# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
For starters, Morrison's staff is a regular who's who of coal industry luminaries. His Chief of Staff, John Kunkel, used to be mining giant Rio Tinto's Chief Advisor for Government Relations and before that he was Deputy CEO of the Minerals Council of Australia for over six years. His Principal Private Secretary, Yaron Finkelstein, is the former CEO of Crosby Textor (now C|T), a multinational lobbying firm with close ties to the mining industry. C|T's corporate clients include coal giants Glencore and Mitsubishi Development, along with the Australian Petroleum Production and Exploration Association and the Queensland Resources Council.

They ran a 2017 campaign to undermine confidence in renewable energy on behalf of Glencore which included fabricating news stories and spying on environmental groups. Andrew Hirst, former Crosby Textor Director, is now Liberal Party Campaign Director.

According to the Greenpeace/Michael West documentary below,

"mining billionaire Gina Rinehart is a Coalition donor, whose staff have included former Liberal MP, Sophie Mirabella, and Adam Giles, former Liberal Chief Minister of the Northern Territory. Rinehart maintains a close relationship with former Deputy PM Barnaby Joyce, whose campaigns she's also helped fund."

"As co-owner of major coal mining licences in the Galilee Basin, Rinehart stands to receive significant benefits if the area is opened up, via approval for the Adani-Carmichael mega coal-mine, currently being pushed through by the Coalition Government."

Former environment minister, Melissa Price, gave approval for Adani's groundwater plan, despite advice from the CSIRO. She used to be the Vice-President at a mining company owned by Mitsubishi Development, co-owners of a portfolio of Queensland coal mines.

Advocate for coal expansion and Federal Resources Minister Matthew Canavan has a brother, John Canavan, who was once an executive at coal giant Peabody Energy and now part owns Queensland's Rolleston coal mine. No conflict of interest there.

Matt Canavan has ministerial responsibility for the $5 billion Northern Australian Infrastructure Facility Fund. Five of the seven board members have strong mining industry ties.

Ian Macfarlane, the Resources Minister who scrapped the mining tax, shocked the world when in 2016 he took a job as CEO of the Queensland Resources Council.

Current Energy Minister, Angus Taylor, consulted for the Minerals Council of Australia (MCA) before becoming an MP.

In 2017, Prime Minister, Malcolm Turnbull appointed Sid Marris, an MCA Director, as his senior advisor on energy, climate change and resources. He's now back at the MCA.

In 2018, Turnbull and Josh Frydenberg gave $444 million in taxpayer money to the Great Barrier Reef Foundation without a competitive tender or application process. Perhaps it's no coincidence that the chair of that tiny body is John Schubert, an executive of Esso, owned by ExxonMobil. The Foundation's Chairman's panel is tied to Peabody and BHP, both members of the MCA.

Not to mention that in 2017, coal lobby ads were the biggest third-party political expenditure, and in 2017-2018, fossil fuel companies donated $1, 277, 933 to the Liberal, National, and Labor Parties.

Could all of this have anything to do with the Government's 194 actions to sabotage environmental policy over the last six years, the $29 billion given in subsidies to the fossil fuel industry in this country each year, or Scott Morrison's wilful denial of the clear link between the climate emergency, drought, dust storms and bushfires?

Dunno, maybe?

?Despicable!?

At the same time NSW was burning, Scott Morrison was meeting a coal billionaire in Sydney, according to @theage.

As coal fuels these fires and lives are tragically lost, PM must answer why he won't meet former fire chiefs but will make time for a coal baron. pic.twitter.com/DRJgSTjN3r

- Adam Bandt (@AdamBandt) November 15, 2019

And what about the Murdoch Press? Any undue influence there?

Not unless you think Morrison's speechwriter, Matthew Fynes-Clinton, who was the Deputy Chief of Staff and Editor of The Courier Mail, his Press Secretary, Andrew Carswell, who was the Chief of Staff at The Daily Telegraph, and his advisor, Thomas Adolph, formerly of The Australian, might play some role in Government policy?

Lest you think this is a Morrison phenomenon, Clive Mathieson, former Editor of The Australian, was Malcolm Turnbull's Media Advisor during his Prime Ministership.

Could being surrounded by agents of the radically pro-coal and anti-climate action Murdoch empire, an organisation so steeped in denial as to even deny the presence of climate deniers, be in any way related to Morrison's crackdown on environmental protests?

Hard to say.

Unless you're a News Corp consumer who has accidentally stumbled upon something truthful, no doubt all of this discussion of state capture feels very intuitive.

The real questions are how can we strip these billionaires of their power before it's too late? How can we return power to the people before the narrow window for emergency evasive climate action closes for good and our current bushfires, droughts, and dust storms somehow get at least three times worse?

One promising answer has a lot to do with the Greens and civil society joining together to wage a class war on the captured establishment, but that's an article for another day.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Captured - The Sequel: climate deniers a re-run of Big Tobacco - Michael West Media

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
For starters, Morrison's staff is a regular who's who of coal industry luminaries. His Chief of Staff, John Kunkel, used to be mining giant Rio Tinto's Chief Advisor for Government Relations and before that he was Deputy CEO of the Minerals Council of Australia for over six years.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Australia's bushfire emergency is being exploited on social media, as misinformation is spread through cyberspace via hundreds of thousands of posts.

Bushfire discussion on social media is attracting a high number of "bot-like and troll-like accounts"

Some of the misinformation includes the idea left-wing "ecoterrorists" are behind some fires

The lies are highly sharable, which means they can spread faster than the truth

Out-of-date photos of survivors and inaccurate fire maps have been widely shared, including by international celebrities.

As authorities fight the flames on firegrounds around the country, an ABC investigation has revealed a battle of a very different kind online.

One area of misinformation has been the hashtag #ArsonEmergency on Twitter.

Queensland University of Technology (QUT) researcher Dr Timothy Graham analysed a sample 315 accounts posting #ArsonEmergency and said around a third of them displayed highly automated and inauthentic behaviour.

In layman's terms, that means they could be bots or trolls.

Tweets downplaying climate change were shared tens of thousands of times.

He said the topic appeared to be attracting a "suspiciously high number of bot-like and troll-like accounts".

The ABC found some of the suspicious accounts were amplifying unproven suggestions arson had been the overwhelming cause of Australia's disastrous bushfire season.

A number of the tweets took police figures out of context and claimed almost 200 arsonists had been arrested in NSW.

The actual number of people charged with deliberately lighting a fire is 24 - even fewer managed to spark large blazes.

An article posted by an American far-right figure went one step further, claiming left-wing ecoterrorists were responsible for lighting the blazes.

The false claims about arsonists were used by some to shift the online debate away from the impact of climate change.

It has been shared almost 100,000 times across Facebook, Twitter and Reddit and reached a potential 2.8 million accounts - significantly more than general bushfire fact checks.

While there are no precise figures for Instagram and messaging apps such as Telegram and Whatsapp - which boasts millions of users in Australia - the post, or sections from it, were shared on those platforms too.

Dr Graham said the social media disinformation being spread around topics like arson was complex because it often had a "grain of truth".

"The motivation underlying this often tends to not be changing people's opinions about the bushfire itself and how it's happening, but to sow discord and magnify already existing tensions in polarised political issues," he said.

Real users spreading falsehoods

Despite the role bots have been playing in amplifying misinformation about the bushfires, a political consultant said it was largely real users who were responsible for spreading falsehoods.

John Macgowan is a former Liberal Party staffer who is investigating misinformation campaigns and bot networks on social media.

While bot networks are common in the United States and Europe, Australia is not seen as a target market for people looking to influence the political landscape through this method.

He said the tools used to operate a botnet - the process of running multiple accounts simultaneously - do not scale in Australia, where there is a significantly smaller population.

"The margin in a political campaign is getting a vote and you're not getting votes from bots," Mr Macgowan said.

Real accounts, not bots, were driving the narrative with exaggerated or misrepresented claims.

Mr Macgowan said effective bot operations typically had at least 100,000 accounts.

"The question is, is this just a bunch of angry people on both sides, or is this something more orchestrated?"

He said whatever bad information was being dispersed online in Australia was mostly being done by real people.

Dr Andrea Carson, an expert in political communication at La Trobe University, said emergencies such as bushfires were a period of heightened emotion.

And that made it a particularly dangerous time to spread lies online, she said.

Misinformation can "spread wildly, just like bushfires".(Supplied: Gena Dray )

"Given the nature of misinformation, it can spread wildly, much like bushfire can," she said.

"Some information has measurable facts in it and other information has value-laden judgments, and you can't necessarily check information that has people's values."

Platforms such as Twitter and Facebook allow users to flag potentially misleading or false content.

In general, experts recommend using trusted media outlets, checking multiple sources and avoiding sharing content without a clear attribution.

Stay across our bushfire coverage:

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
The bushfire lies spreading 'wildly' on social media

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Australia's bushfire emergency is being exploited on social media, as misinformation is spread through cyberspace via hundreds of thousands of posts. Bushfire discussion on social media is attracting a high number of "bot-like and troll-like accounts" Some of the misinformation includes the idea left-wing "ecoterrorists" are behind some fires The lies are highly sharable, which means they can spread faster than the truth Out-of-date photos of survivors and inaccurate fire maps have been widely shared, including by international celebrities.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Dailytelegraph.com.au | Subscribe to The Daily Telegraph for exclusive stories

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Subscribe to The Daily Telegraph to get unrestricted digital access, home paper delivery, Apps for iPad and Android, member only +Rewards and much more...

