Aunty ABC tells readers: Don’t let fear hold you back in your dream to be important, smug, tool of bankers and big-state

It could have been headlined: How to host Climate Tupperware Parties

It’s another ABC coaching session on how to be a useful political activist. Having beaten Fairfax into the dirt, the ABC is gradually becoming Time-magazine-Readers-Digest-and-Womens-Weekly rolled into one, but aimed at teenagers.

Fear of being seen as too ‘activist’ may be stopping us from achieving meaningful sustainability

By environment reporter Nick Kilvert and Erica Vowles for Life Matters

Translated: Only the brave are activists. Don’t give in to your fears!

This is a Greenpeace training manual, pretending to be “news” about a tiny survey:

Liz Lyons from Melbourne is one person who definitely didn’t consider herself or her friends, activists.

“I’d never go to rallies or anything like that,” Liz said.

“No disrespect to anyone who did, I just thought that wasn’t me, that’s not something I would be a part of.”

But when the 2018 Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report sounded a dire warning of what climate change has in store for the near future, Liz said something changed in her.

“It really came home to me last year when the IPCC report came out,” she said.

“Suddenly this future I had planned for myself — you know the house, the dog, retirement hopefully some day, wasn’t a certainty anymore.”

As well as attending climate change protests, Liz hosted a dinner party for her friends, where a speaker came to talk about climate change.

Leading up to that event, Liz said she was still a bit nervous about how some of them might respond.

“I remember saying to friends, ‘don’t worry, it won’t be too full on’,” she said.

People get marketing degrees to write this kind of first person, soft sell, gently gently catchee monkey. They used to work for Avon, or Tupperware, now they work for the ABC.

I don’t doubt that the ABC narrative writers believe in climate change (whatever that is). But underlying this faith is the happy coincidence that every climate activist is another little helper working to get big-spending governments elected. And we all know what kind of government is more likely to increase paychecks at the ABC. I’m not suggesting ABC staffers are sitting around in tea-rooms joining these dots. Far from it. They are telling themselves how brave they are fighting for “science” while they destroy it. And there’s no one left at the ABC to pop their bubble, so it never occurs to them that this is self-serving fake “journalism”.

But shucks, poor Liz tried recruiting some live-sandwich-boards by boring them with a climate lecture for dinner and it didn’t work:

Although her friends’ reaction to the dinner was positive, and they’ve been supportive of her stance on climate change, Liz hasn’t convinced any to come with her to protests.

And she still doesn’t identify with the “activist” label.

The same kind of government that wants to save the planet and change the weather is the kind of government that wants a broadcasting arm under their control, and a nation paying ambitious taxes. Hand meet glove: say “power” and “glory”! Whatever you do, dont say “competition” or “cost benefit”.

Coming up, some namecalling and lies-for-the-cause:

The ABC staff want to convince junior activists that they are not the “fringe”, the “deniers” are — which means inverting reality (and namecalling). So here comes the reframe with cherry picked statistics:

But could we be avoiding acting on environmental issues because we think they’re more fringe than they actually are?

When it comes to climate change at least, a study by the CSIRO that Dr Leviston was part of, found that may be the case.

When a cohort of people were asked whether they thought climate change was happening, between just 6 and 7 per cent said they didn’t think it was, Dr Leviston said.

“What we did after we asked that question, is we asked people, ‘OK, where do you think the Australian public sits? What proportion of the Australian public fits into [the climate-change denial category]?”

“The estimate was that about 25 per cent — about a quarter of the Australian population — denied that climate change existed.”

 

So Kilvert et al are arguing that the public are tricked into thinking that 25% of the population are “deniers when really only 7% are. But when we look at the study itself, it’s the famous, well done CSIRO one which shows that 54% of Australians skeptics of man-made global warming.

Here’s one of my favourite graphs from the Leviston study results:

54% of Australians are skeptical, poll, survey, climate change, csiro.

….

But Kilvert and al forget to mention that most Australians didn’t agree with the IPCC. Lies by omission (again).

It’s not about helping the planet, Greens are green to enhance themselves:

small study was recently conducted on people from Perth who self-identified as “attempting to live a sustainable lifestyle”.

How small?

” Twenty-six interviews were conducted and analysed using a causal layered analysis. “

How biased:

“who self-identify as pro-environmental”

And wait for the disarming conclusion:

While participants aspired to be green, their actions were bound by cultural traditions and world views that perpetuate environmental degradation. Participants struggled to define the term sustainability and held self-enhancing motives for adopting what they identify as a pro-environmental identity.

So they don’t really know what sustainability means, and they do it “enhance” themselves?

The authors are Nik Kilvert — who writes some of the most extreme fantasy-agitprop at the ABC, and Erica Vowles.

Past posts on his “work”:

REFERENCE

Leviston, Z., Greenhill,M., & Walker, I. (2015) Australians attitudes to climate change and adaptation: 2010-2014. CSIRO, Australia.

9.1 out of 10 based on 70 ratings

100 comments to Aunty ABC tells readers: Don’t let fear hold you back in your dream to be important, smug, tool of bankers and big-state

  • #
    Spetzer86

    What happened to “natural with some human contribution”? That one is hard to get around as a possibility. With the options above you’re pretty much either in as an alarmist or out.

    170

    • #
      David Wojick

      Agreed. In fact I have yet to see a poll ask good questions. Oh and there is also the missing “We don’t know” which is very different from “I don’t know”.

      220

      • #
        theRealUniverse

        “We don’t know”, Its funny as modern science is full of ‘we know’ (our models are correct) its the data thats bad.
        I think they need a subtle reminder here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EYPapE-3FRw&feature=youtu.be

        30

        • #
          James Murphy

          Why would they listen to Feynman? Look what happened to Freeman Dyson when he expressed some views which were counter to the AGW narrative. Dyson even had the advantage over Feynman of still being alive, but they still treated him terribly.

          The people with the loudest voices, and those making the real decisions are not interested in actual science, and they never will be.

          130

    • #
      AndyG55

      Contributions to LOCAL weather change, for sure.

      Urban warming (from a very small percentage of the surface) feeding through as a major component of the calculated (not-real) global surface temperature.

      “Adjustments” and methodology that deliberately alters the calculated (not real) global surface temperature.

      There is absolutely ZERO evidence that humans have altered the GLOBAL climate in anyway whatsoever.

      For a start, there has been very little change in the global climate in at least 70-80 years, maybe a slight dip in global temperatures to the 1970s, then a slight rise.

      But otherwise, NO REAL CHANGE.. are humans causing that NON-CHANGE?

      220

    • #
      Bite Back

      Regardless of potential cause, I’m continually puzzled by the complete lack of basic honesty in everyone from the Secretary General at the UN to the IPCC and all it’s contributors to the CRU on down to the woman who couldn’t see herself as an activist until a scary enough disaster prediction came along.

      How long has this been going on? Thirty years at least. And yet no matter how much worse each prediction gets, it never happens. NEVER. NEVER NEVER does it happen. NOT EVER.

      Why does not a single one of them look back and ask how has it actually progressed? If I looked back on history and found that my favorite complaint was nowhere to be found I would have to either admit my error or end up in an asylum somewhere because I don’t think I could handle the conflict.

      Climate change (and for contrast) socialism have not one single example of success, anywhere. Yet look at the world today. Both are enshrined like kings in our society. It’s a house of cards waiting for a sudden storm to blow it all away and billions of dollars with it.

