Letter of the week: R Anderson, Pukekohe
As the country is another lockdown, consideration needs to be made to supermarket workers who are very much at the frontline and in a high level of risk, being in stores crowded with people.
After public pressure during the last level 4 lockdown,
supermarkets begrudgingly agreed to pay their staff a bonus to acknowledge the risk they were putting themselves in by coming to work to ensure the country remained fed.
However, as soon as the lockdown ended, the supermarkets promptly stopped this bonus despite having made considerable profits with the exclusive monopoly on trade given to them during this period, such as is occurring again now.
The country has seen and acknowledged the critical importance of supermarket workers during lockdowns, yet despite the massive profits supermarket owners make, the staff in these stores continue to be some of the most poorly paid in the country, with many on minimum wage.
It is time for supermarkets to pay their workers their true worth and the Living Wage would be a good moral start as a thank you for keeping the country going during these unsafe times.
Voting against change
John Roughan's (Weekend Herald, August 14) "cold blast of reality for the Government" nails it.
The final paragraph of his piece concludes that if our government applies climate change policies to the detriment of our living standards then "they-us" ... will change the government.
Quite so.
Larry Mitchell, Rothesay Bay.
Red code status
John Roughan (Weekend Herald, August 14) seems very satisfied with the warmth generated from gas installed at his place. There seems, however, to be no recognition nor link to the damage our planet is suffering by the use of fossil fuels.
He represents a small number of citizens, entrenched in their right to have what they want, usually because they've "worked hard and earned it", but show little regard or responsibility to any harm they accrue in their take.
It is hard to fathom how someone who participates intellectually can completely ignore damage right now of the continual burning and flooding in the Northern Hemisphere. We have scientists saying we are at the most dangerous point in our existence. We have the United Nations panel on climate change giving us all a red code status and a strong message to stop using heat-producing fossil fuels or we won't survive.
Pretty clear, don't you think?
Emma Mackintosh, Birkenhead.
Seven billion problems
How long before world governments finally acknowledge the inevitable conclusion that the solution is population control?
Emission penalties and electrification incentives can barely nibble at the edge of the zettawatt heat generation rate of seven billion busy humans, and climbing.
John Roughan (Weekend Herald, August 14) actually stated the widespread delusion that "people shouldn't have to lower their living standards". Deluded people won't vaccinate either. New Scientist reports that all humans have some delusions, and that it's actually usually helpful for survival. But not always.
Only sensible governments can save Earth from its self-indulgent inhabitants.
Jim Carlyle, Te Atatū Peninsula.
