A question about climate change/global warming.

twin-factor reactionary reinforcement

ie that leads them to run back to the petty kickbacks of the coal lobby - note that our current elected PM publicly worked as a coal lobbyist while in Parliament as a minister - as well as overturn actual progressive advances when given the chance.

https://1v1d1e1lmiki1lgcvx32p49h8fe-wpengine.netdna-ssl.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/scott-morrison-coal-joyce-aap-960x540.jpg

poxy fule?

dunno why I'm getting poxyed, so piece by piece

^ this good Christian refuses to fund firefighters, so they are literally begging on gofundme for oxygen instead of working in dust masks

meanwhile he did fly to smoke-ridden Sydney on Sunday, but to attend a purpose-unknown private event at a riverside polo club (currently on sale for $75 million, if you're looking), not to address any fire-related issues

https://www.christiesrealestate.com/sales/detail/170-l-86-f1906121203700007/sydneys-premier-polo-club-in-an-idyllic-setting-by-the-hawkesbury-river-sw-2753

and today has fronted a presser to assert that he "completely rejects" Australia's last-place ranking on the global index of climate policy, because the ranking is "not credible."

Denial is working juuuuuuust fine.

(Christies link didn't wanna embed)

Firefighters are being told to shut down the crowdfunding. ffs.

Update: the firefighters have been advised to stop crowdfunding for money to buy facemasks that will stop them from being taken to hospital for smoke inhalation.

As with climate change's contributions to these months-long fires, it turns out that 'during the fires' is not the time to discuss whether or not they will literally die while volunteering to save lives and homes and ecosystems and species. This should be considered at some future time, after a months-long scientific research and evaluation process. The dust masks they currently have will obviously keep working if they just believe hard enough. Perhaps if they collapse after fighting fires without breathing protection or pay for 12 hours, it's because they haven't donated enough to the PM's multinational grifter megachurch? Get a research and evaluation process onto that, too.


(Note that the linked story reports Morrison has today announced $11 million in additional firefighting funding. This appears - he won't clarify - to actually be $11 million that he has announced twice, has been held up without reason for two years so far, and if it turns out to be real this time, won't be approved until sometime after February. To be fair, he probably expects the fires to still be going in February.)

(hollow) lol xpost

some comparisons:

one concentration camp contractor is on a $1.9 billion five-year contract

a contractor that transports concentration camp prisoners has won 115 tenders to date, from $160k to $78 million (https://www.tenders.gov.au/Search/KeywordSearch?keyword=skytraders)

Morrison initiated a $158 million program to put priests into schools
(reminder: his own pastor, whom he tried to bring to the White House, obstructed police investigations into the multinational child abuse committed by the pastor’s father / founder of the church)

he spent $185 million on reopening a single concentration camp, and millions per month keeping it open, with a single family detained there

he commissioned a statue of Captain Cook in his own electorate for $60 million

in six years of government (and three elected & two unelected prime ministers) his mob have given $7.7 billion in subsidies to fossil fuel companies.

https://data.junkee.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/12/sydneysmoke.jpg

the rural fire service office in Sydney's west was evacuated because their smoke alarms went off

Deputy Prime Minister last month said that only "raving inner city greenies" believed in climate change, today has said that it's really meddling kids responsible - “Most of these fires are being caused by little Lucifers running around with matches and firestarters and creating havoc" - in response to the state's Energy & Environment Minister noting that this is the hottest year in state history, surpassing last year, which was the hottest year in state history, and that record drought is a cause of extreme bushfires, which scientists predicted.

(one 16-year-old, and one 19-year-old volunteer firefighter, have been charged with starting fires. there are over 100 fires currently burning the state.)

The Amazon fires burnt 906,000ha. 10,000,000 have burnt so far in Australia, and existing fires are expected to continue into next year.

It's getting to where outright denial is becoming politically untenable and I'm convinced that they long ago mapped out their future strategy of morphing from 'it isn't happening' to 'it's too late to do anything about it/it doesn't matter what we do cause China and India'.