      BB

      220

      • #
        Greg in NZ

        Il Papa goes MMM…
        https://www.vaticannews.va/en/pope/news/2019-09/pope-francis-peripheries-mozambiqu-madagascar-mauritius-opener.html

        Pope Francis visits Mozambique, Madagascar and Mauritius from 4 to 10 September, which our correspondent says will definitely rekindle hope and cement peace in these countries.

        “In 2011, large quantities of gas fields were discovered off the coast of Mozambique. The hope is that the discovery will lead to a transformation of the country’s economy. However, for now, the Mozambique that Pope Francis will be visiting is still one that is among Africa’s poor nations”.

        Madagascar gained independence from France in 1960, but its people are fatigued by endless political instability and disputed elections… The country is also rich in natural resources and boasts of a flourishing tourism industry”.

        “On 9 September, Pope France [sic] will fly from Antananarivo to Port Louis, the capital of the Republic of Mauritius. It is a two-hour flight. The Pope will spend a day in Port Louis before returning to Madagascar for his return journey to Rome… And, of course, Mauritius’ discerning and tourist-savvy industry has taken note and has been promoting the visit of Pope Francis with packages such as, ‘Escape to Mauritius for the visit of Pope Francis!'”

        Sure hope the Jesuit and his faithful hordes are sailing with local fishermen, or better still as in ™sustainably™, walking on water all the way there and back. It wouldn’t be the first time a ‘miracle’ has happened (according to a children’s book I read long ago).

        100

        • #
          Roy Hogue

          The education of a Jesuit Priest includes science. I was told that by someone commenting on this blog. But I wonder what kind of science is taught when a line of nonsense a mile long is so easily swallowed by such an educated man, a man who has more influence over more people than almost any other man alive.

          It’s like watching the blind lead the blind. But Popes live in magnificent isolation from the reality all around them that there’s no chance for that reality to intrude and cause even the slightest question, “Is what I’m being told the truth or a fabrication?”

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      • #
        theRealUniverse

        They will never surrender, such a big loss of face will not be tolerated. One day the IPCC will be abandoned/dismantled (and the perpetrators of this GIANT scam locked up) but alas not yet as far as I can tell.

        Maybe the grand solar minimum will help a little until they blame even that on SUVs and coal plants.
        The GSM will lag in temperature drops as it usually does, so dont expect alot in the next 5 years.

        And Twenty-six interviews/population of WA (6 milliion?) ? Thats HUGE …

        On the Leviston study graph shows less than 50% dont really believe in the climate myth or just dont care.

        100

      • #
        David Wojick

        The alarmists think the predictions have come true. The “climate science” literature is full of attribution studies claiming to measure how much various extreme events have been worsened by AGW. Under the Paris Accord rules the countries are supposed to start reporting annual damages due to AGW. It is a closed system.

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        • #
          David Wojick

          There is an outfit in Oxford that produces attribution studies in 48 hours of the event. They will make a fortune under the new reporting rules. Attribution is golden

          30

      • #
        Kalm Keith

        Good point BB.

        There’s obviously a big payoff for the heads of the organisations mentioned when those large world organisations have large budgets squeezed from the faithful, the gullibles, the Serfs.

        We have finally arrived at the altar where coal is to be sacrificed, where God is misrepresented by his Earthly representative, where the people are finally and completely enslaved by the Hidden Elites controlling the church, the UNIPCCC and our “governments” all the way down to aspects of our lives that are at the mercy of the Environmental and Union Mooments.

        World War 3 is over. The Elites have us completely surrounded.

        KK

        10

  • #
    Yonniestone

    I’d like to see how these “brave” activists handle some of the abuse and slander that’s been thrown at you Jo.

    I guess its OK for the antagonists to scream and claim a soccer penalty when mildly tackled, real or imagined.

    270

  • #
    pattoh

    As a bloke who has been annoying the crap out of my local community for well over a decade on the “A” scam in AGW;
    I can attest that the electricity price issue has made far more people pay attention & put some thought into the argument.

    It is a rural community that has suffered greatly from drought too.

    But by a straw poll,[in a local sense] the above pie chart would be wrong by 10 – 20%.

    Anybody else care to weigh in?

    160

    • #
      OriginalSteve

      10-20% wrong – in which direction though?

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      • #

        In a rural community there are more skeptics. Inner city suburbs = more believers. Just look at Greens voters.

        200

        • #
          theRealUniverse

          Follow the ’cause’ and drink more lattes..In the country real life matters, no time for that street coffee.

          60

          • #
            Greg Cavanagh

            And country folk are out in the weather a lot more often. Seasons matter.

            The city dwellers never recognize the seasons, when they start or finish, or when storm season even is. They seem to have a very short memory.

            120

  • #
    Travis T. Jones

    It sounds like the social credit system of China.

    >> Don’t agree, don”t go, don’t post a photo, no social credits …

    “Social Credit Score”: Rating citizens’ every step

    Even if you don’t engage in political activities, that doesn’t mean you are spared.
    Last September, China unveiled its plan to create an all-encompassing “social credit score” to keep tabs on its citizens’ activities, due to be in place in 2020.
    The idea is that “if trust is broken in one place, restrictions are imposed everywhere.”
    That score is influenced by financial transactions, political and social behavior as well as general lifestyle – basically everything you do everyday.

    https://www.dw.com/en/hello-big-brother-how-china-controls-its-citizens-through-social-media/a-38243388

    >> Given paid time off work, best post a selfie showing you were there for credits …

    Australian companies are urging workers to walk off job for climate action
    https://www.sbs.com.au/news/australian-companies-are-urging-workers-to-walk-off-job-for-climate-action

    Are we there yet?

    110

    • #
      • #
        OriginalSteve

        Wont affect me i dont have any social media…. and im soon giung to dump my smartphone for a dumb phone anyways. And hey if im too allegedly “subversive” for the govt to fly , i’ll drive or take a boat…who cares…..

        My online habits are very selective.

        As i heard recently, web sites are dumbing down language from a school year 11 to year 7 level so people can understand.

        Perhaps there mught be some language simplification if english is a second language, but still its not a good state of affairs.

        50

      • #
        OriginalSteve

        Oh and time to buy a hoodie….

        20

        • #
          sophocles

          To OS at 4.1.1 – 4.1.2

          Yer post wuz highly amusing!

          I bought a smart phone about three years ago. After [trying] to use it for about six months, I switched the SIM card into a freshly purchased dumb phone and went back to using a phone I could use. The smart phone purchase was just so dumb.

          The simple phones take a while to enter a text message but it’s still faster than I could do it on the smartphone. I take size XXXL gloves for my motorcycle, so entering a text message on the smartphone’s idea of a keyboard took almost forever (even with the phone turned sideways to get a bigger keyboard!). I have a computer keyboard which just loves tripping up my fingers, so why did I need an even smaller one which suffered from pernicious maliciousness as well?

          As for the hoodie: yes! I bought a couple of warm jackets at the start of winter this year and one was a hoodie for two Official Reasons: with the GSM* coming in soon, I wanted to keep my head warm and with the expanding number of cameras in the shopping malls, I figured on attempting to maintain (ha!) a little privacy. But hey: I can see why they’re such The In Thing, especially when the Cold Winds blow!

          Hoodies Are Useful!