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Have you heard the one about how the Australian fires have been caused by a secret government conspiracy to install party sparklers in rain clouds? That one turned up on my Facebook feed this morning.

As the fast-moving Australian fires have incinerated communities, taken lives and destroyed wildlife, the speed of their progress has been matched only by the conspicuous amplification of online conspiracy theories to explain them.

A few weeks ago, there was a chorus of insistence that the fires weren't really happening, and communists at, um, CNN were digitally enhancing photos of the blood-red fire skies with the devil's own brand of MS Paint. Since the fires have expanded, smoke haze has stained skies as far away as New Zealand, and the conspiracy theories have adapted to a changing environment. For taking a visible leadership role in the defence of his burning state, the Labor premier of Victoria, Daniel Andrews, has been rewarded with anonymous online memes insisting - despite verified evidence to the contrary - on his plunder of firefighting resources, that he bathes in money, and, presumably, marches around his home in slippers made from the skulls of baby seals.
Bots and trolls spread false arson claims in Australian fires 'disinformation campaign'
These aren't even the most pernicious of the rumours. A hazy map that tries to claim the fires are some kind of deliberate scheme to clear land for a high-speed rail is of concern because it directly copies an easily debunked claim made during the California wildfires. Even more concerning are the online conspiracy theories seeping into mainstream discourse. There's an adamant refrain that Australia's tiny, powerless Greens party has magically banned hazard reduction burns despite holding but one seat among the 151 in the federal parliament. In truth, you can book a hazard reduction burn - with the assistance of government services - by filling in an online form, but members of Liberal Scott Morrison's own government have been repeating the "ban" myth for months.

Today, both Donald Trump Jr and Rupert Murdoch's local News Corp brands have been pushing the "arson emergency" theme to our fires, blaming them on nefarious firebugs. News Corp are citing figures for "arson" arrests that are, politely, inconsistent with those released by the police. Again, the Victorian premier has confirmed police information that not a single fire currently raging in this state has been deliberately lit. Yet the arson myth has already been dogging social media commentary for weeks - and a QUT study reported on Tuesday its appearance is no hapless whisper but conforms to the patterns of a coordinated disinformation campaign.

Of course, it's not just trollbots but ordinary citizens who have been recruited as campaign megaphones - knowingly or not. Anyone with ad space to sell has long known that people are more susceptible to be persuaded into action when they're frightened and they're angry. For unscrupulous political persuaders, there are ready pickings in burning Australia, where real red skies and the consequences of inept federal government response has given the locals much to be frightened and angry about. For the cashed up and willing, disinformation services are for sale: Buzzfeed reports that companies offer to "use every tool and take every advantage available in order to change reality according to our client's wishes".

To understand the ruthless waves of disinformation spreading online - and those so willing to spruik their claims - is to understand how the Australian fires have also given the political right much to fear. Commentators elsewhere have made the point that years of weaponising the issue of climate change as a battlefront for a culture war has been a valuable asset for rightwing political movements, electorally and beyond.

In Australia, outspoken climate change denial has provided conservatives electoral access to traditionally Labor blue-collar resource industry communities, who have been made anxious about what "transitions" to a low-emissions economy will entail for their jobs and prospects. The fear the right has so successfully manipulated is that of economic annihilation, yet what the fires have come to represent to Australians is how real economic annihilation is now as close to them as a lit cigarette in a change of wind burning down their home or business.

The science is concluded: it's climate change that has drawn out the Australian fire season, by heating the temperature and drying the air. The intense disinformation campaign online is a mad scramble from those interests that are vested in ongoing climate denial to confuse and obfuscate the facts of the fires and thereby head off any political pressure for meaningful climate action that may coalesce in their wake.

Disinformation expert Nina Jankowicz refers to what is going on here as "a type of information laundering". It poses danger not only to democracy, its impact on policy decisions affect our physical capacity to protect communities - whether from fire, or anything else.

If political actors are invested in disinformation, citizens can still minimise its spread. "If there is any doubt about content you're reading - don't share it!" says Jankowicz, who recommends a report-block-ban-delete response to online strangers pushing obvious lies. "If someone you love or an acquaintance online is sharing false news, it's best to approach them in a private setting where stakes are lower - a private phone call, direct message, or face to face conversation," she recommends.

It's crucial advice. The bleak reality of the internet means there may always be those willing to insist party sparklers are raining catastrophic fires on Australia from heaven. Just as important as fighting any fire right now is fighting the kind of fear that may make others believe them.

Van Badham is a Guardian Australia columnist

Topics

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Australia, where lies and conspiracy theories spread like bushfire | Van Badham

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Have you heard the one about how the Australian fires have been caused by a secret government conspiracy to install party sparklers in rain clouds? That one turned up on my Facebook feed this morning.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Our bushfire expert Andrew Sullivan explains the current crisis and tough conditions ahead.

Why have bushfires started much earlier this year and why have they been so severe?

While it seems the fires in September 2019 (in south-east Queensland and northern New South Wales) started well before the onset of the summer bushfire season, the fire season in these regions generally ranges from August to December. So, the fires have been during the traditional fire season and not 'early' at all.

These fires have been particularly severe because much of the east coast of Australia has been suffering from drought. For the last 18 months, large sections of New South Wales, south-east Queensland, and eastern Victoria have received the lowest rainfall totals on record, as shown in the rainfall deficit map below.

Extended drought means vegetation across large parts of the countryside is available to burn as fuel. Therefore, areas usually moist and green at this time of year are more easily ignited, burning more and not impeding the progress of bushfires. Combined with many sources of ignitions and several days of hot strong winds, this has led to the large and numerous bushfires we've seen.

What effect has climate change had on bushfires in recent years?

It's difficult to attribute any single weather event such as a drought to climate change. Australia has always experienced extended periods of rainfall deficit. But the increasing frequency of the combination of synoptic weather patterns bringing hot and dry winds from the centre of continent and the extensive dryness of the fuels may be considered indicators that climate change is having an impact on traditional fire weather patterns.

Many parts of Australia have historically experienced extensive and severe bushfire seasons (for example 1994 and 1968 in NSW) so in that sense it isn't unusual. However, we expect the impacts of climate change will mean we will have more of this type of weather and that may result in an increase in the number and severity of bushfire events.

How much of the bush and grassland will survive?

Much of the Australia's native landscape has adapted to regular bushfires. Indeed, many native species need fire to regenerate and without it will not thrive. In many of the areas burnt by the recent fires, the vegetation will recover.

Is there anything we can do to minimise the damage - or it is too late?

Lots of factors influence the behaviour and spread of bushfires and the damage they may do. There are a number of actions we can take to minimise the potential damage done by a bushfire. This includes fuel management before the fire season, ignition restrictions (e.g. total fire bans) before the onset of a bad fire day, and fire suppression when a bushfire breaks out.

Fuel management over large tracts of land primarily consists of the lighting of controlled burns - generally in late autumn, winter and early spring - under conditions that result in relatively mild fire behaviour that consumes fuel without the risk of the fire escaping. Once the fire season begins it's often too late to conduct controlled burning because the risk of fires escaping is too great.

Forecasts of elevated fire danger may prompt declarations of total fire bans. This is to reduce the potential for bushfires to break out by restricting activities known to start bushfires.

When a bushfire does break out, firefighting strategies include direct attack of the flames (usually with water, either from the ground or the air) and indirect attack where control lines are constructed (often by physically removing the fuel on the ground or applying flame retardant from the air) to restrict fire spread. Sometimes new fires are intentionally lit to consume the fuel between a control line and the advancing fire.

How can you protect your own property from bushfires?

Residents can also help reduce the risk of fires impacting their properties. These include:

reducing bushfire fuel like removing leaves from gutters

ensuring a safe path of exit in the event of a fire impacting your property

appropriate design, construction and maintenance of your property

enacting your bushfire plans when the arrival of a fire is imminent

being alert and responding appropriately to fire authority warnings.

To learn more about bushfire prevention and response in your area, contact your local fire authority. If you are in an emergency situation, please call 000. CSIRO is an Australian authority on fire management, behaviour and prediction. We provide training to all state fire agencies to better understand and manage bushfires.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
We explain the current bushfire environment - CSIROscope

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Our bushfire expert Andrew Sullivan explains the current crisis and tough conditions ahead. While it seems the fires in September 2019 (in south-east Queensland and northern New South Wales) started well before the onset of the summer bushfire season, the fire season in these regions generally ranges from August to December.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Image: NASA

As Australia continues to battle bushfires of unprecedented size and ferocity, a social media disinformation campaign is pushing false conspiracy theories about their cause.

Tweets with the hashtag #ArsonEmergency are coming from a "much higher" proportion of bot-like or troll-like accounts than those with more general bushfire-related hashtags such as #BushfireAustralia or #AustraliaFire, according to initial analysis by Dr Timothy Graham from the Queensland University of Technology (QUT).

Graham came to look at #ArsonEmergency because it was being used by some of the more suspicious-looking individual Twitter accounts he'd been tracking.

