Tony Abbott has a long and distinguished history of publicly reducing women to objects, but even I, who knows it all, spat my tea into my keyboard when he proudly paraded his daughters to the Big Brother housemates today.

After wiping the Krakatoa of tannic saliva from my desktop, I retreated to the office bathroom to ponder what the most appropriate response to “If you want to know who to vote for, I'm the guy with the not bad looking daughters" might be. Abbott may be prime minister on Saturday – should I puke violently? Or throw myself onto the tiles, keening like Hecuba?

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/sep/04/tony-abbott-daughters-big-brother

Unlike its counterparts in the developed world, Australia doesn’t take climate change seriously. This can change – by making the issue accessible to everyone

Sally Rawsthorne

Rallies are fertile grounds for society's fringe dwellers, and Sunday's National Day of Climate Action was no exception. GetUp!'s call to action was met by 60,000 members of the public – a figure that included The Socialist Alliance, The Green Left and an elderly gentleman brandishing a sign proclaiming "TONY ABBOT [sic] KILLS CHILDREN".

While GetUp!'s community-minded events are friendly across the political, economic and social spectrum, the vocal and sometimes extreme presence of partisan groups only serves to sway the middle ground in the other direction and undermine the common goal.

The monopolisation of such events by acute characters and groups does climate action a disservice. Groups like The Green Left and Socialist Alliance taking ownership of climate change serves to further Abbott and co's message that it's an issue of the left, of hippies and treehuggers, not a real issue for all Australians. By adopting climate change as a cause célèbre and ignoring other economic, social or political issues, extreme groups isolate the more conservative mainstream from climate action as an issue. Labor branding the ETS a tax also didn’t help the oft-cited “ordinary Australian” to see climate action as something to support as we move into the future.

-------------------------------------------

I TOTALLY AGREE WITH YOU, SALLY, except...

I disagree with your analysis of the monopolisation.

The ETS was not marked as a tax by Labor. It was a carbon pricing... The name tax came in via the Murdoch media and that dancing prick Abbott (still prancing)... AND one major problem you seem to ignore here is that climate change denialism has been highjacked and promoted by the right wing — including Tony Abbott. Tony Abbott does not believe in Global Warming despite making a few noises "to the contrary"... 80 per cent of Liberals do not "believe" in global warming, THE REST COULD NOT CARE LESS. They have waged a strong campaign of doubt, including that John Howard who was lying through his teeth when preparing to install an ETS on this country... That was a neat trick to make people believe he "believed". He did not.... Recently he has recanted his words and exposed that it was political expediency (a trick to get re-elected)...

As well, most of the main stream media has been more than wishy-washy on the subject, while the merde-och press has totally been against the scientific consensus — waging a strong war with its editorials and fake journalists. EVEN AT THE ABC, where the former chairman, now advisor to Tony Abbott, held meetings with the staff to tell people that global warming was crap.

Ipso Facto, THE LEFT (and there are denialists amongst them — religious bleeding hearts) AND THE GREENS HAVE HAD NO CHOICE BUT TO PUSH THE BARROW ON THEIR OWN.  The right won't do it... Simple. 

Economists in the US are warming up at the idea of a carbon pricing being the best way to tackle global warming. Meanwhile, global devastation is slowly coming to roost. 

25 Typhoon in the Philippines this year, one being quite devastating. 5 Typhoons of similar devastating proportions in the last ten years — far more than in any previous decade.

Huge tornado storms in the US yesterday devastating an area about a quarter of the size of that in the Philippines. This follows with similar destruction at the beginning of the year — and people still reeling from Sandy...

Storms of the century are now happening more or less every two years in many parts of the world

Bushfires in October in Sydney, now being drenched with vicious cell storms passing through Hornsby

And a cool snow storm about to hit Britain in the next few days... 

Though unpredictable, this summer in Australia could be even warmer than last summer when 123 heat records were broken.

BUT THE SILLY LIBERALS WON'T WANT TO KNOW... So the left has to show leadership on this subject.

Climate change is not a lefty issue. It's an issue for all, but the libs and their associates, the Nationals, don't want to know... Mind you some farmers are there with the begging bowls because of drought...

