The evidence damning the drug, had become overwhelming. 

The science – as they say, was in.  

The media, happy to promote a dangerous product for their own profits, reluctantly fell silent.  

Those who had manipulated public policy for the short-term interests of the industry, backed away from ridicule and ruinous court action.  

In short, the game was up.

Now, it seems, those deniers of anthropogenic climate change leading to global warming appear to be in the same boat as the tobacco lobby was during the latter part of the last century.  

Fewer claims supporting their cause are being published.  

The evidence against them is mounting, almost by the day.  

As I type much of Northern California is afire; NSW is drought stricken; earthquakes in Indonesia; heatwaves in Europe; floods in France, polar ice-caps melt, small Pacific islands disappear.

In years to come climate change deniers will fall into the same bracket as those who believed the earth was flat; man didn’t land on the moon; tobacco is not injurious to health, while vaccinations can lead to autism.  

Meanwhile, this damaging period of Earth’s history will be seen by those who care as a mischievous and capricious act of political gamesmanship, led by a corruptible political class financed by those who choose to gain most by the burning of carbon, and the production of greenhouse gases.

Dave Robinson, Newstead.

THE old saying,  "Only lazy people litter" is no doubt true all round the world.  

Yet can you believe it,  the historical theme park Puy du Fou in western France has come up with the ultimate novel approach to rubbish collection.

Half a dozen rooks (they're related to the crow family of birds) have been trained to pick up lazy people's litter in exchange for food from their handler.  

Pretty nifty, hey? 

Well I say, while "birdbrain" over the years has been a pejorative term to insult someone's intelligence, it falls flat here. 

For just like the chess piece of the same name, the humble rook can surprise and checkmate the best of us.

Robert Lee, Summerhill.

DENIS Moriarty (Letters, The Examiner, August 13) said “In 1970, 8 per cent of Australians worked in agriculture, now just 2.5 per cent do”.

And you can blame technology for that.

One-man dairies, round bay hales and so on.

Machines and computers have replaced many workers.

Referring to those affected by drought, Mr Moriarity said “It’s a bit like conservation, you can’t just preserve the animals that look cute in photographs, you have to preserve the habitat that allows them to flourish”.

Try telling that to the government and companies like Forestry Tasmania.

A.R. Trounson, Needles.

SADLY our politicians have learned nothing and the Liberal Party is on the way to self destruction.

It has become a party of egos, good or bad Australians wants stability, not this constant fight to obtain the top position.

Average Australians are struggling with debilitating high energy prices and a constant struggle with the rising cost of living, and we owe multi-billions.

Through absolute foolishness they are handing Bill Shorten a gift of government on the backs of so many hard working Liberal supporters. As a Liberal supporter I have never been so disgusted and disappointed with the antics of this schoolboys rebellion.

Surely the people have a say, what we vote in should run the length of the term, not a party room full of egos trying to change the leadership. You shame us all with your inability to provide stable good governing for the people.

Peter Doddy, Trevallyn.

APPARENTLY Peter Dutton is proposing to keep electricity prices down by excusing them from GST.  

What nonsense. It is not reducing the cost of generating electricity but just introducing yet another subsidy.  The only answer is to join the rest of the world and dump the Paris agreement.

Robin Claxton, Dilston.

POLITICIANS destroy value because when we rely on them for leadership and get nothing but infighting and misdirection we lose opportunities to progress. 

They routinely take bizarre positions against each other in service to the adversarial political system, and to stupid, simplistic ideologies.

Boards in business are united to increase profit and efficiency, not to undermine every initiative the other side of the table proposes. 

Imagine running a business as our political system works. The joke about “only three more prime ministers ‘till Christmas” has a strange ring of truth about it.

Perhaps we should adjust our election rules to insist that whenever a prime minister is changed there will be an election within three months. 

This might curb the self-interested decision-making we see at the present, but I suspect egos would rule and the infighting would continue. The people would get a chance to immediately voice their disapproval, and that might help a little bit.

M. Fyfe, Riverside.