OPINION

Stop idling

Re: "Give us clear air, not hot air", (Editorial, Jan 11) & "Expert wants to call city a problem area", (BP, Jan 11).

Thai traffic lights have the largest red light delay in the world. Many lights are timed for 2.5 min for the red light.

Add to this, they are not timed for the next light ahead.

Many highway sections of 10km or less can have three sets of lights that are not sequenced and you could be idling for 7.5 minutes in a section that should take less then 10 minutes.

If the government wants to reduce air pollution this is the easiest way to do so.

Never a dull moment

Re: "Trump sets out his territorial ambitions", (World, Jan 7).

Indeed, presidential-elect President Donald Trump would make America great again -- by taking control of Panama Canal and Greenland, converting Canada to the 51st state of America, and renaming the Gulf of Mexico as the Gulf of America (it would look somewhat odd if the Gulf of Thailand, previously called the Gulf of Siam, was to be called the Gulf of Vietnam).

The world would be in the age of tariff wars, the World Trade Organisation rendered obsolete and Nato offering less support in defending Europe. There won't be a dull moment after Mr Trump's inauguration on Jan 20.

The policies aired to date remind one that a century ago America's Congress passed a bill called the Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act 1930 with disastrous results using tariffs used as a weapon against trading partners after the Great Depression.

One can only hope that Trump II will be similar to Trump I in that we should watch what he does and not what he says!

Mealy-mouthed

Re: "Meat-ing adjourned", (PostBag, Jan 11).

Felix Qui seems to think it's okay to eat animals because they don't have self-awareness or can't make plans.

What about a severely retarded human who has no self-awareness and doesn't know how to make plans. Should we eat him too?

While I believe Qui is sincere when he says animals should be killed painlessly, does he really believe you can kill tens of billions of animals (not including fish) without causing many of them to suffer?

Peter Singer in his book Animal Liberation says it would be costly to raise and kill all those animals humanely and the cost would be passed onto consumers.

I wonder if meateaters are willing to put their money where their mouth is.

Good for a laugh

Re: "Who's to blame?", and "Climate Clowns", (PostBag, Jan 11).

I read Tarquin Chufflebottom's remarks that "2024 was the hottest year on record, global sea temperatures are the hottest on record and atmospheric CO2 levels are the highest ever recorded". As a scientist, I might have found it amusing if it weren't so pathetically uninformed.

Similarly, Songdej Praditsmanont relies on the most hated source in news, CNN, which conflates anthropogenic climate change and wildfires.

Catastrophic chaparral fires have been occurring in California for 20 million years. As for the "highest ever recorded" levels of CO2, it is just more UN-sponsored propaganda and fear mongering.

Historical CO2 levels range from 4,000 ppm to 180 ppm. We are now at the very low end of this range.

The only scientific "evidence" which supports human-caused global warming results from "data" generated by mathematical models.

If one reads the scientific papers on this subject, the overwhelming preponderance of ever-changing modelling is the one constant among them.

Timepiece distraction

Re: "Zuckerberg lifts US content guardrails in bias shift", (Opinion, Jan 9).

When Mark Zuckerberg announced his ending of fact-checking on Meta's social platforms ie Facebook, he was shown wearing an uber-luxurious Gruebel Forsey watch worth about $US900,000 (31 million baht). It does look rather nice but so does my house for similar money.

Doesn't Facebook have a clock function on it, or is it no longer reliable as no one is checking its accuracy?

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