Barnaby Joyce (''Muddy waters sets the real tone'', February 9, p15) presented a harrowing tale of the plight of Queensland's farmers facing massive flooding.
His story would have been more valuable if he had looked at possible causes for the increased inundation. The scientific consensus is that man-made climate change has likely intensified the monsoon rains that have triggered record floods in Queensland.
We should keep in mind that scientists are people who we pay to study such matters in depth for much of their lives. They are our climate experts. We would do well to listen to them instead of turning to Adrian Bolt or Alan Jones for ''information'' on climate.
Climate scientists agree largely that in a hotter world there is more evaporation from land and oceans, more moisture in the atmosphere and stronger weather patterns. They argue that about 0.5degrees of the ocean temperatures around northern Australia, which are more than 1.5degrees above pre-1970 levels, could be attributed to global warming and that this can explain the 10 to 15per cent increase in rainfall in eastern and northern Australia.
It seems that we can't yet attribute single events, such as floods in Roma and Mitchell, to climate change, but there is a systemic influence on all of these weather events and it's a likely explanation for at least some of the present flooding.
Perhaps, if Queensland stopped producing so much coal, and so reduced the advance of climate change, it would help reduce floods which destroy Queensland farms.
Fred Hart, Weston
SHRINKING PLOTS
Your Editorial on ACT government housing affordability measures (''Nod to making homes affordable'', February 9, p14) didn't discuss the efficacy and social consequences of its main component - forever shrinking house plots in new estates.
That approach deprives ordinary people of land, the key to well-being and financial security, further widening the social/wealth divide.
In our new estates, most housing for families, let alone the ''affordable'' type, consists of cramped accommodation in incongruous attached-house formats. There are also rising numbers of pokey flats.
Minimal attention is given to ''through life'' accessibility, solar access, and privacy. It can't be argued that micro-plot estates reduce (so-called) suburban sprawl. That's because lashings of land (and millions of dollars) are wasted on slow-to-install, high-energy infrastructure, land levelling and the allegedly compensatory ''public realm'' (often vast, rarely used ''linear'' parks, etc.).
We need to rethink estate designs and speed up land release. One approach could see a range of ''super blocks'' each containing say, 80-100 variously, but good sized plots served by internal but public low-impact vehicle/pedestrian ways, in estates with commensurately fewer traditional roads, improved land utilisation and better environmental protection. An updated version of Kambah's successful 1970s Urambi Village would work.
Jack Kershaw, Kambah
DIGGERS MALIGNED
I don't believe it is fair to accuse the Australian personnel in Iraq of illegal operations, when their unit was under US tactical control (''Diggers linked to secret Iraqi jail'', February 9, p1).
Let us remember that once the Australian government gave in to George W. Bush's threat - that you are either with us or against us - it was clear that the Australians serving in Iraq would be taking their orders from their American masters. After all, this was America's war.
No, it is not Australia that stands accused of breaching the Geneva Convention and international humanitarian law, but America for the invasion of a country that posed it no threat.
Sam Nona, Burradoo, NSW
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