          GSM = Grand Solar Minimum aka Global Freezing.

          60

          • #
            OriginalSteve

            Agreed. I used to own one of the venerable Nokia 3315’s…an indestructible, great, basic phone, and then of course in the name of alarmist navel gazing, they turned off the GSM workhorse so more people can watch cat videos on lame social media sites. The great thing was that one handed you could through memory type a whole short text while keeping both eyes looking forward….surely a safer option than smart phones. I watch for the “smartphone weave” with people in cars taking atht split second too long to ead something and madly weave back into their lane. The worst I ever saw was a 10 ton dump truck go half across into the othe rlane ( on single lane each way back road ) before he finally worked out what he was doing…by this time I had dropped right back so I’d be able to stop once he’d had a head-on. Thankfully it didnt happen.

            Also, I’m forever messing up my posts with wrong letters due to small keyboard and large fingers , but have now got to a point where I no longer care…most people can work it out.

            When they burn every computer file server, ever record of modern society is gone ( except paper records kept in vaults )……

            50

  • #
    Kalm Keith

    Brilliant point of attack Jo.

    When words like “smug” are used to describe the excrescence that dribbles from the ABC social justice incubators, you’re hitting the right keys.

    I love this extract:

    “ Twenty-six interviews were conducted and analysed using a causal layered analysis. “

    A good selection of abc Verbalism that’s meaningless and content free but which nevertheless entrains the thinking of the masses and draws them to make the “correct” evaluation of the content presented.

    To anyone with qualifications in the scientific application of statistical analysis the comment is just verbalese or abcbalese.

    All it tells me is that we have entered La La land and that the real world of 1950 that I look back to with great affection will never be known or appreciated by those who have been inoculated with modern SJW Verbalism.

    Politics has created this unreal environment out of the incorrect assessment we made that our society would be forever democratic. No, our “democracy” is now the tool of oppression wielded by the Elites.

    Awareness first, then Action.

    KK

    150

    • #
      Gee aye

      you do realise that the ABC was reporting a method and didn’t conduct the research themselves?

      013

      • #
        AndyG55

        Yes, we know the ABC propaganda firm only presents other people’s stuff.

        Always massively biased junk science, as in this case,

        and/or always with a massively biased outlook.

        180

        • #
          theRealUniverse

          ABC = Junk science kings. Every time their reporters open their mouths I cringe, and not just science matters either.

          71

      • #
        el gordo

        Leaf its pure agitprop and I’m surprised you cannot see it.

        90

      • #
        Kalm Keith

        Can’t Really Accept that Proposition.

        70

      • #
        MudCrab

        The ABC doesn’t do anything themselves, so your point being?

        The point being made is that the ABC has obtained a report that agrees with their Green Good/Carbon Bad mindset. They have taken it at face value, dressed up the reports methods using big shiny words that most people don’t fully understand (but boy do they sound impressive), pressed ‘submit’ and then sat down feeling very pleased with themselves before adding the results into their ‘Carbon Offset’ spreadsheet to calculate when they can next safely fly to Fiji for some beach time.

        (remember, the current exchange rate for Carbon Offsets is 0.27 Smug Articles = 1000kg of CO2)

        Where is the discussion into the methods? Where is the counterpoint? Do we ever get to compare the lifestyle (non activist) actions of Liz with say the ‘Dunno, Dun care’ mind set of Bob? Or the views of Sally who now showers in cold water and goes to bed as soon as the sun goes down in an attempt to reduce her crippling electricity bills?

        Face it, the ABC connect is packaged by smug gits from the condescending group think research of smug gits so that smug gits can watch it while waiting for their soy based imitation kale to cook. It is not discussion. It is not debate. It is not attempting to expand the sum of knowledge and understanding. To do that you need to provide counter points. You don’t have to agree with the counter points, but you need to provide them and then offer up a logical argument as to why they can be dismissed.

        The ABC does not do this.

        The ABC is smug all the way down.

        160

      • #
      • #
        robert rosicka

        Ahh gee the ABC print any CAGW tale they come across and the more unbelievable the story the more likely it is to be published , you would think they would check the facts before publishing but no .
        Never let the truth get in the way of a good CAGW fairytale!

        00

  • #

    Take a term that can mean just about anything and ask people if the “anything” is happening or not. If you are a clever fellow you might introduce a bit of nuance, like “causal analysis”, so extra colour and complexity can be added to a pie-chart and nobody feels like a two-tone simpleton.

    The real low point of our civilisation is the academic survey. There is nothing below it. And it started with box-ticking in the classroom, that holding paddock for frustrated youth forbidden to use their hands and senses till the very end of their teens.

    Am I a)right or b)not right or c)partially right or d)partially wrong? Is that a fair question [true] [false]?

    120

    • #
      sophocles

      [ref: Shorter Oxford English Dictionary 4th Ed 1993.]

      causal:
      1:
      : Introducing or expressing a cause
      2: Of or relating to a cause or causes; acting as a cause; of the nature of a cause and effect.

      So the analysis of whatever [unstated] is the cause . No effect was referenced ergo, the analysis has to be the cause.

      As that does not make sense, it means someone is trying to add a Meaningless Gravitas with such verbiage. It carries the delicate scent of a (mis-educated) economist trying to sound important, or could it be yet another Nik K brain fart?

      80

  • #
    Robber

    It’s no longer enough to simply believe in climate change, now you must believe in the “climate emergency”.
    I look forward to those believers including pollies, big business, councils, etc responding to the “emergency” in their own lives – no more fossil-based holidays or travel, turning off heating and cooling, no more lattes, back to nature like people lived in the 1850’s.

    230

  • #
    PeterS

    I’m beginning to wonder if we should be more worried and concerned about our own governments (state and federal), MSM and big businesses than we are about China and Russia. The way I see things our governments, MSM and big businesses are doing their level best to destroy our nation, something we would normally expect our notional enemies form outside would do. I’m not suggesting any conspiracy here but I do see how talks about China gives our government an excuse for the people to take their eyes off the real issues. I just think this nation is so full of m0r0ns we have little hope of avoiding a crash and burn from within as we slowly creep to the edge of the cliff. I can understand how many Australians say they are too busy with their lives to do their own research on various important and relevant issues, such as climate change. That is not a good excuse though. We all should take such issues very seriously and make sure our elected representatives do the right thing. After all does anyone really trust a politician with anything these days? At the moment our elected representatives from either side of politics are woefully ignorant and/or foolish. Yet we keep voting them into power. So who are to blame? Voters clearly. We get the government we deserve.

    160

    • #
      sophocles

      When the barbarians assail the city’s gates, it is never from without but always from within.

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      • #
        Greg in NZ

        A nation can survive its fools
        But it cannot survive treason from within

        For the traitor appears no traitor
        She speaks in accents familiar to her victims

        A murderer is less to fear
        The traitor is the plague

        Marcus Cicero in a (paraphrased) speech to the Roman Senate c. 58 BC.

        90

        • #
          sophocles

          I should know better by now, but I keep on mixing up Marcus Cato (the Elder — there was a whole family of them following the Patriarch into politics!) with Marcus Cicero. Cato The Elder preceded Cicero by about a 140 years, darn it, so there’s really no excuse for such confusion. Sigh.

