Cafe's generous gesture
I'M hoping you'll give a huge shout out to Tinto Espresso Bar, on Foreshore Reserve, at Toronto.
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While there the other week I saw some fireys near their truck. I thought they were checking their equipment, then realised they were waiting for take-away coffee. I went over to the boys to say "If I'd known you were ordering I would've shouted all of you your coffee as a tremendous thank you for the amazing work you are doing".
Of course, they said thank you, then told me Tinto's have a container on their serving bench where you can donate money towards buying a cuppa for all the emergency service people - that is, firemen, ambos, police etc.
I wanted to make this public knowledge to encourage more donations, and perhaps inspire other establishments to follow Tinto's thoughtful and generous lead.
- Fiono Honson, Blackalls Park
Toronto still waiting
OVER four months ago Lake Macquarie City Council rescinded a resolution to proceed with a six-storey mixed development on the lakeside location of 4 Bath Street, Toronto.
The rescission motion required that all work cease on the development application, that the Bath Street site be included in the Toronto Foreshore Masterplan, that community consultation be undertaken about the future of the site, and that council review its land holdings, presumably with a view to a possible relocation of the venture.
Since then, little appears to have happened. While work on the project has stopped and the property has been included in the Foreshore Masterplan, this has resulted in very little community consultation.
Reclassification of the property is still unresolved while council awaits the completion of their sustainability report. It was only a matter of days after the original 2018 decision to prepare a DA for the six-storey building that preliminary work began on the site.
Council appears far less enthusiastic about working with the community to reconsider the plan.
Is this lack of motivation linked to council elections this year? Are council staff simply stalling? Toronto residents are waiting to be involved, not left on the sidelines yet again.
- Bob Ireland, Toronto
Why no price on carbon?
THE disastrous early fire season has forced our federal government to admit they now believe in climate change, but they show no intention of increasing efforts to address its principal causes, the burning of fossil fuels and deforestation.
Once again they have ruled out putting a price on carbon. Instead we have a de-facto price on carbon that we will all pay while the polluters get off scot free.
In our first real taste of what just over 1-degree C of global warming brings, thousands of people have already paid dearly with the loss of their homes and businesses. Many have lost everything. Too many have paid with their lives.
But we will all pay in the form of significant increases in the price of food, water and clothing; property insurance (if you can get it at all); health costs; upgraded building standards; energy costs from greater cooling needs, and unnecessarily expensive coal-dominated power.
And what value do we place on the loss of our unique wildlife when a single fire season is predicted to kill billions? With our federal government's existing policies estimated to increase warming by a further 2 to 3 degrees Celsius, we must expect extreme climate events to get more severe and more frequent.
A carbon price paid by the polluters is widely regarded as the most cost effective means of reducing pollution. It reflects the real cost of fossil fuels, and significantly accelerates the transition to renewable energy, limiting the extent of global warming.
- Richard Mallaby, Wangi Wangi