A question about climate change/global warming.

Speaking of Kangaroo Island.

There's a wildlife park on the island, run by a family, that has long had 150 species of native wildlife in protection, including a large population of koalas.

Over the last two decades, chlamydia has spread rampantly through koalas on the mainland, contracted through a virus in the same family as HIV. In some areas, 80% of koalas have died from this.

The koalas on Kangaroo Island had become regarded as the "insurance population" against extinction, as their isolation kept them protected against chlamydia. (Only one known mainland population was clear before the bushfires.)

As of four days ago, over half of this insurance population had died in the fires, and "many many more" were horrifically injured. The family that run the park have a GoFundMe running, and will be trying to find and rescue any remaining wild koalas once the fires have been extinguished:

https://www.gofundme.com/f/help-save-kangaroo-islands-koalas-and-wildlife

Scotty's grifter church is holding a "conference" at 21,000 capacity arenas in London and Sydney in a few months.

It's called "Breathe Again."

One of the promo taglines, a quote from Bishop T.D. Jakes, is "It's amazing how God can strike a match in Australian and the whole world catches on fire."

this lazy satire needs new writers

'some kind of a disinformation campaign' is pushing the Twitter hashtag #ArsonEmergency. There is no arson emergency"

stats from NSW:

https://i.imgur.com/blu3XUa.png

so the motives of these swivel-eyed fire-raising maniacs is presumed to be... what? destroying their own environment and killing half a billion living creatures in the name of environmental conservation?

Green Party activists promoting their Communist/socilist/liberal/gay agenda by making the climate change hoax real through the medium of interpretative dance and arson I think.

i'll be honest, i don't find that entirely convincing

look it makes a lot more sense than venal assholes letting it happen for the sake of personal financial profit, therefore the "venal assholes" explanation can't possibly be happening

Update from the New Zealand weather service:

Smoke & dust from the Australian bushfires has now travelled 11,000+ km across the South Pacific, moving into Chile 🔥

Over the next several days, no significant plumes are expected for NZ. pic.twitter.com/PlrHNui3m6

— NIWA Weather (@NiwaWeather) January 8, 2020

don't make me c&p my 'apocalyptic' post again

sic are you saying the Salvation Army are "trans-exclusionary radical feminists"

oboeists

(lower-case terf has taken on a more casual use than the acronym ime)

@Sanpaku

https://www.waterpeacesecurity.org

While the Salvos have form, the org implicated has since been identified as St Vincent de Paul.

Speaking of form,

Morrison on Kangaroo Island:

Morrison:
"Well thankfully we've had no loss of life".

Local:
"Two. We've lost two."

Morrison:
"Two. Yes two, that's quite right. I was thinking about firefighters firstly."

The fuck?#AusPol #NSWPol #KangarooIsland #AustralianBushfiresDisaster

— Oliver Pocock 🔥 (@OliverJPocock) January 8, 2020

the org implicated has since been identified as St Vincent de Paul.

would love more details on this as they become available

This happened a few days ago, and I don't think that there's much more to tell: https://10daily.com.au/amp/news/a200106hvbqd/vinnies-apologises-after-disturbing-incident-with-indigenous-elder-fleeing-bushfires-20200106

ta for that - I'd seen the initial post dunning Salvos at the time, and went back to find it after Morrison's "come to an island on fire and volunteer, as a holiday, because they need the money and I'm not giving them any" presser

It occurred to me looking at Au election maps that most of these fires have been in electoral districts won by the National Party. Has McCormack been similarly useless?

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.)

― insecurity bear (sic), Friday, December 13, 2019 9:09 AM (three weeks ago)

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."

― insecurity bear (sic), Friday, December 20, 2019 1:46 PM (two weeks ago)

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.

― insecurity bear (sic), Friday, December 20, 2019 8:20 PM (two weeks ago)

"And we’ve had these smoke hazes before. We’ve had bushfires before. We’ve had droughts before.

"... Well, a lot of people, yes, believe the science. A lot of people do. But there are some who do say that, again, climate change is not causing all of these fires."

'The deputy prime minister, Michael McCormack, tells Radio National that it is “pure, enlightened and woke capital-city greenies” and “inner-city raving lunatics” like Richard Di Natale and Adam Bandt from the Australian Greens that are “trying to get a political point score” for raising the link between climate crisis, drought and the devastating bushfires.'