The leader of the federal opposition party is advocating to increase coal exports, saying it will make no difference to climate change because those countries would get it from somewhere else if we don't sell it to them. Denial of the processes and outcomes of climate policy aren't functionally different from denial of climate change's existence, imo.

update: smoke in Sydney alone, where the fires aren't, is currently estimated to be impacting the economy by $50 million a day.

A day.

https://www.smh.com.au/national/nsw/the-economic-cost-of-bushfires-on-sydney-revealed-up-to-50-million-a-day-and-rising-20191212-p53jbq.html

(no paywall on bushfire coverage)

Heatwave forecast for next week, with temperatures likely to reach 120° F in some areas. Probably this is normal, and likely to put the fires out, right?

I have a board meeting with the liberal funding, climate change denying m, coal baron chairman of our board next week. I’m spoiling for a fight, particular because it’s in Sydney and my wife is coming with me on the trip and I ave had to buy here particulate masks because of her asthma.

sic your last series of updates have just been O_O

wtf is wrong with this world

Private money in politics, and the Murdoch propaganda networks, for starters.

Not sure about the first, re these updates - it mostly flows in the other direction, and certainly didn't help Turnbull at all - but the latter was a foregone conclusion when Fairfax outsourced to Pagemasters, let alone finally deciding to float Domain. Gutting of successive ABC budgets while allowing foreign company Facebook unfettered to destroy local news publishing are the two biggest factors and are of course the government's direct action/inaction, but I'm not sure what you mean by "private money in politics," and think ideology is the motivator in the first, and ignorance in the latter.

Here are some sample maps comparing the area that has burnt so far, if any UK or American folk are checking this thread and would benefit from the comparison:

https://i.imgur.com/BsUdXCw.jpg

The Prime Minister went to Hawaii for a holiday this week without bothering to inform his office, hours after Australia & Brazil sabotaged international climate policy meetings (and possibly to meet his pastor, who has just finished a promotional tour in the US?). The fires are still burning. Blazes are approaching the largest valley in the Blue Mountains west of Sydney, Australia's largest city (briefly picture what you imagine happens to the trees in, around and above any valley during a fire, whether or not it's part of a substantial mountain range). Temperatures have indeed come close to 50C/120F this week in some areas. There is still no additional funding for volunteer firefighters, and the government has not made any statement of plans to address the fires or people or homes or businesses or fauna affected (it is probable that koalas, let alone less-known and less-populous species, will go extinct in the coming decades as a result of the fires).

Political denial continues to be entirely acceptable. However, multiple historical contractors are declining to enter into tenders with the latest coal mine run by an Indian billionaire, that has already received $4.4 billion in subsidies from the government. A single joint on one pinky of the Invisible Hand, twitching faintly?

(Re-reading my previous post: by first and latter I mean ABC budgets first and Facebook latterly; apologies for lack of clarity.)

*opens thread, laughs nervously, closes thread and walks into traffic*

Thanks for your posts sic. Certainly seeing how intolerable conditions have become in Delhi and now Sydney which will hopefully push efforts to organise action against these projects.

This is Melbourne today:

https://i.imgur.com/Yeyi4Mf.jpg

Melbourne is 700km (450 miles) from Sydney.

The Prime Minister is still (secretly) on holiday in (probably) Hawaii, but footage was dug up earlier in the week of him criticising the police chief of Melbourne for pausing to have dinner on one single day of bushfires in 2010.

At protests outside his official residence (he's using one near his personal home and church, not living in the same city/state as the government) yesterday, ten-year-old schoolgirls were threatened with force by police. Police were using "move on" powers conferred in 1998, when a minister responsible declared in parliament that they would never be applied to protestors.

The Acting Prime Minister told the protestors... well, told reporters elsewhere - that they are "wasting your time" and should "Go and donate your time to Meals on Wheels and something like that."

Two young fathers died fighting fires yesterday, and Saturday is forecast to be the most severe day in the five weeks so far that the state of New South Wales has been at "catastrophic fire danger". The PM has finally made a response to the fires in the wake of these latest deaths, via Instagram, saying he will return from his (secret) holiday "as soon as can be arranged." Qantas, Hawaiian Airlines and Jetstar all fly direct 10-hour flights, and Air New Zealand or Fiji Airways have 14-15 hours flights with stops, so his delay must obviously prove that he's actually somewhere else?

fucking hell.