          30

  • #
    RickWill

    Bjorn Lomborg had an article in the Herald Sun covering solar disasters in third world locations. The article is paywalled on the web but this is the headline brief:

    COAL IS STILL BEST FOR POOR NATIONS
    Hooking the developing world up to off-grid solar power sources is proving a failure on both cost and environmental grounds, and they’re better off sticking with coal, argues Bjorn Lomborg.

    One example he gave was a village getting solar power; villagers buying appliances to run on electricity; after recognising the solar limitations some went out and bought diesel generators. They now use more diesel than before the solar was installed.

    The World Bank headquarters in Washington DC is another location that needs wastewater drug testing to assess if drugs are the root cause of the dingbatits that infects this mob.

    Thinking about drug testing of wastewater, it would be worth testing what comes out of the ABC offices in the capital cities. It is clear these offices are infested with dingbats – likely drug addled brains unable to think logically. Rather than Dutton sending in the police to confiscate files, just announce setting up a drug monitoring program on the wastewater. That should encourage the dingbats to stop imbibing whatever it is that impairs their cognitive ability.

    Current wastewater drug monitoring programs are too broad to identify where dingbats nest:
    https://www.acic.gov.au/sites/default/files/2019/06/nwdmp7_140619.pdf?v=1560498324
    It is time to focus wastewater monitoring at locations where dingbats are known to nest; government buildings (all level of government), ABC city offices; university campuses; BoM headquarters to name a few known locations.

    The better alternative to targeted wastewater monitoring is to establish random drug testing on all employees being paid with public funds. The testing would have zero tolerance for any non-prescribed drug; meaning any level is basis for immediate dismissal.

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    • #
      sophocles

      Thanks Rickwill. I hadn’t thought of the World Bank being a prominent victim of water-borne Dingbatitis. But it sure fits.

      50

    • #
      theRealUniverse

      No, simpler, make them pee into a jar when they come to work each morning.

      30

      • #
        sophocles

        … heh. And then what? Pollute the Potomac? Think of the fish life! Being polluted by “Sustainability” and all that stuff … poor things.
        (The Fish! Not the WaBankers.)

        20

    • #
      Islander Lank

      Bjorn wrote about the solar panel disasters in Fiji. What he didn’t mention was the huge disasters and money thrown at wind power generation in Fiji.
      You could write a book on how to waste money in this small country dependent on fossil fuels and and which relies on generous grants from Australia to pay a very large number of ‘public servants’. Unfortunately Fiji and many other smaller Pacific nations are becoming beggar nations with hands held out for all the ‘green welfare’ that they can get.

      20

  • #
    robert rosicka

    Everytime I see an article from Nick I know it’s going to be 97% horse hockey and 3% bull dung .
    Which makes me wonder what he drives ,where he lives , where he goes on holidays ,does he have solar panels etc ?.

    40

  • #
    Bill in Oz

    Hi Jo, well that was an interesting post.
    I’m sure it is an accurate reflection of what the ABC’s activists think.
    So I guess we are fortunate that Life Matters
    On Radio National is listened to about 0.1% of all Australians.
    While the Australian Brainwashing Corporation
    Itself has an audience reach of about 2%.
    The other 98% have long ago tuned out.

    80

  • #
    robert rosicka

    Just in from just in , here’s an example of ABC impartial reporting .

    https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-09-05/court-win-climate-change-challenge-nt-land-clearing/11479726

    10

  • #
    TdeF

    More complaints about the Climate Crisis at the ABC.

    In the Australian this morning, “Aunty complains about a lack of alternative views? That’s a bit rich” by GIDEON ROZNER of the IPA.

    “Media Watch is everything that is wrong with the ABC, squeezed into 15 insufferable minutes.

    Smug, elitist and, above all, awash with the misguided idea that commercial media outlets are not to be trusted and that the only place where honest news can be found is in Aunty’s warm, state-sponsored embrace.

    The program is usually best ignored, but its segment this week on the saga of Peter Ridd is worth calling out for its breathless hypocrisy. ”

    Well said and he makes a very good point.


    “It should be noted as well that throughout the extensive disciplinary process against Ridd, James Cook University never once addressed his complaints about the poor quality of climate science coming out of the univer­sity, a fact highlighted by the judge himself during Ridd’s case.”

    He also asks why the ABC Charter of zero bias is being ignored by people who get $22 million a week to present impartial news.

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    • #
      Serp

      Yes, back in the day when I was not yet repulsed by the ABC’s tendentious far left claptrap, I recall having read in The Age a front page column by Jonathan Holmes, the then Media Watch host, countering opposition to some now forgotten AGW overstatement by revealing that he had consulted a climate scientist mate and been told that any and all views counter to the dogma were “drivel”.

      It’s hard to find words adequate to describe the heights of dismissive arrogance displayed by Media Watch presenters; I suppose as world class top exponents of the journalists’ craft they are appointed rather than being obliged to submit to the lese-majeste of auditioning for the position but what a hoot such a holier than thou contest would be…

      70

  • #
    BoyfromTottenham

    Wikipedia defined ‘causal layered analysis’ as:
    Causal layered analysis (CLA) is a technique used in strategic planning and futurology to more effectively shape the future.[1][2] The technique was pioneered by Sohail Inayatullah, a Pakistani-Australian futures studies researcher.
    Causal layered analysis works by identifying many different levels, and attempting to make synchronized changes at all levels to create a coherent new future. Inayatullah’s original paper[3] as well as his TEDx talk[4] identify four levels:

    The litany: This includes quantitative trends, often exaggerated and used for political purposes. The result could be a feeling of apathy, helplessness, or projected action. Inayatullah calls this “the conventional level of futures research which can readily create a politics of fear.”[3]
    Social causes, including economic, cultural, political, and historical factors.
    Structure and the discourse that legitimizes and supports the structure.
    Metaphor and myth
    Hmm – sounds like a variation of Cultural Marxism, aimed at giving propaganda a veneer of academic authority. My BS detector is registering +100.

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      Gee aye

      Mine BS detector too. Interesting that they used the term quantitative; this is clearly an effort to turn/shoehorn subjective data into something more concrete and believable.

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    pat

    the CAGW mob are one big unhappy family:

    LinkedIn: Misha Ketchell
    Currently he is managing editor of The Conversation. He was previously editor of Crikey, founding editor of The Big Issue Australia and editor of The Melbourne Weekly. He spent six years at The Age as a reporter, feature writer and editorial writer and four years at the ABC as a producer and researcher on Media Watch. While at the ABC has also worked for The 7:30 Report (as it was then) and on The Drum…
    Editor
    The Conversation Media Group
    Jan 2011 – Present
    Researcher and Producer, Media Watch
    ABC TV
    Jan 2007 – Dec 2010
    https://au.linkedin.com/in/misha-ketchell-2b327425

    do a search of this page for the many who are ABC-connected. ditto for “The Age”, Crikey etc.
    ex-Fairfax CAGW zealot, Nicole Hasham, is also there now. (btw can’t see The Conversation dropping the “Fairfax” name for 9Entertainment or the like):

    The Conversation: Our team and boards
    https://theconversation.com/au/team

    6 Jun: The Conversation: How The Conversation makes an impact by doing things differently
    by Misha Ketchell, Editor & Executive Director, The Conversation
    We unearth new research, find issues that need expert analysis, and provide evidence-based guidance on day-to-day living.
    To do that, we find an academic with relevant expertise to team up with an editor who knows how to write clearly and present a story well…
    We publish close to 80 articles a week and at least 4 million people come to the Australian edition every month (that’s not including the millions more through republished articles, or to the other international editions of The Conversation)…

    After writing an article, more than 65% of Conversation authors are contacted for further media, business consultation or research collaboration…
    Our authors don’t just critique policy; frequently their work helps to shape better policy too…
    The Conversation started eight years ago with a hope of creating a more research-backed lens for Australians to read the news and understand the world around them.