Tony Abbott is an idiot.

Sally, your next task is to convince Abbott's daughters... GOOD LUCK.

A design academic who taught the Prime Minister’s daughter and has been caught in a leaking scandal has brought a legal claim against his former employer saying he was effectively dismissed – and he has added Tony Abbott as a respondent to the action.

Academic Melletios Kyriakidis is at the centre of a storm over how the Whitehouse Institute, a private design school with Liberal Party connections, awarded a scholarship worth some $60,000 to Mr Abbott’s daughter Frances in 2011.

In May this year, Mr Kyriakidis leaked news of the scholarship to the media and was investigated by his employer for breaching student privacy. He resigned in June but has now brought an adverse action complaint in the Fair Work Commission alleging he was constructively dismissed and discriminated against for his political beliefs.

Our conscious destruction of a planet friendly to humans and other species is the most significant development in history. In response, in 1988 the international community, under the umbrella of the United Nations, created perhaps the most remarkable co-operative scientific enterprise: the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). On five occasions – 1990, 1995, 2001, 2007 and 2014 – it has provided policymakers and the world’s publics with comprehensive and conservative summaries of the conclusions of the thousands of climate scientists. Each new report has grown more certain than the last about the gravity of the dangers we are facing. Interestingly, however, social scientists other than economists – sociologists, psychologists, political scientists, students of international relations – have not been invited to contribute to the IPCC reports nor have they participated in the global conversation on climate change. This is seriously strange. For no less important than the impact of climate change on the Earth and its creatures is the question of why human beings – international society, governments of nation-states, communities, individuals – have so far failed so comprehensively to rise to its challenge.

https://www.themonthly.com.au/issue/2015/december/1448888400/robert-manne/diabolical

Robert Manne is on the case as well at: 

read more: http://www.abc.net.au/religion/articles/2015/12/01/4363842.htm

Note that Gus has been on the case since 1979 and has published articles on this site about global warming (hotting) since 2005.

Read the letter to the Abbott's kiddies at top. 

GLOBAL WARMING IS BALONEY

By Graham Readfearn • Saturday, March 16, 2019

Somewhere in the order of 150,000 students went absent from classes in Australia on Friday afternoon for the global “School Strike 4 Climate” marches.

In what might be seen as an afternoon practical lesson in democracy, free speech, and civic engagement, students from cities and towns across the country and the world marched, chanted, and held placards aloft.

One of the biggest marches in Australia saw 25,000 students on the streets of Sydney, the home of the Rupert Murdoch-owned The Daily Telegraph.

But one student in particular caught eye of The Daily Telegraph — a 17-year-old, Year 12 pupil called Joanne Tran, who wrote an article for the newspaper explaining why she would not be marching.

Australia’s Education Minister Dan Tehan described the march as “appalling political manipulation” and said parents needed to know “who is influencing their kids, what are their real motives and who is paying for it.”

Good advice, no doubt.

In an articulate column, Tran argued her fellow pupils were “perfect political pawns for activists and their agendas” and that the website for the School Strike 4 Climate campaign was being run by “adults who came from partisan backgrounds.”

Tran said she had learned in economics class that coal, iron ore, and gas were essential for the country’s prosperity and her mates would be better off staying in school to learn about “the importance of the mining sector to Australian life and its contribution to the world.” Clearly, her economics class hasn't covered this study in the scientific journal Nature finding that global warming of 2.5°C to 3°C by the end of the century would likely see a drop in per capita economic output of between 15 and 20 percent globally. 

So delighted was the newspaper with Tran’s offering, they wrote a news story on the back of it and interviewed her on video. The newspaper’s editorial page wrote that her column was “essential reading,” saying: “Teachers have successfully implanted in students’ heads the notion that coal — Australia’s greatest export revenue generator — is wicked. It takes a youngster of great clarity of mind to stand against a mass movement based on panic.”

Tran was also interviewed on the Sky News Australia Outsiders program where host Rowan Dean regularly rejects the science of human-caused climate change. The UK-based climate denial group, the Global Warming Policy Foundation, was just as delighted, tweeting the article and describing Tran as “one brave schoolgirl.”

