By now, readers will readily translate this to mean that considerable spin will be required to overcome communities increasingly awake to the problems that come with the installation of large wind turbines. These include health, noise, and sleep deprivation problems, falling property values, despoliation of landscapes, damage to rural roads, and continuing community division.

The industry spin that turbine noise is akin to a fridge just won't wash any more. A recent noise monitoring study of Waterloo Wind Farm in South Australia by Professor Colin Hansen and others underlines this. Hansen is an emeritus professor of mechanical engineering at the University of Adelaide, and has worked in the vibration and acoustics field for more than 40 years. The study describes the results of acoustic monitoring at homes two to 10 kilometres from the wind farm. The results show there is a low frequency noise problem associated with the Waterloo wind farm. It calls for further research to include health monitoring and sleep studies with simultaneous noise and vibration measurements. This reinforces the recommendations, still not implemented, of the Senate committee that investigated the wind farm problem in 2011.

Murray May, Cook

So Simon Corbell has us heading towards 90 per cent of our electricity requirements coming from renewables by 2020.

Can anyone tell me how much my electricity bill will increase compared to if we didn't go down this path? I think I've got a right to know, or does Mr Corbell know what's best for us and doesn't need to ask what we think?

Eric Traise, Bonython

It is hard to pour cold water on Julian Cribb's optimism because I would really like him to be right (''Farmers, miners and fishers can help re-wild Australia in a way that brings prosperity to all'', canberratimes.com.au, September 8). Nobody wants to see people go hungry or the landscape ravaged by poor agricultural practices. By all means let's put GST on food, providing it goes back to the farmer to help restore natural vegetation on their properties. And here's hoping oil from algae can keep those farm machines moving.

Nevertheless, with the federal government, we are not moving in this direction. Money is being taken science and renewable energy. More food has to be provided: for 400,000 nationally and for 80 million globally every year. Cribb argues that population will level out in the 2060s but scientists now predict that the 2060s is when 4 degree warming is expected unless we radically reduce emissions in the meantime. And a 4-degree warmer world is one that will see agricultural yields reduced significantly. It is a world of 1 billion people, not seven and certainly not 10 billion.

Dr Graham Turner, formerly of CSIRO and now with Melbourne University, warns that we are on the business-as-usual trajectory described by Limits to Growth 40 years ago whichpredicted societal collapse in the 2030s. Rachel Kyte of the World Bank warned late last month that globally we may face problems in food supply within the decade. Things have to change very rapidly indeed if we are to avoid widespread famine.

Jenny Goldie, Michelago, NSW

The recent discussion on Mr Fluffy houses has made it clear they are a risk to the health of their occupants but not how much of a risk. Until recently the NSW government was telling people there is no risk if the asbestos stays in the roof - were they right? Surely past, present and future occupants need this information to plan their lives as does the government to plan its response. Please, if there are any authoritative studies can they be published in The Canberra Times for all of us to learn.

Caroline Le Couteur, Downer

Recent complaints about new bus timetables (''Council takes aim at ACTION changes'', September 8, p6) completely misunderstand ACTION's role and objectives. ACTION operates an experiential education program sponsored by the automotive industry which is designed to impress on children and teenagers the vital importance of getting a driver's licence and buying a car as soon as they can. The infrequent services, poor connections and the imposition of a curfew through the early finish to services are an integral part of this experience.

Historical data supports this interpretation. In spite of constant claims about ''improved services'', the service has become worse in the last 40 years. In 1974, the base service on all routes was one bus every half hour, and there was a Sunday evening service. Now, on most routes it is one an hour, and an expanding range of suburbs (in Network 14, one new one is Yarralumla) are enjoying this experience.

ACTION also has other educational aims. The fact that one can not get home after a night out involving alcohol (since the only buses on the road are booze buses) supports a wowser agenda, while the total loss of mobility for older people once they can no longer drive encourages their rapid self-elimination, thus helping to reduce the burden of an ageing population on society.

David Walker, Ainslie

Don Sephton (Letters, September 10) asks ''what makes rising house prices so good?'' Rises are not good or bad. Due to fiat currencies losing buying power, rises are inevitable.

The RBA puts the loss of buying power of the Australian dollar at 3 per cent this year. House prices increase (as years pass) but mortgage dollars remain static.

In 1974, I got a Canberra house for $24,000. To buy it today: $400,000. In 1996, I got a Queanbeyan unit for $72,000. Value now: $280,000. 1996 rental income: $68 a week. Today it's $280 a week. That's not me being clever. It's money losing value.