    Our aim is still to ensure our important conversations are led by people with real expertise; not the loudest, most famous, or those who simply get the most airtime. Good information is essential to a healthy democracy, and ensuring public debate is led by independent, expert voices is core to our work…
    https://theconversation.com/how-the-conversation-makes-an-impact-by-doing-things-differently-118259

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      pat

      28 May: The Conversation: 6,000 people have donated to The Conversation. If you value expert analysis, join them
      by Misha Ketchell
      It’s been just over a week since the federal election and we have been busy doing what we do best: making sense of complexity through expert analysis. (For a good example check out Christine Wallace’s terrific article (***LINK) on the lessons of the 2019 election.)…

      In their own words, here are some messages from recent donors:
      The Conversation is my magic corridor for reaching a world of decision makers, journalists and the wider public – a world that transcends science and is absolutely crucial if researchers like me are going to influence real world policies and public awareness. – Bill Laurance, Distinguished Research Professor and Australian Laureate, James Cook University
      https://theconversation.com/6-000-people-have-donated-to-the-conversation-if-you-value-expert-analysis-join-them-117823

      the “TERRIFIC ARTICLE” Misha refers to!

      ***27 May: The Conversation: How might Labor win in 2022? The answers can all be found in the lessons of 2019
      HUUUGE PIC OF ALBANESE: If Anthony Albanese wants to lead Labor to victory in 2022, he’ll need to grasp the full suite of lessons from 2019’s shock loss.
      by Chris Wallace, ARC DECRA Fellow, Australian National University
      Disclosure statement
      Chris Wallace receives funding from the Australian Research Council

      The high tide of analysis concerning the Australian Labor Party’s shock 2019 federal election loss has been reached. It looks like so much flotsam and jetsam with the odd big log – leadership popularity, Queensland – prominent among the debris…

      1. Leadership popularity
      Labor’s Bill Shorten was an unpopular leader, neither liked nor trusted by voters…
      His suits often looked too big, making him look small. Television footage of him jogging in oversized athletic clothes during the campaign made him look small…

      Shadow environment minister Mark Butler is another to whom the camera is unkind. He embodied the soft, urban environmentalist persona that is poison in those parts of Australia where Labor needed to pick up seats. An equally knowledgeable but more knockabout environment spokesperson – Tony Burke, for example – would have been the cannier choice in a “climate election” where regional voters had to be persuaded to Labor’s greener policy agenda…

      3. Misleading polls The maths wasn’t wrong but the models on which the two-party-preferred vote is calculated have been blown up by this election, an event foreshadowed by recent polling miscalls in Britain…
      The Coalition had better polling…

      4. Media hostile to Labor
      The Murdoch media have created an atmospheric so pervasively hostile to Labor that it has become normalised…

      5. Regional variations
      Labor failed to win support in resource-rich states where it needed to pick up seats to win, and suffered a big fall in its primary vote in Queensland.
      There is a danger of this being overplayed as a factor since, in fact, not much really changed at this election…
      More Queenslanders, for example, are employed in the services sector in industries like tourism than are employed in the coal sector…

      9. Green cannibalisation of the Labor vote…
      Lesson: For climate policy to change in Australia, Labor and the Greens need to strategise constructively, if informally, to get Labor elected to office…

      10. Every election is winnable
      Morrison won the 2019 election despite internal Coalition leadership turmoil, political scandals and a revolt of the party’s women MPs against the Liberals’ bullying internal culture.
      Lesson: Every election is there to be won or lost. Take note of Lessons 1 to 9 to do so.
      https://theconversation.com/how-might-labor-win-in-2022-the-answers-can-all-be-found-in-the-lessons-of-2019-117742

      Misha – you claim “After writing an article, more than 65% of Conversation authors are contacted for further media, business consultation or research collaboration.” did that pertain to Christine Wallace unenlightening piece?

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    Tony K

    The problem for the ABC is that it’s becoming too easy to be anti-AGW activist. With a circle of friends, relatives and Facebook acquaintances who were pro-AGW and used to regard my opinion on AGW as somewhat comical for inclusion in any discussions 15-20 years ago, they’ve gone decidedly quiet on the topic over more recent years. The same cries of “Wolf!” are coming from the MSM. The “evidence” is recycled every few years. CBS in the USA is trying really hard to promote the scare, but their journalists are being fed pulp like Greenland melting away and the Amazon burning up and it’s too easy to refute their climate naïveté online with easily obtained facts thanks to direct posts and links from Jo, Anthony Watts, Tony Heller and many others. It’s a pity the journalists can’t do their own fact checking, but they’ve bought into the global warming narrative and the authority of their organizations and they can’t bring themselves to question their beliefs.

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      Serp

      It’s all soft intimidation isn’t it?

      Those who “question their beliefs” would be quietly taken aside and told to desist from breaking the groupthink or have a formal warning applied and since we no longer have the security of a boom economy with full employment whereby one could leave and immediately find another job that is a threat to be thrown on society’s refuse heap.

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  • #
    Lance

    This paper is somewhat the reverse of the “Cook et al 97% Consensus” nonsense.

    Cook basically claimed that anyone who did not specifically and categorically disagree that humans cause GW and that it is “catastrophic”, agreed with him.

    This paper claims that “only those who categorically state that AGW “isn’t happening”” are deniers, and everyone else agrees with the AGW charade.

    “Figures Lie and Liars Figure”. “Lies, Damned Lies, and Statistics”. all come to mind.

    Between Cognitive Dissonance, Liberal Echo Chambers, Ignorance, Virtue Signalling, and Hubris, it is hard to understand how sentient beings can be so utterly self deluded and completely wrong. The true fun begins when their fantasy is no longer sustainable. That ought be cause for celebration.

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    pat

    ABC doesn’t appear to have mentioned the Basslink failure except for its 27 Aug Tasmania news brief mention, which ended with –

    The outage means Tasmania cannot sell its electricity to the mainland
    https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-08-27/tasmania-news-briefing-tuesday-august-27/11449296

    5 Sept: Australian: Big business fears state power costs hike
    Exclusive by Matthew Denholm, TASMANIA CORRESPONDENT
    Tasmania’s major manufacturers face a hike in power costs unless the state government steps in to absorb it.
    Energy analysts and the state’s biggest energy users told The Australian that closure of the Temco manganese alloy plant, feared as imminent, would see transmission costs rise for the surviving major energy-intensive industries.

    These are some of the state’s largest employers: Bell Bay Aluminium, Nyrstar zinc works, ­Norske Skog pulp and paper mill, and the Savage River iron ore mine and pellet plant.
    The future of Temco, at Bell Bay in Tasmania’s north, is expected to be decided next month, but owner South32 Ltd has said sale, closure or mothballing are the only possible outcomes.

    Ray Mostogl, Tasmanian Minerals, Manufacturing and Energy Council chief executive, said Temco’s closure or mothballing could see power infrastructure company TasNetworks redistribute transmission costs to surviving major energy users…
    Combined, Tasmania’s big five industrial companies account for an estimated 50-60 per cent of the state’s power demand.

