Letters: On the Black List

On the Black List

Madam: I don’t know if you were following the stoush back in 2014 between the previous poetry editor of Overland, Peter Minter, and Quadrant and me. A lot of fireworks—even Andrew Bolt got involved. Recently I was reading through some of Minter’s correspondence to me and noticed this: “I will no longer be publishing anyone who also publishes their work in Quadrant … I don’t wish to have any association with the authors of a journal edited by Keith Windschuttle.”

I wonder if Overland would now accept submissions from me (or anyone else also publishing in Quadrant) now that Keith is stepped down and you are the editor? I doubt it. And anyway, as they’ve shown their true colour (pick one!), why would even anyone bother?

Both Minter and the previous editor, Jeff Sparrow, have long since moved on.

Joe Dolce

Correction

MADAM: I believe that there is a typo on page 57 of the June issue of Quadrant. In the article “When Religion Declines” it is stated that New South Wales and Victoria have exactly the same number of pupils (212,608) enrolled in Catholic schools. This is more than highly unlikely.

Andrew Burston

THE EDITORS RESPOND: Highly unlikely indeed, but not far wrong. According to the respective websites, the most recent approximate figures are 223,000 pupils in New South Wales and 215,000 in Victoria.

No Crisis

MADAM: Australian governments, like many governments, are spending trillions on transitioning from fossil fuels to renewables—allegedly to save the planet from a climate “crisis”.

Leaving aside the question of climate science, we should examine what has been achieved with Net Zero policies thus far. It appears no matter how much humanity spends on Net Zero policies, they have failed to reduce carbon dioxide levels. To date some 340,000 wind turbines and over two billion solar panels are in use which have failed to reduce atmospheric levels of carbon dioxide.

In over 40 years—despite the massive expenditure—carbon dioxide levels have gone from 338 parts per million in 1986 to over 426 in April 2024. Even during the two years of Covid lockdowns, carbon dioxide levels still rose from 410 to 417 parts per million. The nations of the world have already spent more than 50 trillion dollars in a failed attempt to reduce atmospheric carbon dioxide.

Why has the global warming hypotheses not been re-examined when it appears the current carbon mitigation strategies have failed? Have those pushing for the transition to renewable energy done their cost-benefit analysis?

The notion of a climate crisis is based on unproven climate modelling assumptions and needs to be challenged. Can humanity really control the climate? It’s time to rethink the current understanding of climate science and the failure of intermittent renewables to replace the reliability of fossil-fuel base-load power. It’s time to put nuclear on the table.

Alan Barron