I'm so absolutely sorry you have such craven arseholes for leaders during such a genuine national crisis Australia. fucking hell.

Its not amazing for mental health I can tell ya

Nor ecosystems of course

the five weeks so far that the state of New South Wales has been at "catastrophic fire danger"

nb: this level had to be added above 'extreme' in 2009. no idea why it didn't exist before that, if the earth's climate has been stable for thousands of years? probably the fucking nanny state fearmongering for profit. let's privatise the fire service, so that the profit motive is removed.


*checks notes, sees the word "volunteer" in front of "firefighters" 10 times per page, throws notes in a bushfire and flies to Hawaii*

The federal energy minister, unrelatedly under police investigation for forging a document that he used to attack the Lord Mayor of Sydney as a climate hypocrite, has assured people that it doesn't matter if the Prime Minister comes home early: "I’m sure he’s coming home ... He’s coming home soon anyway. He’s finishing up his holiday this week."

The area burnt so far is larger than Belgium, but! smaller than Moldova. Multiple firefighters homes have been burnt while the firefighters were being hospitalised for burns received while fighting fires elsewhere.

Fires have now started in a third state, with Catastrophic warnings issued for six of fifteen active fire regions there.

(BTW: while the catastrophic-level fires in NSW have been burning for less than a month and a half, the year's bushfires actually started in winter. It is currently summer in the southern hemisphere.)

Today is forecast to reach the highest recorded average temperature across the entire continent. (C O N T I N E N T)

Yesterday broke the previous record for the highest temperature across the continent. No big deal though, it had only been set on Tuesday.

worth a scroll through the replies on this Member Of Parliament's tweet, after reading the bio

Love how the inner city elite wet themselves when they see some smoke blows between them and the next high rise apartment block. Perhaps next time vote for an MP that doesn’t blacklist backburning and fire prevention measures.

— Andrew Laming (@AndrewLamingMP) December 18, 2019

The Acting Prime Minister told the protestors... well, told reporters elsewhere - that they are "wasting your time" and should "Go and donate your time to Meals on Wheels and something like that."

Incidentally, Meals On Wheels have requested the government to increase their funding from $40 million to $80 million, so that users of the service are paying only for the ingredients. 40% of elderly Australians are either malnourished or estimated as being at risk.

In four months since the request, the Acting Prime Minister's suggestion that 10-year-old schoolgirls cook and drive the meals, or take over as social care visitors, is the most substantive response to the funding proposal.

A BBC report on the fires gets a lot of info into five minutes. There;s no doubt that the BBC has been weakened and the news operations stacked with tories, but the LNP governments have gutted funding for the Australian equivalent, the ABC, over the last 18 years, and followed their re-election in May by having feds raid journalists' homes and enter the ABC headquarters with a warrant allowing them to access or delete any content on servers, from workers' emails arranging lunch, to the entire library of broadcast programmes and news rushes.

Shortly after his election, Scott Morrison raised the pay of his personal staff in the Prime Minster's Office. Unlike most public servants, they're on close to $200,000 a year.

Two weeks ago, because the public service is a waste of money, he abolished the federal Arts department, and the Department of Education.

14 months ago, a schoolgirl put a needle in a strawberry and told her friends at school that she had bought it like that from the supermarket. Morrison rushed to television and parliament to impose a penalty of 15 years gaol for putting needles in strawberries.

On multiple occasions this week, the staff in the Prime Minister's Office have refused to state whether the PM is in the country, refused to confirm if the Acting Prime Minister is Acting Prime Minister in Morrison's theoretical absence, refused to tell journalists where he is generally, stated outright that he is not in Hawaii, and claimed that he was already on a flight home.

Somehow, Australians on holiday in Hawaii have managed to pose with the man who launched the "Where The Bloody Hell Are You?" international tourism campaign advertising Australia ten years ago, here attempting to throw a shaka, but actually making the "bong on" hand symbol.

https://i.imgur.com/VYhWJbs.jpg

When journalists have contacted the PMO to point out that they are lying to the citizenry of the country about the leader of the country, they have received text messages saying "sorry you were offended."

