electricity is subsidised in seven of Canada's nine provinces. According to the Australian Energy Council's analysis of OECD price data in February this year, Australia ranked 10th lowest of the 38 countries analysed.

Australia's price per kWh (US18c) compared favourably with France (US23c), the world's most nuclear-powered country. The full picture please Mr Joyce or just leave it to the experts.

Ray Peck, Hawthorn, Vic

Another fortnight and another anti-renewables and pro-nuclear article from Barnaby, and again one with very selective interpretations of data and half-truths.

Apparently someone showed Barnaby a claim that it will cost "one point 246 billion dollars" to "construct the plan for Australia to be net zero by 2050" and of course he chose to believe it and run with it.

No telling us who, how or why this figure was given, just an acceptance that it is true.

Then Barnaby again chose to forget that Liddell power station was sold under his governments "asset recycling plan" and that this privatising of government owned infrastructure is the reason our energy prices are so high and the reason why the plant is to close soon.

Almost laughingly Barnaby then went on to make a comparison of power costs in Ontario Canada with our situation.

Barnaby ignored that Ontario has 18 nuclear reactors (for a population of half of Australia) and that at the latest cost (Hinkley point C in the UK) it is more than $45 billion Australian dollars to build a nuclear reactor.

That means that we will have to spend $810 billion dollars to supply nuclear power to NSW and Victoria only, you can probably double that and more to power the rest of Australia.

Plus, it only takes 15 years or so to build those nuclear reactors.

Barnaby is again trying to kick the energy can down the road while renewables are getting the job done.

Andrew Brown, Nundle

Australia has a waste problem. Take plastic for example. Australians throw away around 179 million empty bottles of shampoo, conditioner and other personal care products each year contributing to 2.5 million tonnes of plastic waste annually, or 100 kg per person.

Of this, 84 per cent is sent to landfill. And this is set to increase with the recent collapse of the soft plastic recycling program, REDcycle.

And food waste is worse. The 2021 National Food Waste Strategy Feasibility Study found we create 7.6 million tonnes of food waste each year or 312 kg per person. Food waste costs the economy a staggering $36.6 billion per annum and, like plastic, almost all food waste goes to landfill.

Fortunately, some new developments are in the pipeline. Australian company Rtec has discovered a way to recycle soft plastics in a single step.

Another Australian company, Zero Co replaces plastic personal care bottles with a set of 'forever' bottles made from ocean, beach and landfill waste (OBL), and provides a set of refill pouches made from recycled plastic and a postage-paid return envelope.

For food waste, the federal government's Food and Garden Organics (FOGO) collection service operating in about half of Australia's local government councils has the capacity to reduce waste to landfill by 40 per cent.

It seems there are solutions out there. We just need to care enough to seek them out.

Ray Peck, Hawthorn

It's now six months since the Albanese Labor government was elected, promising climate action.

So how have they fared? Importantly, Labor has successfully enshrined net-zero by 2050 and 43 per cent emissions reductions by 2030 into law. While representing progress, these targets remain well short of the science-based push for net-zero by 2035.

Further, until the government ends native forest logging and halts new fossil fuel developments, both deemed incompatible with achieving net-zero by 2050, Australia is really only "talking the talk".

CSIRO reports that Australia's average temperature has already increased by almost 1.5 degrees. We really must start "walking the walk" on climate. And urgently.

Amy Hiller, Kew

Ian McDonald's recent letter would be one of the best yet about the get rich quick crooks encroaching upon the power alternatives in the use of those giant uglies and dangerous things wind farms, plus the glaring solar panel arrays totally erected in the wrong sites.

And no, they would not build in the world's greatest outback where all the room is available and out of the way simply because of greed.

These people would not know what God's book of life says about greed, as they would be looking at themselves in a mirror. Their interest is in filling the pockets - so building in the great outback would be too expensive.

People are being manipulated in the name of climate change for simple greed. Politically there is big hoot in this, and a political playground and politicians of all persuasions are not going to go without a, um, a deal of sorts? Sorry I've corrupted my thoughts?

Watch Planet of the Humans, it's a Doco on youtube and was in favour until a power problem arose with supply so they decided to look further into the systems.

There are things you have not been told that you will see. Ian McDonald is a no-nonsense person, and his letter says it straight and rarely today common sense and this would be inherent of his ancestors of the Clans of The Donalds of Scotland. Aye. In truth do we Trust.

Allan Lisle, Tamworth

There is a great deal of comment in the media at present concerning developing countries, who are possibly adding little to causing human induced climate change, who are seeking recompense from more affluent countries, seen as causing human induced climate change through energy creating methods to service extensive industrial and other activities.

Recent advances in weather attribution science have enabled more accurate fingerprint analysis on extreme weather.

Surely a more sensible, and possibly far less expensive course, in the long term for the more affluent countries to follow would be to heed the recommendations of scientists, bite the bullet, and cease as quickly as possible, burning fossil fuels to create energy which is the number one cause of man induced climate change,

Brian Measday, Myrtle Bank, South Australia