    Mr Mostogl conceded any decision not to pass on extra transmission costs to the major power users would mean the state budget would ultimately take a hit, but he said the far greater state budget impact from a Temco closure would be the loss of revenue from Hydro Tasmania’s sale of electricity to the smelter…

    The Basslink cable linking Tasmania’s power grid to Victoria is frequently used to capacity, even when functional, meaning little surplus energy could be exported to recoup such a loss…
    Energy analyst Marc White, of Goanna Energy, suggested the closure of Temco could strengthen the business case for a second interconnector under Bass Strait.
    https://www.theaustralian.com.au/nation/big-business-fears-state-power-costs-hike/news-story/7c3a2e87336072d59e2d73648526e8c6

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    • #
      Tony K

      Makes you wonder about the pro-AGW stand if the Business Council of Australia and the Australian Industry Group. The leaders of both should have resigned years ago.

      50

      • #
        TdeF

        The smart money’s on windmills and solar panels and superannuation fund investments and the frequent flyer big spending communist Greens. It is nothing to do with what is true,
        except where to make money. No one believes man made Global Warming, or if they do, believe it is of much consequence 31 years after the Day after Tomorrow.

        Nobel Peace Prize winner, former Vice President Al Gore is totally science ignorant. Did he ever believe it? Probably not.

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        • #
          theRealUniverse

          Imagine if he’d become POTUS..Or maybe he did less damage NOT becoming POTUS. History will never know.

          30

        • #
          PeterS

          Lifestyles of the rich lefties like Obama and Al Gore clearly don’t believe in CAGW otherwise they wouldn’t have bought properties so close to the sea.

          50

  • #
    pat

    4 Sept: WUWT: At Sea, with Steyn, McIntyre, and McKittrick
    by Anthony Watts
    Well, now that I’ve boarded, and there were no extinction rebellion/climate protestors at the dock in Vancouver (a hotbed of climate activism) to shout hateful messages at us, (which wouldn’t go over well with the cruise line at all) I can tell you about it.
    I’m on a week long cruise to Alaska with Mark Steyn (who fills in for Rush Limbaugh, is a best-selling author, and is embroiled in a moving-like-molasses lawsuit with butt-hurt climate zealot Dr. Michael Mann). It is one of the few perks I get as a climate skeptic, since those “big oil checks” the climate crusaders say I receive to have an opinion, never seem to arrive.

    Mark graciously invited Steve McIntyre, Ross McKittrick, and me on this cruise on the condition that we talk about climate to his hundreds of other guests in a special session coming this Sunday. I’m proud to be the only American on the special “climate denier” ( or as Mark once called me, poking fun at Dr. Mann’s insults about me “Climate denier extraordinaire!” ) guest list…READ ON
    https://wattsupwiththat.com/2019/09/04/at-sea-with-steyn-mcintyre-and-mckittrick/

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  • #
    MudCrab

    “It really came home to me last year when the IPCC report came out,” she said.

    Right… Of course it did.

    And then you actually sat down and read it? Or got the ABC to do it for you?

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    • #
      theRealUniverse

      No she cant read, they had to reduce it to short pro nouns and 3 word sentences.

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    • #
      David Wojick

      However she got it, she got it wrong. That report merely said there would be a little more damage with 2 degrees of warming than with 1.5 degrees, and holding to 1.5 would take enormous effort. The green nuts have twisted this into 1.5 is the threshold of disaster.

      The “climate science” literature is full of catastrophic damage cases, but they rely on 4 to 6 degrees of warming. 2 degrees is still the upper Paris Accord target.

      This whole “existential threat” stuff has no basis in the IPCC reports, or the literature generally. It is a stupendous blunder (or hoax).

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  • #
    pat

    not recommending anyone read or watch anything from the 7-hr CNN/Democats “climate” thingy. CNN alone has literally dozens of articles online.
    this will do:

    4 Sept: Newsbusters: Eye Roll: CNN’s Blitzer Opens Town Halls by Blaming Climate Change for Hurricane Dorian
    By Curtis Houck
    Well, you knew this one was coming. A mere 63 seconds past 5:00 p.m. Eastern and the start of CNN’s seven-hours of town halls on “The Climate Crisis,” Situation Room host and supposedly revered journalist Wolf Blitzer opened this monstrosity of an event by falsely blaming Hurricane Dorian’s entire existence and destruction on climate change…TRANSCRIPT
    https://www.newsbusters.org/blogs/nb/curtis-houck/2019/09/04/eye-roll-cnns-blitzer-opens-town-halls-blaming-climate-change

    4 Sept: Fox News: CNN’s climate correspondent says network’s 7-hour climate change town hall isn’t enough
    By Joseph A. Wulfsohn
    CNN chief climate correspondent Bill Weir suggested on Wednesday that his network’s marathon town hall event isn’t long enough to sufficiently tackle the issue of climate change…
    “There was so much cry out from those voters who will caucus for Democrats or independents who put this topic at the very top of their concern list,” Weir said. “And many were calling for a dedicated climate debate with all 10 on stage. The DNC didn’t go for that for whatever reason. And so we thought: ‘Why don’t make it happen?'”
    He continued: “Look, I’m biased. I think we could do a town hall a day on this and it wouldn’t be
    to cover it because it’s everything. It’s everything in our lives, from energy to politics to geopolitics to psychology to history.”…
    One of the town hall participants, Yang, called on CNN to reschedule the program and focus on Hurricane Dorian.
    https://www.foxnews.com/media/cnns-climate-correspondent-says-networks-7-hour-climate-change-town-hall-isnt-enough

    4 Sept: Deadline: CNN’s Climate Crisis Town Hall: What Happens When Ratings Aren’t the Point
    by Ted Johnson
    If candidates fell short of honing their climate messages after seven hours, they will get the chance to do so again. NBC News Now and Telemundo are streaming a climate change forum hosted by Georgetown University on September 19 and 20.

    00

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    Peter Fitzroy

    of course, sine 2014, when last CSIRO poll was taken, responses have changed, but hey – it was good enough for my father….
    https://www.lowyinstitute.org/publications/media-release-2019-lowy-institute-poll-australian-attitudes-climate-change

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    • #
      AndyG55

      Polls are NOT reality and have absolutely nothing to do with scientific truth.

      They are a purely function of now brain-washed the public is.

      Indicators of brain-washing are the only things important to you.

      Science and scientific proof, you have NONE.

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      • #
        Peter Fitzroy

        The post was about a CSIRO poll, go and attack that

        11

        • #
          AndyG55

          Polls are totally irrelevant to any sort of real science.

          In the case of “climate science” they are a measure of GULLIBILITY and/or brain-washing, not science.

          The fact that you keep trying to push nonsense irrelevant poll rather than producing any actual science tells us that scientifically irrelevant polls are now the only thing you have to offer.

          And it was a poll by the far-left Lowy Institute..

          … making it massively biased as well as totally irrelevant from a scientific stand-point..

          But hey.. its all you have isn’t it.. a mark of brain-washing and gullibility.

          You have ZERO SCIENCE

          20

          • #
            el gordo

            Nevertheless, something happened between 2012-13 to convince more people that global warming is a real threat.

            We need to discover the cause so that it can be debunked.