In a crisis, governments can't print more land. The more money they print, the less it buys.

Real estate is not called ''real'' for nothing.

Other forms of property can vanish. But land lasts forever and ever.

Graham Macafee, Latham

So the government is seriously considering the option to buy the replacements for the Collins Class submarines overseas as the alternative to them being manufactured by the Australian Submarine Corporation in SA. Thank goodness for that.

Can anyone point to a significant Defence project manufactured in SA that has come in on budget and on time in the past 30 years? And as for the so-called sustainability benefits that would flow from local manufacture, you only have to look at the poor availability of the Collins fleet over the past six years to see that is another furphy about industrial skills resident in SA. Please, buy our next generation submarines on a value-for-money basis, and use some of the money saved to provide seed funding for new employment opportunities in SA that will not ultimately require ongoing taxpayer subsidies to survive.

Roger Dace, Reid

I marvel at Bill Shorten's ability to rant and rave about the possibility of spending $20 billion to buy new submarines from Japan rather than $40 billion to build them in Adelaide. And, in so doing, protect some low-productivity jobs of his Labor mates. It's all about protecting Australia's security, he says. I wonder if Shorten has ever thought about where the fleets of Qantas and Virgin are built. Or, Abbott's shiny new BMW.

And, of course, our new military jets, built in the US, that we are about to send to the Middle East on a humanitarian mission. At least they work, which is more than we can say about the Collins Class submarines.

Scott Rashleigh, O'Malley

Exactly how does Peter Hartcher (''Take away the naming rights'', Times2, September 9, p4) expect the Islamic State's naming rights to be taken away, when he himself outlines in detail the textual basis upon which their holy war is being waged in the name of Islam?

The same recourse to sacred texts is true of the Jewish state of Israel. Its founders saw the return to the Holy Land as a pre-messianic fulfilment of Jewish eschatology. Their victory in the 1967 Six Day War, and subsequent occupation of Palestinian territory, has set their eschatological time-clock into overdrive; hence their reluctance to cede any land belonging to greater Israel. This extraordinary occurrence in Jewish history has not escaped the gaze of the United States' 40-million-strong evangelical Christians. They see such events as prophetically aligning with the expected return of Jesus Christ, with US President Barack Obama himself declaring Jerusalem is the ''eternal'' capital of Israel.

So, Peter Hartcher, in whose eyes is the Islamic State ''not an Islamic State''?

Reverend Dr Vincent Zankin, Rivett

The definition of what a ''mandate'' is, is an issue I come across quite often when I lecture and discuss politics with students and others. I commend your paper for the useful editorial ''Abbott yet to justify trust voters put in him'' (Times2, September 8, p2), which brings up the issue of what a mandate is. It is apparent that many people, like P. M. Button (Letters, June 27), do not understand that just because a particular party is elected to govern, it does not mean it has a mandate to do anything it likes including breaking promises and introducing important new legislation without any forewarning whatsoever.

The Oxford Dictionary defines mandate as the ''authority to carry out a policy …'' Dictionary.com and TheFreeDictionary.com say it is ''a command or authorisation to act in a particular way on a public issue given by the electorate''. Wikipedia says new governments who attempt to introduce policies they did not make public during an election campaign do not have a legitimate mandate.

But I like adjunct professor John Nethercote's description as a ''a political doctrine, derives its meaning from political philosophy, political behaviour and political morality, not from constitutions or other laws. It concerns the legitimacy with which governments act, not their legal authority to do so'' and that ''in parliamentary democracies, 'mandate' evolved to meet the view that, at elections, voters should be informed about how their representatives, if successful, would conduct themselves in parliament and in office''.

Unlike Button I have never seen the term ''mandate'' divorced from policy or political philosophy and to suggest that the electorate would give an open mandate to a political party to do anything it liked is a complete nonsense.

Ric Hingee, Duffy

Bernard Davis (Letters, September 9) seems to have appointed himself as Vladimir Putin's man in Canberra, faithfully repeating the mendacious Russian propaganda on the Ukraine, claiming that ''a mechanised military horde of 60,000'' was sent to ''murder and expel the Russian-speaking people of eastern Ukraine'', and that ''the West is now openly backing a resurgent Nazism in Europe''.