"They were really focused in particular on climate denial, and The Greens being responsible for the bushfires, and arson attacks being responsible for the bushfires as well," he told ZDNet on Tuesday.

Those last two are conspiracy theories, he said.

The Greens, or "greenies" in general, have not blocked hazard reduction burning in bushfire-prone areas. In fact they support it.

And while some bushfires are caused by arson, there is no evidence to suggest that the current season has seen a higher level of this crime.

In New South Wales, one of the two states hit hardest by the bushfires so far, only 24 people have been charged with arson. This compares with 53 people charged with failing to comply with a total fire ban, and 47 people who tossed a lit cigarette, or match.

These are just a few examples of the massive amount of bushfire-related misinformation currently circulating online.

Using AI to answer "Bot or not?"

Graham collected a sample of the tweets from January 1 to January 6 using the Python-based scraper twint and ran them through the R package tweetbotornot. That second tool assigns each Twitter account a score from 0 (definitely not a bot) to 1 (definitely a bot).

"Lo and behold, when I ran it through the tweetbotornot fancy AI model, it showed that there's a really high proportion of suspected bots], much higher than we would expect based on... all the other hashtags that are happening at the moment," he said.

Image: Timothy Graham/QUT

Graham warned that the analysis is based on just 315 accounts using the #ArsonEmergency hashtag, compared with 1106 for #BushfireAustralia and 7674 for #AustraliaFire.

He's "at least confident" that it represents a disinformation campaign of some kind. But at this stage he is "less confident" that it's something on the scale of the Russian Internet Research Agency's work during the US elections in 2016.

"I'm not sure whether it's orchestrated, or the extent to which this campaign is being coordinated, but there does appear to be a particular focal point for spreading disinformation about arson in relation to the bushfires," he said.

"I do get a strong sense, based on the evidence so far and based on the analysis I've done, is that it does have all the hallmarks of broader conspiratorial-style thinking [and] far-right populist, extremist discussions online."

More broadly, Graham's major concern is that this whole episode will be "a bit troublesome" for Australia, thanks to what he says is an "unprecedented" amount of disinformation and misinformation.

"A lot of people are confused. There's a lot of anxiety at the moment around people's ability to discern truth, and be able to find out factual information, and to make sense of this tragedy as it unfolds," he said.

"This is a bit of a warning sign for me... I don't think that Australia has seen anything like this before, and it's starting to look a lot like the 60 or 70 examples from other countries around the world where disinformation has become a legitimately and seriously problematic issue for elections and things."

Government warns of fake charities

Meanwhile, as is common during times of disaster, criminals are trying to cash in on people's sympathies.

The Australian government's Scamwatch reports that scammers are pretending to be legitimate well-known charities, creating their own charity names, and impersonating people negatively impacted by the bushfires.

"Scammers are cold-calling, direct messaging and creating fake websites and pages on social media to raise funds," Scamwatch warned on Monday.

"Do not donate via fundraising pages on platforms that do not verify the legitimacy of the fundraiser or that do not guarantee your money will be returned if the page is determined to be fraudulent," they wrote.

"Be careful about crowdfunding requests as these may be fake and also come from scammers."

Related Coverage
2020 is when cybersecurity gets even weirder, so get ready
AI-powered deepfakes, ransomware, IoT, and 5G all mean that protecting your data is about to get a lot harder.
Canberra to put social media fake news under microscope
It comes as Labor is fed up with Facebook's lack of action to filter out fake news.
Google's war on deepfakes: As election looms, it shares ton of AI-faked videos
Google has created 3,000 videos using actors and manipulation software to help improve detection.
Google restricts political ads to age, gender, postal code
United Kingdom to have new restrictions imposed within a week due to upcoming general election.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Twitter bots and trolls promote conspiracy theories about Australian bushfires | ZDNet

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
As Australia continues to battle bushfires of unprecedented size and ferocity, a social media disinformation campaign is pushing false conspiracy theories about their cause. Tweets with the hashtag #ArsonEmergency are coming from a "much higher" proportion of bot-like or troll-like accounts than those with more general bushfire-related hashtags such as #BushfireAustralia or #AustraliaFire, according to initial analysis by Dr Timothy Graham from the Queensland University of Technology (QUT).

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Updated January 08, 2020 16:08:39

Prince Charles has delivered a heartfelt message to Australia, saying he and his wife have been in despair watching the "appalling horror" of the country's bushfire crisis.

In a short video posted on social media, the Prince of Wales expressed his shock and horror at the loss of life, property and the impact to wildlife.

He said he and his wife, Camilla, are "thinking of you all so very much at such an incredibly difficult time".

"Those of you who have tragically lost your properties, your houses, everything, to me it is and to both of us, not to be believed possible," he said.

Many online users were quick to thank Prince Charles for his message, despite his fear that the video was a "hopelessly inadequate way of trying to get a message to all of you".

'Remarkable, courageous, determined firefighters'

Currently, milder conditions across NSW and Victoria are providing a short reprieve for exhausted firefighters.

But dangerous bushfire weather is set to return on Friday, when Bureau of Meteorology (BOM) forecaster Dean Sgarbossa says heat will rebuild, initially in South Australia before moving into Victoria and NSW.

In the video, Prince Charles also took a moment to pay tribute to the efforts of the firefighters.

"We wanted to say how much we've been thinking of all those remarkable, courageous, determined firefighters, who've done so much and worked ceaselessly to exhaustion," he said.

He concludes by saying that despite all the hardship, Australians will find a way to face it all thanks to their resilience.

"You will find a way to face it all and win through," Prince Charles said.

"And all I can say is that we are thinking of you, we are praying for you."

Royal family also sends deepest condolences

The video follows written statements from Queen Elizabeth II and the Duke of Edinburgh as well as from Prince William and Catherine, Duchess of Cambridge; and Prince Harry and Meghan, Duchess of Sussex.

On Monday, the Queen released a statement on Twitter saying she was "deeply saddened to hear of the continued bushfires and their devastating impact across many parts of Australia".

"My thanks go out to the emergency services, and those who put their own lives in danger to help communities in need," she said.

The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge tweeted "we send our deepest condolences to the families and friends of those who have tragically lost their lives," while the Duke and Duchess of Sussex shared their "thoughts and prayers" in an Instagram post.

Australia's bushfire crisis has made headlines around the world in recent weeks.

A striking image of a kangaroo fleeing from a burning house was front page news in the United Kingdom, with photographer Matthew Abbott describing the scene as "like the Apocalypse".

Yesterday, the Insurance Council of Australia (ICA) announced it had estimated the damage bill from bushfires across the country since September was $700 million.

However, some experts have warned that the economic fallout from the latest fires could be even higher, with estimates in the billions of dollars.

Topics: bushfire, fires, disasters-and-accidents, community-and-society, emergency-incidents, royal-and-imperial-matters, human-interest, united-kingdom, australia, sa, vic, nsw

First posted January 08, 2020 11:22:01

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Prince Charles delivers emotional message to Australia on bushfire crisis'

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Updated January 08, 2020 16:08:39 Prince Charles has delivered a heartfelt message to Australia, saying he and his wife have been in despair watching the "appalling horror" of the country's bushfire crisis. In a short video posted on social media, the Prince of Wales expressed his shock and horror at the loss of life, property and the impact to wildlife.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Victoria police say there is no evidence any of the devastating bushfires in the state were caused by arson, contrary to the spread of global disinformation exaggerating arsonist arrests during the current crisis.

A misleading figure suggesting 183 arsonists have been arrested "since the start of the bushfire season" spread across the globe on Wednesday, after initial reports in News Corp were picked up by Donald Trump Jr, US far-right websites and popular alt-right personalities.

Jason Wilson (@jason_a_w)
Some outlets are reporting this responsibly but the distorted version is all over garbage-tier rightwing media. pic.twitter.com/U9XxmzuKHl

The figure included statistics from some states covering the entirety of 2019, rather than just the current bushfire season, which began in September.

In Victoria, 43 alleged arsonists were counted among the 183 arrested "in the past few months" and "since the start of the bushfire season". That Victorian figure was, in fact, the figure for the year ending September 2019, meaning it had no relation to the current bushfire season.

"There is currently no intelligence to indicate that the fires in East Gippsland and the North East have been caused by arson or any other suspicious behaviour," a Victoria police spokeswoman said.
Bots and trolls spread false arson claims in Australian fires 'disinformation campaign'
The reported figure of 183 also includes 101 individuals from Queensland who were "picked up for setting fires in the bush". But a Queensland police spokeswoman said the figure included a broader range of offences than arson, including the breaching of total fire bans, and was not a total of arrests, but a total of "police enforcement actions".

"Enforcement action includes charging, restorative justice or cautioning," she said.

Queensland police said between 10 September and 8 January there had been 1,068 reported bushfires in the state, of which 114 had been deliberately or maliciously lit through human involvement and have been subject to police enforcement action.

The Australian subsequently updated its story to say the figure covered people "arrested since the start of 2019".

Victoria police said they were investigating a suspiciously lit fire in Euroa on 4 January, which burned through a large area of land but damaged no properties. Its cause remained unknown.