            00

          • #
            el gordo

            Tentatively, carbon pricing saw an increase in propaganda.

            00

          • #
            el gordo

            ‘A survey of more than 2,000 Australians by the Climate Institute has found 77 per cent believe climate change is occurring and 90 per cent believe the Federal Government has a responsibility to drive action on it.’

            ABC September 2016

            The Climate Institute disseminating blatant propaganda which the ABC thinks is real. Aunty is the most respected media outlet in Australia, so obviously its an easy sell.

            To get a grip on what we are discussing, just an hour ago my business partner asked ‘what is ENSO?’ So I explained that its a major driver of weather, but she said she hadn’t heard and ‘is it something new?’

            10

            • #
              AndyG55

              “The Climate Institute”.. A radical left-wing activist group of RABID AGW believers.

              Comprises some of the absolute dregs and scum of the AGW scammers.

              Asking massively biased questions of chosen set of people

              and propagandising it onto a even further left brain-washed scientifically ignorant ABC platform.

              10

  • #
    pat

    clearly written for the Bangkok climate gathering, as only Bangkok Post is even carrying the piece!

    4 Sept: Reuters: Asia’s growing coal use could negate global climate change progress, U.N. says
    by Patpicha Tanakasempipat
    Asia’s heavy and expanding reliance on coal power risks cancelling out global progress towards preventing catastrophic climate change, a top United Nations official warned on Wednesday.
    While developing economies such as India, Indonesia, the Philippines and Vietnam increasingly turn to cheap coal to meet fast-growing demand for electricity, some nations are ramping up use of renewable energy, although its share of the total fuel mix for power generation is still small.

    Asian countries must set more ambitious goals to contribute to global efforts to curb climate change, said ***Ovais Sarmad, the deputy executive secretary of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change.
    “There are certain countries in this region still relying heavily on coal and fossil fuels as sources of energy, and in some areas that is growing,” he told Reuters in an interview…
    The comment came as officials of Asian nations met in the Thai capital of Bangkok this week to discuss ways to spur regional, and global, efforts to fight climate change…

    Further warming could push the climate system closer to irreversible tipping points, scientists warn, raising the risk of harvest failures, forced migration, mass extinction of species, ecosystem collapse and societal breakdown…
    https://www.reuters.com/article/us-climate-change-asia/asias-growing-coal-use-could-negate-global-climate-change-progress-u-n-says-idUSKCN1VP11V

    UN: Ovais Sarmad, Deputy Executive Secretary, UNFCCC
    United Nations Secretary-General António Guterres appointed on 15 May 2017 Ovais Sarmad of India as Deputy Executive Secretary of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), at the Assistant Secretary-General level…
    Mr. Sarmad, who currently serves as Chief of Staff to the Director General of the International Organization for Migration (IOM), brings to the position nearly 27 years of experience with IOM, where he worked in several policy and management areas to strengthen the Organization’s operational effectiveness in close consultation with IOM Member States. He was instrumental in the establishment of the organization’s Ethics and Conduct Office and was a key team member negotiating the agreement which brought the IOM into the United Nations System…
    Following an early career in financial management, both in public and private sectors in the United Kingdom, Mr. Sarmad joined IOM in 1990, in Geneva…
    https://www.un.org/sg/en/content/profiles/ovais-sarmad

    00

    • #
      pat

      2 Sept: China Dialogue: Asia-Pacific Climate Week kicks off in Bangkok
      by Kamol Sukin
      The urgency of climate change action was emphasised in the August release of the Asia-Pacific Disaster Report 2019 (LINK). It noted that disaster risks in the Asia-Pacific region will be “growing in intensity, frequency and complexity”, and “exceeding the region’s capacity to respond”…

      “In 2018, almost half of the 281 natural disaster events worldwide occurred in the region, including eight out of the ten deadliest. An average of 142 million people in the region have been affected annually since 1970, well above the global average of 38 million,” according to the report.
      It put the economic costs of such natural disaster events in the region at US$675 billion annually, or around 2.4% of the region’s GDP…

      Wanan Permpiboon, coordinator of Climate Watch Thailand, says the group will be focusing on Chinese investment, especially in stranded coal assets and subsidies…
      APCW is smaller than the other regional events but growing in popularity according to (UNFCCC’s Jens Rodschinski, head of the Regional Collaboration Centre in Bangkok).
      There are 1,100 registered participants so far, but this could reach some 1,500…
      https://www.chinadialogue.net/article/show/single/en/11485-Asia-Pacific-Climate-Week-kicks-off-in-Bangkok

      5 Sept: Reuters: Stay or go? Asian nations mull options as seas rise, cities sink
      by Rina Chandran
      Small islands and coastal cities in Asia-Pacific need more funds to assist vulnerable communities and help them decide whether to relocate or stay and defend against rising sea levels and extreme weather, climate experts said on Thursday.
      Indonesia last month said it would relocate its capital from the sinking city of Jakarta, while Fiji plans to move dozens of coastal villages inland, and the Marshall Islands is building sea walls to protect coastal communities.

      “As much as possible, we must try to adapt and mitigate in situ because that’s where people have their homes, land and livelihoods,” said Harjeet Singh, global climate change lead at charity ActionAid.
      “But more places are becoming uninhabitable because of land degradation, rising sea levels or other weather impacts, and there is no choice but to relocate,” he said at the sidelines of a United Nations climate event in Bangkok…
      https://www.reuters.com/article/us-asiapac-climatechange/stay-or-go-asian-nations-mull-options-as-seas-rise-cities-sink-idUSKCN1VQ0FM

      27 Aug: UN ESCAP: Participants Prepare for September Asia-Pacific Climate Week in Bangkok
      Participants from all over the world are preparing to attend Asia-Pacific Climate Week 2019 (APCW 2019), 2-6 September 2019, in Bangkok, where they will discuss ways to raise regional and global ambition to tackle climate change…
      The High-Level Segment of Asia-Pacific Climate Week will be attended by senior government and UN officials including Ambassador Peter Thomson, United Nations Special Envoy for the Ocean.

      ***Among the civil society representatives speaking at the high-level plenary on 4 September will be Thai youth advocate Ms. Punyapha Visavakornvisisd, who runs the environmental awareness-raising organization YouthEN…
      https://www.unescap.org/news/participants-prepare-september-asia-pacific-climate-week-bangkok

      10

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    pat

    behind paywall:

    5 Sept: Carbon Pulse: China’s carbon emissions up 4% despite no growth in power sector -analyst
    China’s greenhouse gas emissions from fossil fuel use and cement production rose by 4% in the first six months of 2019, despite carbon output from power production standing still, analysis showed Thursday…

    4 Sept: Fortune: Former Sinopec Chairman Says Chinese Executives Think Climate Change Can Wait
    By Eamon Barrett
    Perhaps an ex-Big Oil executive is an unlikely candidate to open a forum on sustainability. Yet on Wednesday at the inaugural Fortune Global Sustainability Forum in Yunnan, China, the former chairman of CNOOC and Sinopec, Fu Chengyu, was first to take the stage—and delivered a pressing, if unexpected, message.
    “Urgency is really the problem that business leaders need to focus on, because a lot of things are happening very quickly,” Fu told the audience…

    Fu’s comment was really directed at industry leaders in China, whom he thinks have grasped the importance of sustainability but have failed to prioritize it. Fu said that some corporations are reluctant to embrace sustainable initiatives because of the costs of making equipment or procedures more green…