Now, before we go on, far be it from me to discourage a young person from engaging in public discourse. There needs to be more of it, and I honestly hope Joanne Tran keeps going.

But Tran appears to be one of the newest and perhaps unwitting recruits in a formal and organized project rooted in U.S.neoliberal and Republican politics, backed by fossil fuel cash and big business.

All across the coverage in The Daily Telegraph, Tran is described only as a student — and no doubt, she’s a very talented one.

Tran’s own public LinkedIn page says she is also a “Research Associate at the Australian Taxpayers Alliance.” She has also previously described herself as an “active Young Liberal” (which, in Australia, is a conservative party) with a “staunch belief in small government, individual freedom, and free enterprise.”

So what is the Australian Taxpayers’ Alliance (ATA) and what are the roots of its ideas that young Tran has bought into, and that The Daily Telegraph is promoting?

The ATA was launched in 2012 by Tim Andrews who has previously worked in Washington D.C. for the “Cato Institute, Americans for Tax Reform, and as a Koch Associate.”

In the ATA’s 2012 business plan, Andrews' biography said since 2008 he had lived in D.C. “learning effective advocacy and grassroots mobilization techniques from internationally recognized campaigning leaders.”

The Koch brothers are the petrochemical billionaires who have poured millions into organizations that push climate science denial, defend fossil fuels, and attack policies favorable to renewable energy and electric cars. They are a key strand in a well-studied “climate countermovement” that has spent hundreds of millions of dollars to block action on climate change.

Andrews, the biography said, had also taken part in an intense year-long training program at the Koch Associate Program, which aimed to “train a select group of activists to become more efficient agents for change.”

In other words, to borrow a phrase from Sydney student Tran, Andrews is an “activist with an agenda.”

Andrews and the ATA have been running campaigns to block laws that would put a price on greenhouse gas emissions.

The ATA’s board of advisers includes climate science denialist blogger JoNova. Fossil fuel-funded Patrick Michaels, of the U.S based Cato Institute — a think tank co-founded by Charles Koch — is one of ATA’s “academic fellows.”

The ATA has also been listed as a sponsor of the Heartland Institute’s climate conferences — events that attract climate science denial activists around the world.

The views of Nova, Michaels, and the Heartland Institute run counter to every major national science academy in the world.

Tran has also co-authored an opinion article in the conservative The Spectator magazine alongside ATA’s policy director Satyajeet Marar. Marar has begun appearing on Australia's Sky News channel — part-owned by Murdoch — and also writes columns for NewsCorp newspapers, including several in The Daily Telegraph.

An ATA report, authored by Marar, has called for Australia to follow President Donald Trump’s lead and pull out of the Paris climate agreement. According to his profile in the report, Marar also worked for “Americans for Tax Reform” — a group that claims any proposals to cut greenhouse gas emissions will have “devastating effects” and cause the deaths of millions of people.

Another ATA adviser is Ron Manners, a Perth-based mining figure whose Mannkal Economic Education Foundation runs an internship program for young Australians to spend time at other overseas think tanks, including the chance to  “participate in parts of the closely-related Cato Institute intern program.”

It is hardly surprising that with friends like the ATA, young Joanne Tran didn’t feel compelled to join her schoolmates for a climate strike. I'd just advise her to remain wary of those “activists and their agendas” who are looking for young, articulate recruits.

Read more:

https://www.desmogblog.com/2019/03/16/koch-murdoch-daily-telegraph-sydne...

Read from top.

See also:

http://www.yourdemocracy.net.au/drupal/node/19279

http://yourdemocracy.net.au/drupal/node/35607

http://www.yourdemocracy.net.au/drupal/node/26452

http://www.yourdemocracy.net.au/drupal/node/8985

http://www.yourdemocracy.net.au/drupal/node/29415

http://yourdemocracy.net.au/drupal/node/19214

http://www.yourdemocracy.net.au/drupal/node/28494

http://www.yourdemocracy.net.au/drupal/node/31205

http://www.yourdemocracy.net.au/drupal/node/31847

and many more, but especially:

http://www.yourdemocracy.net.au/drupal/node/33287

Swedish 'Climate Prophet' Greta Thunberg Irks Brits by Claiming UK Does 'More Harm Than Good'

The 16-year-old Nobel Peace Prize nominee, who has amassed a following of millions around the globe, has claimed that children have a better understanding of climate change than adults.