NSW police statistics show 24 individuals have been arrested for deliberately lighting bushfires during the current fire season.

But a Rural Fire Service spokesman told Sky News on Wednesday that the majority of the larger fires in the state were caused by lightning, and that arson was a relatively small source of ignition.

Arsonists have been responsible for some of the bushfires this season - though specific numbers are not yet available. There is also no doubt that arson remains a serious problem in Australia, particularly during heightened periods of fire danger. Arsonists have been responsible for some of Australia's worst fires, including a fire that killed 10 people on Black Saturday in 2009.
Hazard reduction is not a 'panacea' for bushfire risk, RFS boss says
But exaggerated claims about arson during the current crisis have also been used to undermine the link between climate change and the longer, more severe bushfire seasons currently being experienced in Australia.

Preliminary research from the Queensland University of Technology suggests bots and trolls are involved in spreading disinformation about arson on Twitter.

Regardless of the source of ignition, Australia's scientific agencies all state that climate change is creating longer, more severe fire seasons.

On Wednesday, the RFS commissioner, Shane Fitzsimmons, shot down another common argument blaming environmentalists for holding up hazard reduction work.

Fitzsimmons said the main obstruction to hazard reduction was weather conditions. Hazard reduction burns are particularly fraught at times of heightened fire risk.

News Breakfast (@BreakfastNews)
"We are not environmental bastards."@NSWRFS Commissioner @RFSCommissioner on hazard reduction burning, which he stresses is not the panacea for stopping fires spreading.#nswfires #AustraliaFires pic.twitter.com/Jcm803vBx9

"Hazard reduction burning is really challenging, and the single biggest impediment to hazard reduction burning is the weather," he said.

"And with longer fire seasons, earlier starts and later finishes to fire seasons like we've been experiencing in recent times, you get a shrinking window of opportunity for more favourable hazard reduction burning periods."
Topics

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Police contradict claims spread online exaggerating arson's role in Australian bushfires

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Victoria police say there is no evidence any of the devastating bushfires in the state were caused by arson, contrary to the spread of global disinformation exaggerating arsonist arrests during the current crisis.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Climate advocates are calling on fossil fuel companies to pay for the damage caused by Australia's unprecedented bushfires rather than that country's taxpayers forking over an additional $2 billion for those affected by the crisis.

"Regular Australians should not be forced to pay while fossil fuel producers are being let off scot-free," the Australia Institute's deputy director Ebony Bennett said in a statement.

"It's disappointing that the Australian community will be left to pick up the tab for a climate-fueled disaster," she added.

Bennett, whose group is pushing for the Australian government to impose a "modest levy" on fossil fuel producing companies to cover the cost of bushfire recovery and first introduced the proposal in December, added that taxing those responsible for the climate crisis to provide the funds for disaster mitigation would "shift the economic burden of these disasters from regular Australians to the coal and gas companies that are fueling the climate crisis."

Prime Minister Scott Morrison announced Monday that the government would obtain the additional $2 billion from the country's projected $5 billion surplus for the year.

"The surplus is of no focus for me," said Morrison, whose response to the fires has been seen as, at best, insufficient by critics.

Monday's news of more aid from the government came as energy giant Chevron announced it would provide $1 million to the Australian Red Cross to aid in the group's recovery efforts.

A donation-a fraction of the company's annual revenue-is not what's needed from Chevron, tweeted TIME editor-at-large Anand Giridharadas.

"We need you to stop making a killing at the planet's expense," said Giridharadas.

In her comments, the Australia Institute's Bennett said that putting fossil fuel companies on the hook for the damage from the fires was the best way to ensure those behind the climate crisis pay for the damage.

"The government has now acknowledged the link between global warming and these disasters, so placing a modest climate disaster levy on the companies that are responsible is an important next step," said Bennett.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Climate advocates call for fossil fuel companies to foot Australia fires bill

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Climate advocates are calling on fossil fuel companies to pay for the damage caused by Australia's unprecedented bushfires rather than that country's taxpayers forking over an additional $2 billion for those affected by the crisis. "Regular Australians should not be forced to pay while fossil fuel producers are being let off scot-free," the Australia Institute's deputy director Ebony Bennett said in a statement.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Australia's catastrophic brush fire season comes as the country continues to insist on a climate loophole that critics say would undermine the Paris Agreement's objective of keeping global warming to relatively safe levels.

The fires that began in September were the result of record heat and drought that scientists say is consistent with climate change - and likely to worsen if the world misses its chance this decade to limit warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius. Blazes in New South Wales and other states so far have killed 20 people and up to half a billion animals, leading to fear of extinctions.

But while polls showed growing alarm about climate change, Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison waited until December to acknowledge the link to "climate change, along with many other factors." He skipped U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres' climate summit in New York in September despite being in the United States, and his representative ducked out of last month's U.N. climate conference in Madrid days before it ended.

And while Australia long has been seen as an unambitious presence in the U.N. climate arena, this year it became an outright pariah. That's because Morrison's government in the last year suddenly has insisted it plans to use a carbon accounting loophole from the expiring Kyoto Protocol agreement to fulfill its already modest Paris commitments, promising domestic audiences that the accounting trick would limit the pressure the deal would place on Australia's coal and gas exporting sectors.

That message angered progressive countries at the Madrid confab determined to see progress toward the 1.5 C goal.

"It's apparent that there are countries that have some legitimate concerns about how to agree and others who don't have that," Costa Rica Minister of Environment and Energy Carlos Manuel Rodríguez told E&E News in Madrid.

At a meeting in San José, Costa Rica, before the Madrid talks, Rodríguez and representatives from 30 other countries - small islands, progressive developing countries and European Union members - endorsed a set of principles for good carbon accounting. The targets were Australia's carryover proposal and Brazil's demands that Kyoto Protocol credits be eligible for trade under the Paris Agreement and for permission to double-count emissions reductions.

As talks in the Spanish capital entered their tense final day, Rodríguez broke from usual practice and called out Australia, Brazil and the United States by name during a press conference. He later told E&E News that he regretted "naming and shaming" the trio but asserted that proposals like Australia's to use old Kyoto allowances toward a new Paris pledge would threaten the environmental integrity of the deal and put the 1.5 C goal further out of reach.

"A very bad agreement is not acceptable," he said. "A clear understanding that we have these pending issues and that we will discuss them throughout the year is something that can be considered."

But Australia says there's nothing to discuss. Morrison and his government hold that Australia has the absolute right as a sovereign country to design its nationally determined contribution to Paris as it sees fit. And Morrison rejects charges that it's unambitious.

"What I'm saying is Australia is meeting and beating our emissions reduction targets," he told reporters when asked about the climate talks at a Melbourne press conference in December.

The origins of the Kyoto 'Australia clause'

Morrison's boast stands in contrast to other analytics. A ranking of 61 major economies that came out last month showed Australia with the least protective climate policies.

Indeed, Australia's claim to current climate action has its roots in the past - specifically, high rates of deforestation in 1990, which added a whopping 131.6 million metric tons of carbon dioxide to the atmosphere before leveling off, according to an analysis by Climate Analytics.

After it agreed to the Kyoto Protocol in 1997, Australia accepted a target of keeping emissions growth to no more than 8% above 1990 levels between 2008 and 2012 - an easy task given that the 1990 deforestation bump artificially raised its baseline 24% above an average year. Australia made the right to carry over the extra allowances a condition of joining a second Kyoto commitment period.

And now the country wants to do the same for Paris.

Australia pledged in Paris to cut its emissions between 26% and 28% below 2005 levels by 2030 but is currently on track for a 7% cut, according to Climate Analytics.

Morrison's government released estimates based on land use late last year that provided a higher estimate for 1990 deforestation - raising the 1990 baseline above what Australia had claimed before. If it gets credit for Kyoto allowances, Australia need only reduce emissions 14.3% below 2005 levels to claim reductions of 26%.

Most of Australia's projected reductions are related to land use, not energy or industrial emissions, which are projected to remain more or less flat between now and 2030. By contrast, last year's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report indicates that the 1.5 C goal would require the world to cut emissions in half by 2030.

It's also an open question how the 350 million metric tons of CO2 released during this year's Australian fire season figures into any of this accounting.

Even though Australia's loophole is globally unpopular, it's unclear how it can be stopped. There are no consequences for underperforming a Paris commitment, and Australia didn't show its hand on wanting to use Kyoto-era allowances until after countries agreed to most of the Paris Agreement's rulebook in Katowice, Poland, in 2018.

Bill Hare, the CEO of Climate Analytics who is himself Australian, said in Madrid that Australian negotiators were telling their foreign counterparts that the carryover provision wasn't up for debate.

"You can understand the anger about this from the developing world, that will say, 'OK, here's this rich country - one of the richest countries on the face of the planet - that has done nothing to deserve these surplus units. Absolutely nothing.' And then comes along and basically, essentially, holds a diplomatic gun to everyone's head to say, 'If you don't agree with this, we'll just take it and do it anyway,'" he said.

Negotiators searched in Madrid for a compromise to limit the extent of the allowances Australia could claim, but the language would have been attached to the last outstanding piece of the Paris rulebook dealing with emissions trading. But those talks broke down.