    However, as businesses in China continue to drag their feet on implementing environmental protections, Fu believes the government needs to do more to encourage them. For example, China currently operates a national “cap and trade” market for carbon emissions. The scheme was inspired by a similar policy in the EU and so far runs across seven pilot zones in China…

    But Fu says placing a cap at a provincial, or “zone” level isn’t good enough: “They need to give a cap to every company.”
    That sort of heavy-handed governance certainly wouldn’t sit well in the U.S. but in China, where some of the largest polluters are also state-owned, it could easily happen. If only they had a sense of urgency.
    https://fortune.com/2019/09/04/sinopec-cnooc-chair-fu-chengyu-climate-change/

    5 Sept: Fortune: China Is the World’s Biggest Coal User. Can It Break the Habit?
    By Eamon Barrett
    Coal is the “most dirty energy” in the world, said Yang Fuqiang, senior advisor to China’s National Resources Defense Council, speaking at a roundtable debate on the future of energy Thursday at Fortune’s Global Sustainability Forum (LINK) in Yunnan, China.
    “The question is, how do we get rid of coal?” he asked.

    That’s a tricky task, particularly in China, which accounts for 50% of global coal consumption. According to Yang, coal consumption in China’s northern Shandong province alone surpasses the total coal consumption of Europe…

    One of those critics, former chairman of Cnooc and Sinopec—two of China’s largest petroleum companies—was in the room on Thursday. Fu Chengyu argued the government is actually easing off on the pressure, creating a drag in reforms to eliminate coal…

    Sitting opposite Fu was Jiang Kejun, a research professor at the Energy Research Institute of the National Development and Reform Commission— China’s policy setting body. Jiang agreed with Fu’s complaint…
    “A lot of countries along the Belt and Road would like to grow their economy but they have resources like coal and oil and they want to use those first,” said Fu. “It will be very difficult for them to accept green growth because they believe the resources they have will be wasted.”

    ***Difficult or not, critics say China has a responsibility as the financier to make those developing economies accept green solutions, because the environment can’t afford to have more nations undergo industrial revolutions driven by fossil fuels…
    https://fortune.com/2019/09/05/china-coal-use-green-energy/

    10

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    pat

    lengthy, more detail than is usual:

    1 Sept: EthicalCorp: All eyes on China as national carbon market plan emerges from haze
    by Jill Baker
    As Beijing ramps up preparations to create the world’s largest carbon market, the burning question is whether it will eventually be part of a global market, reports Jill Baker
    The world waits anxiously for news of China’s carbon market rollout.
    Experts say such a move by a the world’s second largest economy would underscore the legitimacy of ETS for pricing carbon worldwide, be a win-win for China on the world stage and help clear the air in China’s smog-choked cities as well…

    Xiaolu Zhao is senior programme manager at Environmental Defense Fund (EDF), an NGO that has a long track record of working closely with the Beijing government. Reached in Beijing by email, she said she believes China’s ETS rollout is on track according to its internal schedule…
    “Maybe ‘delay’ is not such an appropriate description here for we are now in the middle of the second phase of the rollout of the national market and we are preparing for the upcoming test run,” she said…

    Zhao confirmed that a timeline in an EDF report from 2017 is still more or less accurate: 2018 was when the infrastructure of the market was to be developed, while simulation ETS trading was to begin in 2019. In 2020, described as a “deepening and perfecting period”, spot trading of allowances is slated to begin in earnest.

    Professor Maosheng Duan, of Tsinghua University in Beijing, has been intensively involved in the development of both the regional pilots and the national ETS programme. In an email he said in designing the national system, Beijing has taken lessons from the performance of regional pilots, including the necessity of a strong legal basis, a reliable monitoring reporting and verification system, capacity-building, and a tight emissions cap.”…

    EDF estimates the size of China’s national (power generation only) ETS market at 3,500 metric tons of CO2 equivalent (MtCO2e) – 3 billion tons – which is almost twice as large as the 1,839 MtCO2 of carbon emissions covered by the EU ETS…
    http://www.ethicalcorp.com/all-eyes-china-national-carbon-market-plan-emerges-haze

    5 Sept: Asia Times: Groups call for end to coal-power in SE Asia
    Climate activists working with business groups to help fund low-carbon projects in Indonesia, Vietnam and Philippines
    By James Broadbent
    Environmental groups meeting in Bangkok have called on China, Japan and South Korea to stop funding new coal power plants across Southeast Asia. They also called on Australia to stop exporting coal.
    Nithi Nesadurai, the coordinator of Climate Action Network in Southeast Asia, said: “Southeast Asia has relied on fossil fuels to support its economic growth. Unfortunately, some countries are planning to rely heavily on coal for the future.
    “Apart from going against the spirit of the Paris Agreement [signed in late 2016], this strategy will block solutions for energy efficiency and renewable energy and act as a barrier for finance for renewables. This has to change: new coal projects must be halted and financial flows have to be shifted away from coal into renewable energy and low carbon development.”…

    ***Fiona Ryan, a Climate Action Network from northern Australia, said: “The Australian government’s complete paralysis on climate action is a frustration to our Pacific neighbors. Its lack of action on climate change and in stopping fossil fuels such as coal, in particular, is also a threat to the Great Barrier Reef and the $50 billion it delivers to the Australian economy. Investments in coal will result in ‘stranded assets’ with huge consequence on people’s lives and livelihoods in addition to a ruined national environment. The future is renewables.”…
    People from business and civil society groups have gathered in Bangkok this week for ‘Climate Week’…READ ON
    https://www.asiatimes.com/2019/09/article/groups-call-for-end-to-coal-power-in-se-asia/

    ***Australia’s Fiona Ryan, CAN, quoted above:

    24 Apr: DevPolicy@ANU: Separating climate finance and ODA
    by Fiona Ryan
    (Fiona Ryan is a Researcher for the Climate Action Network – Cairns)
    Aid agencies have used the Rio markers (which categorise aid projects as being “principally” or “significantly” about climate change) in creative ways to increase the volumes of climate mitigation projects they report.

    One method is to rebadge projects – such as water, energy and health projects – as climate-related. In 2011, Axel Michaelowa and Katharina Michaelowa found that ODA projects were more likely to be coded as climate projects if the government was perceived to be supportive of climate change action. Conversely, others found that in 2014 – with a new Australian government known to be unfavourable to climate action – climate projects were rebranded as water or food security…ETC
    https://www.devpolicy.org/separating-climate-finance-and-oda-20190424/

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  • #
    Serp

    Can’t wait for the snide (and seemingly moribund) Paul Barry to comment in next week’s Media Watch on the 1.2 million dollar payout to Peter Ridd.

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    Graham

    Oh and Of that 0.04% Apparently Humans are Causing 4% of it .Nature is doing the rest.Volcanic Eruptions Pump Tons of Gases in to the Atmosphere. Massive Volcanic Eruptions have Caused Skies to go Dark.Red Skies at Night or Morning,etc, after Big Bush Fires and Volcanic Eruptions , tones of Grit and Ash which can Damage Engines and Windscreens of Planes, Krakatoa Eruption,Lake Taupo Eruption (New Zealand) was one of The Biggest Eruptions in the World,it was recorded in China …as the Sky Darkened for Weeks,

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