Swedish teenage climate activist Greta Thunberg, who is known for her apocalyptic rhetoric about climate change and organising school strikes, has sparked strong reactions in her recent interview with Sky News.

According to Thunberg, children and young people have a better understanding of climate change and see that “our future is at risk”. Thunberg stressed that many young people of her generation felt “sad, angry and scared” at the failure of adults and politicians to stop the climate crisis.

“If they don't act now, then in the future they will be seen as some of the greatest villains in human history and we will not judge them easy”, Thunberg said glumly. “But, I mean, they can still change that”.

When asked whether it is a burden to be the face of the popular climate movement, Thunberg explained the goal of the message used by herself and her fellow school strikers, “You are stealing your future”, is to induce guilt when people hear children say that.

Asked if the UK's commitment to produce net zero carbon emissions by 2050 was a sign of progress, Thunberg replied: “That depends on what you define as progress”.

The teenage climate idol slammed the measure as slow and insufficient, adding that it is “actually doing more harm than good”. “They are being very proud of what they've accomplished but that's not nearly enough if they are to do their part”.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, the message and the harsh tone struck a sore spot with many Brits.

“I look forward to Greta Thunberg visiting China, the world’s greatest polluter, to lecture them on climate change”, a user wrote, slamming Thunberg's focus on the Western world, whose inhabitants are known for having high environmental awareness.

Read more:

https://sputniknews.com/environment/201907181076281514-swedish-climate-p...

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The point is to present a genuine eagerness to reduce CO2 emissions to ZERO. So far, not a single government on the planet has done anything remarkable to prevent the "catastrophe" (a very very very uncomfortable future for humans rather than a single destructive event, plus extinctions galore).

Australia is the biggest emitter of CO2 per capita and by selling its gas and coal to other countries such as India and China, it encourages them to do bugger all about their own emissions... 

We're in deep shit.

GLOBAL WARMING IS REAL AND ANTHROPOGENIC. Put this inside your head.

...

... Young people all over the world are skipping school on Fridays while in Germany, the youth protesters have made appearances at coal-burning electric utility giant RWE's annual shareholder meeting, they have demonstrated at Frankfurt's historic town square and defended their initiative on a number of leading German talk shows. 

Support for the movement has been significant, with 26,800 scientists and researchers now backing them as well. In their manifesto, Scientists for Future state that, "as scientists and scholars, we strongly support their demand for rapid and forceful action." Similar groups have also sprung up, such as the 900 organic farmers, mostly from Germany, who call themselves "Farmers for Future," as well as "Parents for Future" and "Grandparents for Future." 

There's no lack of financial support. According to the organization, Fridays for Future has collected 300,000 euros in donations in its main bank account. The organization has also amassed 60,000 euros in special account that has been set up to provide legal aid. 

In Germany, parents can be fined if their children are truant, and after the city of Mannheim recently moved to impose fines, the activists immediately responded with a press release. "We will use our nationwide legal assistance account and other structures to support those affected in their legal appeals and help them pay fines if they are imposed," it stated. The city quickly moved to withdraw the threats to fine parents. 

Growing Pains

But not all of the activists' problems are as easy to solve. In the long run, the movement will have to do more than just relish in their success. Behind the scenes, there are also issues relating to the distribution of power, money and influence. 

On the left end of the spectrum, it has been reported that the Marxist-Leninist Party of Germany tried to take over entire local chapters, although the Fridays for Future movement successfully defended itself. On the right-wing, trolls have been seeking to interfere with the activists' chats. In Mülheim an der Ruhr near Düsseldorf, police are investigating possible incitement after anonymous individuals unsettled local activists by sending racist images and banners from the right-wing populist Alternative for Germany (AfD) party to their WhatsApp group. 