Climate Analytics notes the Paris rulebook's climate accounting provisions require countries to show that nationally determined contributions are successively more ambitious and represent the highest possible ambition for a country. It argues that Australia would be unlikely to meet that standard and suggests that might be an impediment.

Elliot Diringer, executive vice president of the Washington, D.C.-based Center for Climate and Energy Solutions, said only Australia could prevent itself from claiming credit for these allowances.

"The Paris rulebook is silent on the issue, which essentially means it's left to national determination," he said.

Recent polling in Australia by firms, including the Lowy Institute and the Australia Institute, suggests the brush fires are pushing more Australians to rank climate change as a top-tier issue. But that's mostly among voters who are already persuaded - especially the young and those in urban centers.

"That essentially means that it doesn't necessarily put pressure on the government in the sorts of ways that might actually lead to a significant about-face in policy, particularly when it's dug its heels in for so long," said Lachlan Carey, an associate fellow on energy at the Washington-based Center for Strategic and International Studies, who is Australian.

Morrison's policies are still relatively popular among his base. He made protection for Australia's coal and gas producers a centerpiece of last year's campaign and has benefited from close ties to Rupert Murdoch's media empire, which opposes emissions policies.
Reprinted from Climatewire with permission from E&E News. E&E provides daily coverage of essential energy and environmental news at www.eenews.net.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
As Fires Rage, Australia Pushes to Emit More Carbon

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Australia's catastrophic brush fire season comes as the country continues to insist on a climate loophole that critics say would undermine the Paris Agreement's objective of keeping global warming to relatively safe levels.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
In early January 2020, as bushfires continued to devastate millions of acres on the eastern coast of Australia, various news outlets and social media personalities spread misinformation about the number of people criminally charged with arson in those fires.

The unprecedented fires, which have killed at least 24 people, have destroyed 1,400 homes and killed millions of animals; the fires have been facilitated by extreme weather linked to climate change, like drought and a prolonged wildfire season in Australia, which has also been experiencing extreme heat. The fires are so powerful they are creating their own weather and are expected to continue burning for months to come.

But some, including Alex Jones' conspiracy site InfoWars that spreads climate change denialism, falsely reported that "nearly 200 people" were arrested in Australia for "deliberately" starting bushfires.

That would be a distortion of the facts. Police in New South Wales released a statement disclosing that since Nov. 8, 2019, 183 people, including 40 juveniles, have been charged with 205 bushfire-related offenses. Of the 183, 24 people have been charged with deliberately setting fires. According to police, of the 183, another "53 people have had legal actions for allegedly failing to comply with a total fire ban," and an additional "47 people have had legal actions for allegedly discarding a lighted cigarette or match on land."

Local press reports indicate that not all of the people charged committed acts that contributed to the raging brushfires. For example, a man in the Sydney suburb of Wallacia was fined for lighting a fire to make a cup of tea. That blaze was extinguished by firefighters. Another man was cited for lighting a fire to cook food in the town of Tarro. That fire was also put out by responding crews.

Jason Wilson, a columnist and journalist for The Guardian, wrote, "Sadly, arsonists exist among us, and are always a factor in bushfires. The number of arrests is being highlighted across right wing media in order to muddy the waters and avoid discussing the real reason that bushfire season is longer and more dangerous." Wilson pointed to a statement by a fire captain fighting the fires, who said crews are seeing fires the likes they've never seen before, and the evidence that climate change is driving them is "overwhelming."

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Were 'Nearly 200' People Arrested for Deliberately Starting Australia Bushfires?

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
In early January 2020, as bushfires continued to devastate millions of acres on the eastern coast of Australia, various news outlets and social media personalities spread misinformation about the number of people criminally charged with arson in those fires.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Australia's Wildfires and Climate Change Are Making One Another Worse

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Heat and dry conditions exacerbated Australia's devastating bushfires. Here's how climate change affected the fires, according to experts.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Boomers: It's not too late. You can be heroes in the story of climate change.

You might not like to hear it, as many of you have long told pollsters you consider yourselves environmentalists, butcollectively you have exacerbated the climate crisis more than any other generation.

Fossil fuels were cheap as you came of age and you burned too much of them. Your lifetime carbon footprint is so high you're forcing kids born today to emit eight times less than you just to hit a modest goal. And you've never taken climate change as seriously as the generations behind you.

Your generation put yourselves before the rest of us. As economics reporter Jim Tankersley has written time and again, "At nearly every point in their lives, these Americans chose to slough the costs of those tax cuts and spending hikes onto future generations." So instead of investing in cleaner energy sources or preparing for a less-stable environmental future during good economic times, you passed on problems.

The future generations are coming of age themselves. Your grandchildren are leading a movement calling for big change. Time's Person of the Year in 2019 was Greta Thunberg, a teenage climate activist who has become a voice of moral clarity for Gen Z and millennials. Her rallying cry has been heard around the world, inspiring millions (of all ages) to protest and demand that leaders prioritize the planet.

But for all the successes millennials and Gen Zers have had in making their cause a cultural phenomenon, they do not haveenough of what they really need and what you do: political power.

As Australia burns and the Trump administration stymies international collaboration and bails out the coal industry, you have a chance to redefine your generation and save the day. You've already proven you are a generation that can evolve. You changed your views on social values and are far more similar to millennials than your parents. It's not too late to do the same on climate.

It's never easy for governments to prioritize the future over the present, which has been the trouble with climate change. It requires a political nonstarter: to prioritize future generations over the energy needs of the present. The best chance we have to break this political rule is your enormous sway. Other generations are leading the way, proposing solutions and working together. They need your generation to use your power to change our politics and to help save us.

Boomers get what boomers want

It's no secret that over the past 60 years, your generation has become the politically dominant force in the West and the United States, in particular. You're a large cohort. You vote.

Many of you also had a lot of good luck out of the gate. You entered the strongest labor market on record that provided livable wages even for those who did not attend college (which was a fraction of the price as it is now). You then did well in the housing market, turning cheap houses into lucrative sources of equity.

You also played politics well. The economic opportunities you experienced were clearly not extending to future generations but you didn't advocate for policies to help. Again and again, you racked up debt to your shorter-term benefit. You didn't use budget surpluses in the 1990s to invest in the future. You borrowed heavily to keep the housing market inflated during the sluggish 2000s. And when the bubble popped, we got the Great Recession. (This has become a source of intergenerational resentment that's led to the cutting phrase, " OK, boomer. ")

Certainly, the boomer generation has made contributions to our society. You paved the way for the rights of women and people of color in the workplace. You built the technology industry that changed the world. And you haven't always gotten everything you've wanted politically.

But you've got a strong track record of success in politics. There's an opportunity right now to show your sway. The upcoming presidential and congressional elections in 2020 will be crucial to the future of climate change.

President Donald Trump's environmental policies aren't just not helping, they are setting us back. His administration has been even more aggressive in rolling back rules and increasing oil and gas production than even his Republican predecessors. His decision to pull the US out of the Paris agreement is hurting international progress toward meeting its goals. To underscore his feelings on the issue, recall that he mocked Thunberg on Twitter.

We need you now

The climate emergency is getting worse and it's happening faster than scientists feared. Land and oceans are getting hotter. Seas are rising faster. And we're seeing a trend in more ferocious storms and wildfires, and devastating droughts and floods.

As the New York Times puts it:

But how fast temperatures will continue to increase, and how much worse things may get, depends in large part on whether the world reins in greenhouse gas emissions, and by how much. After flattening between 2014 and 2016, annual emissions from burning fossil fuels for energy have risen again.

The problem isn't that we don't know what to do. The solutions are clear: We need to burn fewer fossil fuels, restore forests instead of destroying them, eat less meat, and consume less overall.

The problem isn't that we don't have people who are calling for change. The problem is political will, which requires political power. Your generation has it.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Boomers: You can still be heroes in the story of climate change

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Boomers: It's not too late. You can be heroes in the story of climate change. You might not like to hear it, as many of you have long told pollsters you consider yourselves environmentalists, butcollectively you have exacerbated the climate crisis more than any other generation.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Understanding High-Energy Physics in Earth's Atmosphere - Eos

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Thunderstorms present a variety of hazards, including emissions of ionizing radiation. An international group of scientists met at an Armenian observatory to share their findings.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Want smart analysis of the most important news in your inbox every weekday, along with other global reads, interesting ideas and opinions? Sign up for the Today's WorldView newsletter.

The satellite images are at once mesmerizing and horrifying. A vast arc of fire blazes across the rim of the land; a cone of heat encases a whole continent; a veil of smoke shrouds the ocean and will soon circle the globe. This season's catastrophic bush fires in Australia have scorched roughly 20 million acres of the country, killed at least 25 people and, according to some staggering estimates, led to the death of a billion animals.

Videos of singed kangaroos and parched koalas prompted an outpouring of grief on social media. Where the fires have been quelled, a blackened desolation remains, with thousands of homes lost and communities uprooted. Survivors and eyewitnesses spoke of an apocalyptic orange sky and fierce winds that meant the roaring of the blaze was often heard before it was seen. So extreme were the conditions - the country experienced a record heat wave, on top of three years of devastating drought - that banks of clouds created by the flames have generated their own fire-driven thunderstorms.

Skies turned bright red on the beach in southeast Australia on Sunday as deadly bushfires continue to burn.