Heading for two days after his promise (on the very formal method of addressing the country, Facebook product Instagram,) to return as soon as could be arranged, it turns out that apparently Qantas and Jetstar and Fiji Airways and Hawaiian Airlines and Air New Zealand and the Australian military have all shut down worldwide operations, as he was photographed three hours ago in a Waikiki hotel:

https://i.imgur.com/YbIxGAP.jpg

https://i.imgur.com/HbiyYug.jpg

Also Waikiki has seceded from Hawaii? Google Maps hasn't updated yet.

Members of the government have argued that it actually doesn't matter if the leader of the country isn't in the country while the country is on fire, because firefighters are the ones who do the work and Scott deserves a rest. Morrison himself has stated that just getting updates from his staff in his mystery undisclosed location that definitely isn't Hawaii is fine, because "I don’t hold a hose, I don’t sit in a control room.”

Somehow, despite not piloting a marine vessel or being a concentration camp guard or paying people smugglers out of his own pocket or personally cutting refugees heads off with a machete, while Immigration Minister he awarded himself this trophy, which he still keeps on his desk as PM:

https://i.imgur.com/AmZzA3u.png

Denial is going to become politically untenable any SECOND now, I can just feel it.

five weeks so far that the state of New South Wales has been at "catastrophic fire danger"

nb: this level had to be added above 'extreme' in 2009.

Of course, the Rural Fire Service is not funded at a level where they have been able to replace the actual warning signs in the last decade. At least the danger level was only at "Very High" in this location, so it didn't matter:

https://i.imgur.com/l4oOtXa.jpg

how is this playing politically?

Members of the government have argued that it actually doesn't matter if the leader of the country isn't in the country while the country is on fire

The Acting Prime Minister told the protestors... well, told reporters elsewhere - that they are "wasting your time" and should "Go and donate your time to Meals on Wheels and something like that."

And the Foreign Minister said it was right to not cancel or cut short his secret holiday because "his family [...] have no choice in the matter as to when they are able to spend time with their husband and their father."

it actually doesn't matter if the leader of the country isn't in the country while the country is on fire

apparently true

It definitely would have done more good for the current situation if he had been out of the country for the last ten years, than this week.

how is this playing politically?

It's hard to parse what the longer term impacts of this will be, but my perspective is that it seems to be absolutely tanking Morrison's public image, which let's face it, was the main thing he had going for him in the eyes of your average politically apathetic Australian. His ability to present himself (or for the Murdoch press to present him) as "an authentic everyday, knockabout bloke, just like you!" was a big part in getting the Liberals over the line (see: that horrific Quiet Australians report on the ABC), but the unbelievable lack of leadership and care for his country and its people that he's shown throughout this crisis over the last couple of months is exposing him as the gutless fraud that he is.

For someone who is supposedly a marketing guru, he has made some of the worst 'image' choices you could possibly make in his situation. At best, all he'd have to do is flip a few sausages on a BBQ in the general vicinity of a few exhausted firefighters with his sleeves rolled up, and do literally NOTHING ELSE, and he'd maintain his image as a "down to earth, good bloke". But he has failed spectacularly; he is even extremely bad at the things he is supposedly extremely good at.

I assume he doesn't want to visit the fires or firefighters because he might get asked again, on camera, about climate change.

worth a scroll through the replies on this Member Of Parliament's tweet

https://i.imgur.com/UEFMLbu.jpg

This is the highway leading out of Canberra, the capital of Australia, to the south coast.

https://i.imgur.com/KUUv5sv.jpg

Don't worry, the politicians all went home for a few months earlier this month, after postponing the bill that allows you to verbally attack gay, trans, and brown people in the street, or deny them medical attention, or refuse to serve them in shops, or exclude them from jobs.


Here are the roads out of Sydney, at the start of this Christmas holiday getaway season. Red lines are blocked by fire.

https://i.imgur.com/MBfrGG0.jpg

Pyrocumulonimbus systems have formed above fires in three regions.

https://i.imgur.com/7PAvRse.jpg

This means, effectively, "dry" thunderstorms - high, unpredictable winds and lightning striking more dried-out brush and trees, moving heat and fire and smoke faster and further, without rain.