This is nonsense. It is generally acknowledged that Russian speakers and Ukrainian speakers got on remarkably well until Putin stirred up ethnic hostilities and his surrogates shot down a civilian aircraft (yes, I know, Mr Putin, and Mr Davis, say the Ukrainians did it).

To try to draw a connection between German atrocities in France in WWII and present events in Ukraine is absurd. It is a fact that millions of Ukrainians welcomed the German army as liberators from the hated Soviet regime, which is hardly surprising: 7 million had died in the the Soviet-engineered famine. Ukraine has suffered a dreadful history because of Moscow's ruthless determination, then as now, to crush any spirit of independence and to keep Ukraine as an obedient satellite.

It is a pity to see Putin's Western apologists supporting his actions and his lies. As Solzhenitsyn said, ''in our country, the lie has become not just a moral category but a pillar of the state''. Has anything changed?

Dr Alan N. Cowan, Yarralumla

Does the push by bike advocates for motorists to leave more space on roads for cyclists (''Safety zone advocated as cyclists face threat'', September 9, p3) mean that cyclists will leave more space on shared paths for pedestrians, use their bell or other audible warning to alert them of their approach, slow down around high usage pedestrian areas where there are children, dismount to cross pedestrian crossings or not ride through red lights?

Or, as usual, will most cyclists think these rules don't apply to them?

I am a cyclist and a member of Pedal Power but I am critical of its lack of campaigning to get cyclists to observe the rules. Perhaps the police could actually book cyclists who break the rules. If cyclists want respect from motorists, then it would be good if cyclists showed respect to pedestrians.

Ian Davies, Holder

Jetstar's policing of carry-on baggage (Letters, September 5) will hopefully be copied by all airlines. I assume the promotion towards using the carry-on luggage was an airline means of getting passengers to handle their own luggage, thus reducing the baggage loading staff workload and waiting time at arrival carousels.

It is my understanding that the reason checked-in hold luggage is weighed is to ensure that a plane is not overloaded and to allow fuel requirements and takeoff speed to be calculated. Having seen the size and numbers of unweighed carry-on bags being brought into the cabin, I am often in trepidation, as I must regrettably admit that my wife and I sometimes put the heavier (small) items in our carry-on bags if we are near our checked-in baggage weight. The carry-on allowance is only 7kg, something that can be easily exceeded. I hope an incorrect weight and balance calculation does not cause a plane to crash on take-off.

Paul O'Connor, Hawker

TRACK BACK IN TIME

Simon Corbell and his followers are enthusiastically selling their vision of a virtual wonderland based on trams. The rest of Canberra should be asking how a 19th century transport system will benefit them. Maybe we can look forward to the trickle-out effect.

Andrew Roberts, Kambah

MATTER OF OPINION

The left-leaning rabid Abbott haters, who constitute the majority of the letter writers and opinion piece authors in the CT, refuse to acknowledge one salient fact.

Most of the Abbott government's problems are a direct result of the Rudd/Gillard disaster.

A pity the media had not exercised the same forensic examination to the previous government that it now applies to the current administration.

Owen Reid, Dunlop

STATE OF PAYBACK

The recent blitzkrieg by ISIL - much of it on motorbikes and 4WDs - looks impressive, but is nothing more then a lack of response from Arab nations divided along tribal/religious ideology. IS will be pushed back to their origins when the might of air power is finally turned loose, now that several Arab states have agreed to pay the cost of the effort.

David McVeigh, Turner

TAXING CONCERNS

I am a low income earner on a modest superannuation pension. Like John Shailer (Letters, September 9), I also received letters from AGL telling me of the reduced bills I will receive due to the abolition of the carbon tax.

I also read at the same time how emissions have increased already since the carbon tax was abolished. I was more than happy to pay a little more to ensure we have clean air.

Robyn Lewis, Raglan, NSW

HEIR TOO APPARENT

There are well over 800 children conceived every day in Australia and many more in Britain. One more (''A sibling for George and a spare heir to the throne'', September 9, p1) is a mere bagatelle. A footnote in one of the inside pages would have been more than enough. Please concentrate on the things that matter.

Eric Hodge, Pearce

SHADES OF CIVIC GREY

I was so disappointed to see the top of the beautiful, old merry-go-round in Civic being painted a dull brown.

The painters told me this was the choice of the ACT government.

The concrete grey city of Canberra desperately needs colour to bring joy and gaiety. The flags are also dull yellow. So sad.

Bright red at the top with flags of yellow and blue would have done the trick.

Penelope Upward, O'Connor

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