Rain has brought some measure of relief, but officials warn the showers won't put out all the fires before conditions deteriorate again this week. https://t.co/Mv389yT4Gd pic.twitter.com/XxIOZRDxJb
- ABC News (@ABC) January 6, 2020

There's a political storm brewing in Australia, as well. In its epicenter is conservative Prime Minister Scott Morrison, who has been criticized not just for his initial lax handling of the crisis - he was on holiday in Hawaii as his nation burned - but, more importantly, for his broader resistance to political measures aimed at mitigating climate change. Morrison remains infamous for a stunt he pulled in 2017, when, as Australia's treasurer, he showed up to a session of Parliament brandishing a lump of coal and a message to his colleagues not to be "scared" by fossil fuels.

Morrison came to power in 2018 in an internal party coup that unseated then-Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull, whose attempts to set targets for the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions were resisted by rivals within the right-wing Liberal Party. Under his watch, Australia stopped payments to the Green Climate Fund, the U.N.-backed mechanism that assists developing countries hit by climate disaster. When the United Nations chaired a climate meeting in September in New York, Morrison skipped the session. And in last month's major climate conference in Madrid, Morrison's government came under particular criticism for thwarting collective efforts to set meaningful emissions targets.

The international community has taken note. A report published last month by a group of think tanks that ranked 57 countries on their national climate action policies placed Australia sixth from bottom. A separate study in November ranked Australia as third-worst among the Group of 20 nations. Though Australia just produces a bit more than 1 percent of the world's greenhouse gas emissions, it's the world's biggest exporter of coal, whose use is a major factor in the warming of the planet. The bush fires alone have emitted some 350 million tons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere since last September.

In the midst of the crisis, Morrison has offered mostly a tepid brand of climate denialism, pointing to a long history of seasonal fires. "They are natural disasters," he told reporters last week. "They wreak this sort of havoc when they affect our country, and they have for a very long time."

In comments to Reuters on Tuesday, Angus Taylor, Morrison's emissions reduction minister, waved away criticism over policy and said the "bush fires are a time when communities must unite, not divide." Allies elsewhere cautioned against policies that could negatively impact Australian business. Right-wing media have also pointed to reports of dozens of arsonists contributing to the blaze as supposed evidence that the current catastrophe is not entirely linked to climate change.

"Australia, with a three degree temperature rise, frightens the hell out of me."

The captain of a fire service in rural New South Wales says his team are seeing fires on a scale they've never seen before - and that the evidence it is due to climate change "is overwhelming". pic.twitter.com/s5PkOj9U1b
- Channel 4 News (@Channel4News) January 7, 2020

The scientific consensus is pretty clear, though. In an interview for PBS with Christiane Amanpour, leading Australian climate scientist Tim Flannery said the current situation was "part of the long-term trajectory of climate change," and it's "conspired together with a windy season to produce these horrific fire conditions." He pointed to 12 reports his own organization produced warning the Australian government of the mounting effects of climate change on the country.

What is happening in Australia today will become increasingly common around the world if we do not aggressively combat climate change and transform our energy system away from fossil fuels. The future of the planet is at stake. We must act. https://t.co/JvspMDtqAD
- Bernie Sanders (@BernieSanders) January 2, 2020

"Even without human help, Earth can be at times inhospitable," noted an editorial in The Washington Post. "All the more reason to avoid priming the planet for worse - extreme weather, intense heat waves, more drought, more flooding, rising seas, species die-offs, disease proliferation, and more foreseeable and unforeseeable consequences. Australia, which has profited off fossil fuel extraction and use, has a responsibility to help lead the world."

But Morrison and his ilk have long resisted meaningful climate action or schemes that would raise the cost of energy. This current round of fires may force a new reckoning.

"Debate over climate - whether it is changing, and if so what to do about it - has become a culture wars issue over the years to the point where it has proved to be a useful political device for parties of the right," wrote columnist Tony Walker in the Sydney Morning Herald. But, he noted, "the ground is shifting politically," with more and more Australians recognizing the urgency of the environmental threat they face.

AD

AD

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Analysis | Apocalyptic wildfires may force a climate reckoning for Australia's conservative leader

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Want smart analysis of the most important news in your inbox every weekday, along with other global reads, interesting ideas and opinions? Sign up for the Today's WorldView newsletter . The satellite images are at once mesmerizing and horrifying .

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
12/31/2019 9:56AM

Raging wildfires in Australia have turned the sky red and trapped thousands of people in an isolated seaside town, forcing them to take shelter on the shore and in boats. Out-of-control blazes are tearing across parts of the country. Photo: Jonty Smith from Melbourne/via REUTERS

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Wildfires in Australia Trap Thousands in Vacation Spot

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Raging wildfires in Australia have turned the sky red and trapped thousands of people in an isolated seaside town, forcing them to take shelter on the shore and in boats. Out-of-control blazes are tearing across parts of the country. Photo: Jonty Smith from Melbourne/via REUTERS

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Only a very few volunteer firefighters or SES members are likely to be eligible for the compensation package promised by the Prime Minister Scott Morrison and the Premier Annastacia Palaszc

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
New analysis commissioned by the International Monetary Fund has shown that global fossil fuel subsidies continue to grow, despite the growing urgency of the need to decarbonise the global economy.

The working paper prepared by the IMF Fiscal Affairs Department estimated that, in 2017, global fossil fuel subsidies grew to $5.2 trillion, representing 6.5 per cent of combined global GDP.

China leads all countries in the level of subsidies provided to fossil fuels, which the IMF report estimated to total $1.4 trillion in 2015. The United States followed with $649 billion in subsidies, Russia with $551 billion and the EU with $289 billion.

The IMF estimates that annual energy subsidies in Australia total $29 billion, representing 2.3 per cent of Australian GDP. On a per capita basis, Australian fossil fuel subsidies amount to $1,198 per person.

Australia ranked below most countries for mortality rate from pollution related illnesses, with the IMF attributing 2.6 deaths per 1,000 in Australia to local air pollution associated with fossil fuels.

This is less than half the rate observed in China (5.3 deaths per 1,000) and significantly below Russia (10.0 deaths per 1,000) and the Ukraine (16.0 deaths per 1,000), where little by way of regulation exists to protect people from air pollution.

The IMF found that the removal of fossil fuel subsidies would have significant economic benefits, including improved budget bottom-lines for governments. The net benefits of eliminating fossil fuel subsidies would amount to 1.7 per cent of global GDP.

The under-pricing of fossil fuels, particularly coal, was found to be the largest source of effective subsidy. When the wider social and environmental costs of fossil fuels were taken into account, the IMF found that price paid for coal was typically less than half of its true cost.

The report found that if fossil fuels had been priced appropriately, global carbon emissions would be reduced by 28 per cent. Significantly, effective fossil pricing would also lead to a decrease in air pollution deaths by up to 46 per cent. The elimination of fossil fuel subsidies would also increase global government revenues by 3.8 per cent of GDP.

The upward trend in global fossil fuel subsidies echoes similar analysis by the International Energy Agency that came to the same conclusion, particularly in relation to direct government support for fossil fuels.

The largest contributor to fossil fuel subsidies is the under-pricing of local air pollution, as the impacts of smog and particulate emissions have significant health impacts and are a contributor to early deaths.

Countries including China and India have struggled over recent years to address the growing impacts of air pollution.

Growth in fossil fuel consumption to fuel economic development has come with growing concerns about smog and poor air quality in major cities. China has taken steps to combat growing air quality concerns, including potential bans on new petrol-fuelled cars.

The impacts of global warming were the second largest source of effective subsidy, representing 24 per cent of total fossil fuel subsidies. A recent report from the Climate Council estimated that up to $571 billion were predicted to be wiped off Australian property values as a result of the impacts of climate change.

The overwhelming majority of global greenhouse gas emissions are not covered by an effective pricing mechanism. Greenhouse gas emissions do however have an effective cost to the wider community through the economic costs of damage due to climate change.

Coal remained the largest beneficiary, with 44 per cent of global subsidies being directed towards the fuel. Oil (41%) and gas (10%) followed.

The battle over energy subsidies has been a feature of Australian politics over recent years, with conservative politicians attacking renewable energy subsidies.

The growing evidence from groups like the IMF and the IEA shows that fossil fuel subsidies are a major drag on the global economy, with the true costs of their use being a burden on wider society.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Global fossil fuel subsidies reach $5.2 trillion, and $29 billion in Australia

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
New analysis commissioned by the International Monetary Fund has shown that global fossil fuel subsidies continue to grow, despite the growing urgency of the need to decarbonise the global economy. The working paper prepared by the IMF Fiscal Affairs Department estimated that, in 2017, global fossil fuel subsidies grew to $5.2 trillion, representing 6.5 per cent of combined global GDP.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Elton John, the Marvel star Chris Hemsworth and the heavy metal act Metallica are the latest big names to donate significant amounts to the Australian bushfire relief effort, with John and Hemsworth each committing A$1m (£523,000) to the cause.

John announced his donation while on stage during a concert in Sydney on Tuesday, saying people should be "in awe of the work the firefighters are doing", before pledging to send A$1m to help with the relief effort.

