Letters: Our national anthem ought to be fun, definitely not ho-hum

Is our national anthem for everyone, or is it unsuitable for some groups in society?

Should your child sing the national anthem? (Chronicle, February 24). I was disgusted that a local school hit headlines around NZ for such a contentious issue.

What are you thinking, Ms O'Connor? It's our national anthem. It should not be turned into yet another issue that divides people who live in our country.

By sending out that text you are encouraging division instead of encouraging respect for our anthem. Half the problem is many children don't know the words. Do your job and teach them the words and the pride that goes with it.

Make it a fun thing to do at assembly, instead of ho-hum. Find a way to instil passion into the anthem. Challenge the children to respect their country and the anthem that rings out across the world at stadiums and podiums when we do well.

Those children who come from another country accept the benefits of living in ours and, as such, while not asking them to sing the anthem, they should at least be taught to respect it as part of their new land's heritage.

P. RODGERS
Castlecliff

Coronavirus impact

There is an impending issue for New Zealand surrounding the Covid-19 (coronavirus) outbreak in China. With a very large percentage of our national revenue coming from exports to China and income from Chinese tourism there is already a negative adjustment happening in the economy.

We Kiwis can support our own businesses and help minimise this impact by buying NZ-made and travelling in NZ. Our beautiful country abounds in wonderful products as well as internationally acclaimed scenery and activities, many of which are free.

JANINE DELANEY
Castlecliff

Climate change

William Partridge's letter about the atmosphere is incorrect. Climate science is a very complex subject. The two gases causing most of the global warming effect are water vapour and CO2. They absorb heat from the Earth's surface as it is warmed by the sun. Water vapour is by far the bigger contributor.

In years past, the atmosphere was treated as one entity, like a sheet of glass. We know it's not like that. The atmosphere is in layers. As the layers go higher they are colder. A low warm layer heats the layer above. The layer above re-radiates heat to the next layer, but at a lesser rate.

This action climbs higher until the cold topmost layer radiates some heat into space. So the balance is between how much of the sun's heat the Earth's surface receives vs how much the top of the atmosphere radiates into space. At the moment we receive more energy than we radiate. Hence global warming.

As the atmosphere heats, it holds more water vapour, although the cold upper layers have little water. CO2 absorption in the atmosphere is nowhere near saturation, particularly in higher layers. More heat (energy) in the atmosphere will give more extreme rain, stronger storms, wider weather fluctuations in general, and warmer seas will rise (not just from ice melt, but from thermal expansion of the water).

A separate subject is plant growth with extra CO2. Temperature zones shift and crops will no longer grow in their current locations. Animals and insects will migrate. Nobody knows how this will turn out.

MIKE PHILO
Okoia

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