Jim Rogers, Byron Bay
As a conscientious teacher of geography and science, amongst other things, for over 40 years, I find Wilf Sprengel’s comments on teachers offensive.
As pointed out in Aslan Shand’s excellent concise article (Echo March 27), climate change deniers fail to understand the difference between ‘weather’, which changes constantly in the short term and ‘climate’, which is changes in weather patterns over long periods of time.
The deniers appear to embrace their beliefs as a form of ideology whilst ignoring proven science that doesn’t suit their opinions.
I saw my role as a teacher was to make my students study facts and evidence and to think for themselves to reach conclusions – not to just accept opinions and ideology as fact. This is what motivated those intelligent students who demonstrated – out of frustration in the face of intransigence and inaction by politicians living in the past.
Might I suggest that Mr Sprengel reads CSIRO scientist Dr Joelle Gergis’ excellent book, A Sunburnt Country (readily available in the Library), which studied weather and climate patterns over millennia in Australia, including the weather events he mentions in context.
It demonstrates that the ‘rate’ of climate change is now becoming too fast for natural systems, including human beings, to be able to continue to adapt and evolve, and it’s getting quicker.
Finally, resorting to abuse means that you’ve lost the argument.
For four decades The Echo has printed the stories some people loved, some people hated, and some pretended not to read. If you want us to keep telling the truth, the real truth, not the sugar-coated version. We’ll need your support to keep the presses rolling. 