"There are people out there who have lost their lives trying to save homes, there are people who have lost their lives and their homes," the singer said. "And lastly, there's the plight of the animals, a loss of their habitat that frankly is on a biblical scale and it's heartbreaking."

Hemsworth, who was born in Melbourne, encouraged people to "chip in" with donations during an Instagram video in which he also confirmed he was personally donating A$1m to the effort.

The Avengers actor included donation links to firefighting organisations and charities - including the Australian Red Cross, New South Wales regional fire service and the WWF - which he said were "working flat-out to provide support and relief during this devastating and challenging time".

Metallica announced on Twitter they would be pledging A$750,000 to be split between the NSW Rural Fire Service and to the Country Fire Authority in Victoria to aid in the relief efforts. They said: "NSW Rural Fire Service is the world's largest volunteer firefighting organisation and all funds donated during this state of emergency are directed toward services related to and victims of these particularly destructive Australian bushfires."

The donations come after news that three Australian states (South Australia, Victoria and New South Wales) will be exposed to more dangerous bushfire weather from Thursday. The fires have already burned through 8.4m hectares of land (32,430 sq miles) and caused the death of three volunteer firefighters and at least 26 people. The economic impact of the fires is estimated to climb above A$4.4bn, which was the record set by the Black Saturday blazes in 2009that burned through 450,000 hectares.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest

A burned house in Batlow, New South Wales, where many people have lost their homes. Photograph: Saeed Khan/AFP via Getty Images

The donations follow those by other high-profile cultural figures who have made significant contributions to the relief effort. Pink said she would donate A$500,000, Kylie Minogue pledged the same amount, while the Australian comedian Celeste Barber has raised more than A$27m for the NSW Rural Fire Service and Brigades Donations Fund.

Nicole Kidman and the American country music star Keith Urban also pledged A$500,000 to the Rural Fire Services, while pop star Halsey played a benefit concert for Melbourne's Country Fire Authority after the Falls festival in Byron Bay she was due to play was forced to evacuate due to a severe weather warning.
Topics

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Elton John joins list of stars donating to bushfire relief effort

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Elton John, the Marvel star Chris Hemsworth and the heavy metal act Metallica are the latest big names to donate significant amounts to the Australian bushfire relief effort, with John and Hemsworth each committing A$1m (£523,000) to the cause.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Suspicious Twitter accounts have been proactively pushing a false narrative about the role of arson in the Australian bushfire crisis, social media analysts have warned, including a number of high-profile US figures.

On Wednesday morning, the hashtag #ArsonEmergency was the second most trending topic nationally on Twitter, coming in behind #AustralianBushfireDisaster, with users using the hashtag to undermine the link between the recent horror fire season and climate change.

But Queensland University of Technology (QUT) social media analyst Timothy Graham found many of the accounts using the hashtag displayed highly automated behaviour and may be part of a coordinated disinformation campaign.

Dr Graham used an algorithm called Tweet Bot or Not, which seeks to determine whether an account is automated, to analyse 1,340 tweets, published by 315 accounts, and found there was a higher than the usual number of bot-like accounts using the hashtag.

Tobias Keller, a social media expert and colleague of Dr Graham, described bots as "fictional accounts" that mimic humans and human behaviour, set up to achieve a specific goal, like spreading disinformation.

"What strikes us is the number of accounts talking about arson and the denial of the link between climate change and the bushfires peaked yesterday and it seems like a classic move of a disinformation campaign," Dr Keller told SBS News.

"These accounts are suspicious, they may be humans, they may to some degree be paid or coordinated and may fake authentic users ... what we know is they are trying to spread a new narrative on the bushfire and climate change link."

By Wednesday, the "new narrative" had spread internationally and was being regurgitated by prominent US figures like Donald Trump Jr and a Washington State Republican gubernatorial candidate, who accused the Governor of Washington of being "more worried about fake climate change fires in Australia (actually set ablaze by arsonists)".

"It's not about Australia anymore, it's about climate change and the bushfire crisis," Dr Keller said.

"Everyone is watching Australia at the moment and there are a lot of people around the globe who don't believe that climate change is real."

Truly Disgusting that people would do this! God Bless Australia.
More than 180 alleged arsonists have been arrested since the start of the bushfire season, with 29 blazes deliberately lit in the Shoalhaven region of southeast NSW in just three months. https://t.co/xP0PtMQbuD
- Donald Trump Jr. (@DonaldJTrumpJr) January 7, 2020

On Wednesday morning, Mr Trump Jr shared an article by The Australian that claimed 183 alleged arsonists had been arrested since the start of the bushfire season to his 4.2 million followers.

The tweet inspired responses such as; "I honestly can't think of a motive for all of this other than climate change activists doing it to push a narrative" and "I wouldn't be surprised if the arsonists were funded by those trying to push the climate change hoax".

Within the article, however, there are a number of issues, including that most of the "arsonists" were actually arrested for bushfire-related offences, such as discarding a lit cigarette or failing to comply with total fire bans, not deliberately lighting fires.

In a statement on Monday, NSW Police Force said they had charged only 24 people with allegedly deliberately lighting bushfires since the beginning of the season.

Meanwhile, the Victorian Premier Daniel Andrews told ABC Gippsland on Tuesday that none of the fires burning in the state had been confirmed to have been deliberately lit.

Dr Keller concedes that one of the biggest challenges in countering disinformation is that there is usually a "grain of truth" within it; in this case, that Australia does have an issue with people lighting fires deliberately.

But while arson does happen in Australia, scientists have been clear that the extreme fire season the country is experiencing is directly linked to climate change.

"Climate change is influencing the frequency and severity of dangerous bushfire conditions in Australia and other regions of the world, including through influencing temperature, environmental moisture, weather patterns and fuel conditions," the Bureau of Meteorology's website reads.

In a climate change study published 12 years ago, economist Ross Garnaut also warned "fire seasons will start earlier, end slightly later, and generally be more intense" and that this new behaviour would be observable by 2020.

While reiterating that arson is a serious issue and investigations were underway, global director of research at the International Centre for Journalists and co-author of the UN handbook of journalism and disinformation Julie Posetti said subscribing to the false narratives being spread on social media could have serious consequences.

"It would be another disaster piled on top of this one if people were persuaded by bad-faith actors to disbelieve the science and the evidence staring them in the face regarding climate change as a cause of unprecedented firestorms," she told SBS News.

"That would be a victory for disinformation, and an excuse to continue failing firestorm victims - current and future - when evidence-informed action to address climate change is what's urgently required."

Earlier this week, the government's consumer watchdog warned people donating to the bushfire recovery efforts to be vigilant after a number of reports of fake crowdfunding pages and scammers posing as charity workers or volunteer firefighters were reported.

"Do not donate via fundraising pages on platforms that do not verify the legitimacy of the fundraiser or that do not guarantee your money will be returned if the page is determined to be fraudulent," an Australian Competition and Consumer Commission spokesperson said.

In terms of what people can do to ensure they are not being tricked by misinformation, both Dr Keller and Dr Posetti agree that it comes down to identifying what sources are reputable and listening to them.

"If you are trying to escape a bushfire, it's fundamentally important that you're relying on accurate, trustworthy information sources like the NSW RFS or ABC Radio emergency broadcasts and their social media channels," Ms Posetti said.

"This is when discerning between reliable information sources and rumour or deceptive content can be a matter of life and death."

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
False arson claims spread on social media amid Australian bushfire crisis

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Suspicious Twitter accounts have been proactively pushing a false narrative about the role of arson in the Australian bushfire crisis, social media analysts have warned, including a number of high-profile US figures.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Bushfire at Hallidays Point in NSW © Martin Von Stoll

Statement from WWF-Australia on Australia's bushfire emergency

Statement from WWF-Australia CEO, Dermot O'Gorman

WWF-Australia is greatly saddened by the loss of life in the bushfire tragedy gripping Australia.

Our hearts go out to the families who have lost loved ones and the communities who have lost homes and possessions.

The fires have also been devastating for Australia's wildlife and wild places, as massive areas of native bushland, forests and parks have been scorched.

WWF-Australia estimates around 1,25 billion animals may have been killed directly or indirectly from fires that have burnt 8.4 million hectares across Australia (equivalent to the whole of country of Austria).

These figures have been calculated using methodology that estimates the impacts of land clearing on Australian wildlife and extrapolates upon the science of Prof Chris Dickman from The University of Sydney.

This heart-breaking loss includes thousands of precious koalas on the mid-north coast of NSW, along with other iconic species such as kangaroos, wallabies, gliders, potoroos, cockatoos and honeyeaters.

Many forests will take decades to recover and some species may have tipped over the brink of extinction. Until the fires subside, the full extent of damage will remain unknown.

WWF-Australia is appalled at the scale of destruction, but we are not surprised as the science has been warning us for a decade that this was coming.

Australia is a land of bushfires, but this season's unprecedented mega fires are not normal. Climate change does not cause bushfires, but it does make them much worse.

WWF-Australia is providing an immediate response to this bushfire crisis and ensuring there are long-term plans to restore what has been lost.

We are now partnering with wildlife rescue and care organisations in affected states and directing funds so they can respond at scale.

We will also produce and release a science-based assessment of wildlife losses and call for our government to conduct rapid threatened species assessments within fire-affected areas, with WWF directing funds to critical areas as capacity is secured.