Wagga Wagga councillor Vanessa Keenan posted a letter to the deputy prime minister, her local MP, on Facebook after surviving the NSW bushfires. It is reproduced here in full, by permission

In December, while Australia's delegates were teaming up with Brazil to torpedo the international climate policy meeting in Madrid, Kelly addressed the Australian Petroleum Production and Exploration Association and urged them "words to the effect of ‘make sure you burn as much oil and gas as you can over summer, put your roast in a gas fired oven, fill up your gas bottles, and fly from one end of the country to the other.’"

On Sunday, four months into the fires and a month after Kelly's appeal, the Australian Petroleum Production and Exploration Association formally boasted that Australia has been hailed by the international fossil fuel industry as the world's largest exporter of Liquefied Natural Gas.

Morrison on Kangaroo Island:

Morrison:
"Well thankfully we've had no loss of life".

Local:
"Two. We've lost two."

Morrison:
"Two. Yes two, that's quite right. I was thinking about firefighters firstly."

In a statement, the Lang family said Dick and Clayton were returning to the family property on Kangaroo Island after fighting a nearby fire for two days.

“We are devastated to have lost two beloved members of our family - Dick Lang and his youngest son Clayton Lang - in such terrible circumstances,” it read.

“‘Desert Dick’ Lang, 78, was a pioneering bush pilot and safari operator who opened up the outback to countless travellers from Australia and overseas. He first offered 4WD adventures in 1965, later adding aircraft trips to all corners of Australia and other countries, from Papua New Guinea to Africa.

“Clayton, 43, was one of Adelaide’s leading plastic and reconstructive surgeons, specialising in hand surgery.”

“We would like to extend our sincere thanks to the CFS volunteers, police and members of the Kangaroo Island community who are doing so much to help all those on the Island affected by these catastrophic fires.”

Surely he wouldn't triple down on that, would he?

Oh.

“It hasn't been your finest week has it?” @mjrowland68 asks Prime Minister @ScottMorrisonMP. #abc730 #auspol pic.twitter.com/tJZ8GgfsXt

— abc730 (@abc730) January 9, 2020

'these fires were started' is an... interesting way to frame wildfires

If you own a bunch of mines and announce you’ve donated $70 million to fire recovery charities created your own tax write-off fund that may have $60 million in administration costs, even the non-commercial media will put your claim that it’s mostly arson in the headline.

Pardon my cynicism: turns out $50 million of that 70 is going to a right-wing think tank that he runs. Dude is worth $6.84 billion.

i was just rereading ursula k. leguin's the dispossessed and there's a section where a character from future earth describes the planet along the lines of 'there's half a billion of us left from a peak of nine billion, all the forests are dead, the air and the earth is grey, and it's always hot' and i was like... well, yeah

and at least that motherfucker got to go and live in space, a respite i doubt any of us will get to enjoy

oh dear god

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/ENyOAySU8AAQUVJ?format=jpg&name=large

whoever did that should check photos of charred dead animals and repaint

In heaven you get your ideal body.

And that platypus at first looked like a small mammal drinking a cup of tea.

Don't these photos and videos and deaths initiate any kind of conversation? You can say a lot about the media here but I reckon we'd have that if this was going on.

This essay was published before the May election. It's good.

It sounds unreal to say that News Corp is not a media organisation. It sounds outré to say that it is instead a political propaganda entity of a kind perhaps not seen since the 19th century, one that has climbed to its pedestal through regulatory capture, governmental favours and menace, and is now applying its energies to the promotion of white nationalism, even as white nationalists commit scores of murders.

It defends a child rapist and demeans his victims. It degrades and cows the national broadcaster until it threatens its function, and occasionally its existence. It undermines the rule of law. It does everything it can to impinge on climate change action, just as the ramifications of climate change begin to bite. Who has the better predictive record: climate scientists or boosters of the Iraq War? Now dwell for a moment on News’s relative treatment of each. We are stuck listening to the megaphoned opinions of the wrong people, who have been rewarded rather than penalised for their failure.

News Corp is not merely biased against Labor and in favour of the Liberals. This underestimates the international nature of the franchise. It is a series of multi-platform metastases that endanger minorities – sexual, racial and religious – all over the world.

Thanks for that ^ good stuff

otm

i guess everyone got a little burned out on worrying about news corp being the bringer of the apocalypse a few years ago, just because it's not even a prediction or theory, it is just what happened. but every once in a while it's worth pointing at it and acknowledging how COMPLETELY FUCK UP it is, and how obvious of a problem it is, and how many people rely on it anyway.

let us acknowledge how COMPLETELY FUCK UP it is

everyone

And that platypus at first looked like a small mammal drinking a cup of tea.