Rain has started in some areas, though! Here are black raindrops on Callala Beach.

https://i.imgur.com/2pib3t5.jpg



A Senator from the majority Government party knows what the real problem is, though: the Bureau Of Meteorology has changed the historical records of temperature to put forward a fake "global warming agenda." He can be confident of this because "I’ve got a background in system accounting where I’ve changed records.”

He made this claim before his election in May, and restated it on television this week. Maybe in 2025 we'll find out that denial is no longer politically viable, if he doesn't get re-elected? *makes note to check whether any summers are scheduled between now and then*

Two weeks of the fires, seen from space.

2016-2018's Deputy Prime Minister shouts, visibly shitfaced, into his phone camera / at some clouds / near some cows that of course climate change is happening but god will murder us all if we have the audacity to try to fix it through taxes.

Fifteen years into his job being the government, his salary from the government being $190k, receiving an international travel allowance from the government, having private health care provided by the government, receiving drought relief subsidies from the government for his farm, and on track to get a lifetime pension of c. $150k if he retires in two years at age 55... he's had enough of the government being in his life, and therefore the government should do nothing to ameliorate climate change. Also, feel sorry for him because his cattle are dying, in the drought that he says proves climate change is real.

The pan up to the clouds to prove where God is might be the best part of the 45-second video, or it might be the streak of birdshit on his head.

Wait, that's the prime minister and he doesn't want government in his life, he's sick of government in his life?

https://i.imgur.com/qQh4CkA.png

^ infuriating

Wait, that's the prime minister

(this post unrelated to climate change denial)

no, Barnaby was Acting Prime Minister on occasions when the Prime Minister was overseas or on leave between February 2016 and February 2018

except that in October 2017, the High Court expelled him from government as it turned out that he was a citizen of another country and ineligible to stand for election, and had been illegitimately acting as a minister for the two months since New Zealand had confirmed his status. He re-entered on a by-election in December after renouncing his NZ citizenship.

then in February 2018 he was acting as Acting Prime Minister when he was replaced due to having impregnated a staffer, and his office having made a $5,000 dollar donation to a local businessman that was paying the rent on an apartment where Barnaby and the staffer were living while Barnaby's wife and four children remained in the family home

(the country had taken a non-binding postal survey on the issue of same-sex marriage equality while Barnaby was briefly out of government three months earlier; he had campaigned for a "no" vote on the grounds that it would be damaging to his family. at the time it was not publicly known outside the government that he had spoofed up an employee.)

After being removed from the role - which cut his pay from $416,000 back to $190k - he argued in the press that as he wasn't with the staff member all the time that maybe the baby wasn't his, someone else could have got in there while he wasn't looking. Subsequently, since accepting paternity, he has repeatedly proposed changing parliamentary rules to make it legal to employ your partner or relatives.

Barnaby identifies as a Roman Catholic.

It's getting to where outright denial is becoming politically untenable and I'm convinced that they long ago mapped out their future strategy of morphing from 'it isn't happening' to 'it's too late to do anything about it/it doesn't matter what we do cause China and India'.

Barnaby is an object lesson in workarounds of denialism.

In 2012, he said "It is an indulgent and irrelevant debate because, even if climate change turns out to exist one day, we will have absolutely no impact on it whatsoever … we really should have bigger fish to fry than this one."

In 2015, he affirmed to a right-wing radio host and columnist that he was "always sceptical" of the idea that "anybody's going to change the environment".

In April 2016, during two days of showing a journalist and photographer around the effects of extended drought on his parents' 2000-ha farm, he observed "When I look at this," shaking his head, "I start to wonder whether climate change might really be happening."

In December 2019, it's absolutely happening, but God wants it to happen and will kill us if we try and save our own lives.

Fires are now approaching the capital city of a fourth state. An area half the size of Belgium has been advised to evacuate immediately, before tomorrow.

https://i.imgur.com/iMkopKL.jpg