Climate change:

Nigel Brunel writes: Re. “Richard Farmer’s chunky bits” (yesterday, item 11). Regarding the snippet titled “So you think there might be international action on climate change” which Farmer wrote:

“Republicans are strongly fancied to take control of the House of Representatives and are given a 50% chance of controlling the Senate as well.

Yet the chances of a Republican dominated Congress taking action to stop global warming are virtually nil.”

Scary isn’t it? These Republicans are happy to believe in God in which there is NO scientific proof — yet do NOT believe in man-made climate change of which there is peer reviewed scientific evidence.

We have to stop allowing these kind of foolish notions go unchallenged.

Insulation scheme:

Judy Oborn writes: Re. “Possum: insulation fire risk — the data is in” (yesterday, item 15). Very Interested in your take on the success of the home insulation scheme. Can’t understand why I never thought of it before — and more importantly why the government itself never mentioned it in the media (did they?).

There were four deaths linked to the schema, although one is from someone falling off the roof. How do the deaths related to insulation installation stack up before and during the scheme? Can you find those statistics?

Hazelwood:

Jim Hart writes: Re. “ALP makes lefty election pitch, but Cleary could spoil” (yesterday, item 14). Being in Richard Wynne’s electorate I too received my copy of that hot new tabloid The Richmond Report that Andrew Crook refers to. Top half of the front page is a photo of Hazelwood power station overprinted with a big red no-entry symbol — OK I get the message, the Wynne-Brumby team is leading the green charge on climate change.

My cynic response circuits kicked in at the first paragraph, right where it says that Labor has “pledged to shut down the equivalent of two units of the Hazelwood coal-fired power station”. I suppose two out of eight is a start but what’s that equivalent mean? And then my cynic reading went up further when I got the bit (inside on page 5) where it says that Labor has “committed to begin the staged closure of Hazelwood… during the next four years.”

And in case that is still a bit too specific, there’s a caveat: Richard Wynne says Victoria is “calling on the Federal Government to provide the necessary financial support.”

In other words, some time before the next election, they will get round to starting to do something about Hazelwood — if they can get Canberra to pay.

With commitments like that it’s no wonder Richard Wynne is worried about his 3.6% margin.

Mifepristone:

Sébastien Maury writes: In response to Jackson Harding (yesterday, comments), non-pharma types like me (and no doubt many, many other people) wouldn’t know mifepristone if we fell over it.

Not that I am unhappy to know one of its names, but the fact remains that RU-486 is probably a far more commonly understood reference to the drug.

Just saying…