The movement also faces organizational challenges. Fridays for Future, or FFF for short, is a grassroots movement -- not a legal entity. There is no elected body that can be held liable for its actions, nor does it have a board or statutes. The movement is comprised of like-minded individuals who are connected digitally. 

The imprint of the German website lists the name of a student in Kiel who doesn't even live at the address given as the responsible person. The activists in the city do hold their meetings there, but there's not even a mailbox. 

The movement is practicing grassroots democracy. The Kiel activists are just as independent in what they do and don't do for FFF as the other 600 local groups in Germany. Each group elects delegates who then coordinate on all matters during a weekly conference call after gathering the opinions of their own local group. If at least 70 groups participate in a vote, then the result is considered valid. In addition, there are also 20 expert teams, or working groups, across the country focusing on political demands, campaigns, visuals and finances. 

The movement's draft statutes are 21 pages long and include hundreds of sections and stipulates voting hurdles and things like the obligation to take minutes at meetings. However, like so many other aspects of the rapidly growing movement, they aren't binding yet because they are still under discussion.

Read more:

https://www.spiegel.de/international/growing-pains-fridays-for-future-is-about-to-turn-one-a-1279544.html

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I'm the 13-year-old police threatened to arrest at the Kirribilli House protest. This is why I did it

My name is Izzy Raj-Seppings, and I dragged my dad on a one-hour bus trip on the hottest day of the summer to demand Scott Morrison act on climate change because I’m tired of watching my future burn before my eyes:

.................

As Australia burned from tragic bushfires, on Thursday I joined hundreds of others to demand action from our prime minister outside his Kirribilli residence.

It was a whirlwind of emotions and action. The drastic change from motivational speeches, to a peaceful sea of tents awaiting the PM’s climate action, to a squad of riot police moving through the crowd arresting people, was unsettling.

Many people have asked me what motivated me to drag my dad on a one-hour bus trip to Kirribilli House on one of the hottest days of summer. My answer? Our politicians’ denial, and the inaction of our government and our prime minister. Their denial has gone on for far too long. I’m tired, tired of the lies and misdirection. I’m tired of watching my future, my friends’ and family’s futures, all of our futures, burn before our very eyes.

How dare Scott Morrison race off to Hawaii during Australia’s time of crisis? What we need is a prime minister who acknowledges that this isn’t another normal fire season, that the cause of this is climate change! Lives and homes have been taken while Morrison lies on a tropical beach with his head in the sand.

When I first arrived at the protest it was a happy sight: young kids, families, students, adults young and old. Some were in costumes, some had painted faces, others had signs and banners. All gathered at the end of a small cul-de-sac, under a blazing sun. All there with a story, a purpose, a reason. The number of police didn’t worry me then, we were told they were there to protect us.

After the rally wrapped up, a number of people announced that they had decided to camp out until Morrison returned from his holiday. The crowd had mixed emotions, some cheered while others looked on with surprise and apprehension. Tents were pitched, food and games were passed around. We settled in, made new friends, exchanged stories. Even a Christmas tree was put up.

At this point, many more police vans had pulled up. Greens MP David Shoebridge arrived and complained to the police that it was unreasonable to move us as we weren’t hurting anybody or blocking anything. A “move on” order was issued. We chanted in response. We had a reason to be here – our prime minister is missing in action on the most important issue of our time.

Right before the riot police came it was quiet; dense smoke swirled over the road. A sense of unease settled over me. A squad of about 25 fully suited and armed riot police came marching over the hill. It was like something out of a movie. The officers approached the wall of students and protesters with intense intimidation tactics. They went for the loudest and most motivating people first, the natural leaders, grabbing their arms and pulling them into the police van if they didn’t comply.

I watched shocked and confused as my friends and fellow protesters were scattered, arrested and escorted off premises. It was chaotic, people were scrambling around filming on phones and photographers were buzzing around, capturing acts of bravery and courage in the face of injustice.

My dad and I were told to move on, which we did, but as I moved on I held my sign high in the sky:

Look at what you’ve left us 
Watch us fight it 
Watch us win.

It’s a day I won’t forget in a hurry.

Read more:

https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/commentisfree/2019/dec/21/im-...

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