One of the monsters from Critters, maybe.

Since I posted that link this morning:

A senior News Corp employee has accused the company of “misinformation” and diverting attention from climate change during the bushfire crisis in an explosive all-staff email addressed to executive chairman Michael Miller.

The email accuses News Corp papers, including the Australian, the Daily Telegraph and the Herald Sun, of misrepresenting facts and spreading misinformation to focus on arson as the cause of the bushfires, rather than climate change.

The email was penned by a senior member of News Corp’s commercial arm in response to an all-staff email from Miller detailing the leave arrangements available to staff and announcing other bushfire-related initiatives.

News Corp bosses globally deleted it from employee inboxes.

Norway is about to start production of oil from the Johan Sverdrup N. Sea field that holds about 2.7bn barrels of oil. Justified in terms of new low carbon electric powered extraction technology it locks in oil production for another 50 years. https://t.co/vjwKnLSBmW pic.twitter.com/soOwyrqHw7

— Adam Tooze (@adam_tooze) January 10, 2020

fuck off Norway.

Justified in terms of new low carbon electric powered extraction technology

i'm clawing the flesh off my skull

*muffled screaming*

That's 431kg/barrel CO2 from the new field vs 448kg CO2 industry average. 4% less CO2... hardly "low carbon". Wish journalists like @rmilneNordic were critically numerate rather than writing advertorials.

— Si Kulzanworx (@Cyclestrian) January 10, 2020

guessing that norway stands to benefit from climate change in the short to medium term?

t/s: leaving oil in the ground and releasing no extra co2 into the environment vs extracting that oil using a very slightly less destructive process and then burning it to hasten the pace of our ongoing apocalypse

yeah let's do the latter, good thinking norway

The Saturday edition of Murdoch's "reputable" national broadsheet The Australian has run one editorial today saying climate change is real, and their official accounts and columnists are aggressively plugging it as proof that their ex-employees, current employees, the Guardian, the New York Times and much of Australian twitter are therefore engaged in a conspiracy by having said they've been denialists for the last 40 years.

are lachlan etc any better than rupert or has it gone beyond such pittances

James is better but has had his independence broken many times over the decades since Rawkus

Elisabeth is less ideologically-motivated but has had the whip laid down a few times

Lachlan is not likely to be functionally better, though possibly less effective long-term, but will be in charge and following the same agendas for the next decade or two

(Also today: The Australian has reprinted an essay by the founder of Quillette, from Quillette, blaming the Greens for stopping every goverment in the last 11 years from enacting climate-forward policy.)

In more Liberal (tory) Party fundraising hypocrisy, the Minister For Fascism, who's given himself more spying powers than any governmental agency has ever held in Australia, and recently spent $100 million reopening one single concentration camp to hold one single family, is asking people to donate to the Red Cross, rather than coming up with any way for the government to contribute to relief funds or firefighters.

Today this guy, who would become PM if yesterday's national Sack ScoMo rallies had any effect, has asked the Federal Police to investigate the ethnicity of a well-known Aboriginal author and professor who has spent the summer fighting fires. This is based on a beat-up by an entrepreneur who has called for the Attorney-General and Prime Minister to establish a national registry for authentically indigenous people, because she was only the joint winner of a literary prize worth $30,000.

Unrelatedly I'm sure, one of the only things that can stop foreign mining companies from being sold Australian land is if it is under native title.

endlessly impressive to me that -- not just, but especially the murdochs, kochs, etc. -- would rather the world burn than yield any slight portion

Rupert did not expect Morrison to get back in, btw - iirc he was reported as saying privately "I've made money under a Labor government before, I can do it again." The opposition leader had refused to meet with him, which Labor leaders will usually do even if they won't kowtow, but apparently the Melting Candle was astute enough to see that Morrison was an incompetent idiot earlier than the people who read his papers and watch his television.


But the Murdochs have actively campaigned against Labor on front pages since *checks notes* a mere 89 years ago, during the Great Depression.

He was influential in pushing Joseph Lyons to break away and form the United Australia Party, which then smashed Labor in the 1931 election. Lyons remained a loyal Murdoch deputy as Prime Minister, often visiting his Melbourne office and addressing his superior as ‘Sir’.

ethnicity of a well-known Aboriginal author and professor

Gee I wonder why he hasn’t gotten back to you. pic.twitter.com/8PHzCVdA40

— Dominic Kelly (@dominickelly_) January 10, 2020