Over the coming weeks we will deliver emergency response to WWF conservation field partners in fire-affected areas and provide advice to state governments calling for swift and effective interventions across wildlife response, nature protection and restoration.

And when the fires clear we will help restore homes for koalas and other wildlife through our Towards Two Billion Trees plan to save and grow two billion trees by 2030. This starts with planting the first 10,000 urgently needed trees in critical koala habitat.

WWF-Australia will also work to ensure the Federal Government's $2 billion national bushfire recovery fund supports the green reconstruction of regional areas devastated by these fires.

These fires are far from over and have the potential to be the biggest wildfire disaster in the past century.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Statement from WWF-Australia on Australia's bushfire emergency

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Bushfire at Hallidays Point in NSW © Martin Von Stoll Statement from WWF-Australia on Australia's bushfire emergency Statement from WWF-Australia CEO, Dermot O'Gorman WWF-Australia is greatly saddened by the loss of life in the bushfire tragedy gripping Australia. Our hearts go out to the families who have lost loved ones and the communities who have lost homes and possessions.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
As her fundraiser for the Aussie bushfire crisis ticks over to $45 million after just five days, Celeste Barber has levelled criticism directly at multi-billionaire mining magnate Gina Rinehart in a fiery tweet.

"Hey Gina Rinehart where the hell are you and all your money?! If you're in Hawaii on a family holiday I'm going to flip a fucking table. #firecrisis," she tweeted on Tuesday evening.

As the chairperson of Hancock Prospecting, Gina had an estimated net worth in 2019 of $13.81 billion, according to The Australian Financial Review.

Not only is the Western Australian one of the country's richest people, Forbes considers her one of the richest women in the world.

At the time of publishing, it is unclear whether Gina or her company have pledged support. Yahoo Lifestyle had reached out to Hancock Prospecting for comment.

Earlier that same day, Celeste delivered a searing message to the wealthier members of the global community as a whole.

The Instagram star took to the platform on Tuesday to call out 'billionaires' for their apparent reluctance to donate during the current catastrophe compared with their response when France's Notre-Dame cathedral caught fire last year.

"Remember when Notre Dame burnt down - very sad, don't get me wrong, RIP Notre-Dame, historic building," she said in a video shared to her Stories.

"And something like billions of dollars were raised, by I think like a handful of people. Where are those people now?" she asked.

The mum-of-four went on to reveal that it was small donations from 'everyday' people - not the mega-rich - that had helped her fundraiser for the NSW Rural Fire Service reach the extraordinary amount it is today.

"Because I tell you what, everyday people are donating $10 here, $10 there, that's what's getting us to now $40 million," she said.

The actor/comedian then urged the billionaires to contribute what she called 'their version of $10' - "like a million Euro" - and in true Celeste humour, directed them to the swipe up link.

"Now listen, billionaires, 'sup! If you're not sure where to donate swipe up, I've made it easy for you or your assistant. Or your assistant's assistant," she dead-panned.

"We need assistance, please billionaires," she demanded, captioning the clip 'Get busy billionaires'.

As well as raising tens of millions of dollars for the state's hard-working firies, Celeste and her 'hot husband' Api Robin have also been on the ground volunteering at a local donations centre.

French landmark Notre-Dame de Paris was severely damaged when the roof caught fire during planned renovation on April 15, 2019. Three emergency workers sustained non-threatening injuries and no deaths occurred.

The following day, French President Emmanuel Macron declared that the medieval Catholic cathedral would be restored to its former glory and launched a fundraising campaign that attracted over €1 billion ($1.6 billion) within a week.

Significant donations were made by the country's 'wealthiest individuals and companies' including actor Salma Hayek's husband and luxury goods brand CEO François-Henri Pinault who pledged USD$113 million, according to TIME.

The outpouring of money attracted criticism, however, with many arguing that the immense sum would be better spent on France's homeless population, for example.

Recent reports from the ABC state that Notre-Dame officials have yet to see a 'single cent' from their generous and wealthy benefactors.

To date, bushfires burning across Australia since late 2019 have claimed the lives of 24 people, destroyed 2,500 homes and wiped out half a billion animals so far.
Got a story tip or just want to get in touch? Email us at

lifestyle.tips@verizonmedia.com

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Celeste Barber's savage swipe at billionaire Gina Rinehart

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
As her fundraiser for the Aussie bushfire crisis ticks over to $45 million after just five days, Celeste Barber has levelled criticism directly at multi-billionaire mining magnate Gina Rinehart in a fiery tweet. "Hey Gina Rinehart where the hell are you and all your money?!

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Australia is on fire.

The new decade has opened with a sobering and scary climate change reality. The state of New South Wales is in a designated state of emergency because of fires. At least 25 people have died as a result of those fires. Thousands of people have been displaced. Wildfires have destroyed more than 12 million acres of land across the Australian continent-an area almost seven times the size of the 2018 California wildfires (the worst in state history ). And in the time it took to write this article, the estimated number of animals killed has jumped from a conservative 480 million to a full .

Climate change, scientists say, is the driving force behind the historically horrific wildfire season.

"Australians need only wake up in the morning, turn on the television, read the newspaper or look out the window to see what is increasingly obvious to many - for Australia, dangerous climate change is already here," wrote Michael Mann, a climate scientist who teaches at Penn State University, in an article published by The Guardian . "It's simply a matter of how much worse we're willing to allow it to get. Australia is experiencing a climate emergency. It is literally burning."

In New South Wales alone, home of the country's largest city of Sydney, 136 fires are still burning and 69 are still uncontained. The year 2019 was also the and on record in Australian history.

"When the vegetation is just dry, it will burn," Crystal Kolden, a wildfire researcher at the University of Idaho, told The New York Times . "But when you add this extreme heat, it magnifies the effect allowing it to burn that much more intensely."

The situation is so dire that Prime Minister Scott Morrison, a climate change denier, has ordered 3,000 military reservists to help battle fires and evacuate stranded individuals along the New South Wales coast.

Yet Morrison, who brought a lump of coal to Parliament in 2017 while defending that industry's greenhouse gas footprint, has denied that the country's greenhouse gas emissions have (metaphorically) provided a spark for the fires. Australia is the world's top exporter of coal, the most intensive carbon emitting fossil fuel on the planet, and the third largest exporter of fossil fuels behind Russia and Saudi Arabia.

"The suggestion that in any way shape or form that Australia-accounting for 1.3 percent of the world's emissions-are impacting directly on specific fire events, whether it is here or anywhere else in the world, that doesn't bear up to credible scientific evidence," Morrison recently told Australian Broadcasting Corporation radio.

In the past year, Australian diplomats deployed an emissions accounting loophole regarding the United National global climate agreement. Instead of abiding by the Paris agreement from 2015, the country has chosen to use a carbon accounting loophole from the 1997 Kyoto protocol. The loophole, according to an article published by The Guardian, offers carbon credits to Australia that are eight times the current greenhouse emissions numbers for smaller Pacific island countries. It is the only country in the world to still use that accounting trick.

This is big! Australian Gov admitting it is going it alone in the world in trying to use 367 million tonnes of controversial Kyoto credits to cut its climate efforts. #auspol #climatestike
Will have to defend this loophole solo at #COP25
@p_hannam @adamlmorton @OBenPotter https://t.co/bOmH7Tv0gJ

- Richie Merzian (@RichieMerzian) October 21, 2019

Mann, the Penn State climate scientist, criticized Morrison's leadership on climate change.

"...[Prime Minister] Scott Morrison appears remarkably indifferent to the climate emergency Australia is suffering through, having chosen to vacation in Hawaii as Australians are left to contend with unprecedented heat and bushfires," he wrote. "Morrison has shown himself to be beholden to coal interests and his administration is considered to have conspired with a small number of petrostates to sabotage the recent UN climate conference in Madrid."

Scientists say Australia's fires could still burn for months to come, and peak fire season has yet to begin .

"The fires over the last three months are unprecedented in their timing and severity, started earlier in spring and covered a wider area across many parts of Australia," David Karoly, an Australian government climate scientist, told The Washington Post . "The normal peak fire season is later in summer and we are yet to have that."

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
25 People and 1 Billion Animals Are Dead from Australia's Bushfires

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Australia's climate-denying prime minister has already called in emergency responders to battle the wildfire crisis. But fire season hasn't peaked yet, and scientists are warning that the country's own policies are part of the feedback loop driving their unprecedented crisis.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Biosphere EcoSearch - Protecting ecosystems, climate, and people for global ecological sustainability

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Protecting ecosystems, climate, and people for global ecological sustainability

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Mr Davidson's comments come as Communications Minister Paul Fletcher urged the Australian public to maintain a "healthy scepticism" about bushfire-related information they read online.

"Sadly we have seen this bushfire emergency lead to significant amounts of disinformation online - and this is a reminder that disinformation online is a significant problem," Mr Fletcher said.

He urged people to rely on news from government bodies and trusted media outlets during emergencies.

Online posts featuring misleading images, reports about the scale of the fires and its cause have been spread on social media platforms. On Wednesday the hashtag #ArsonEmergency was trending nationally, with users using it to critique the link between bushfires and climate change, a topic which raised concerns with social media analysts.

Mr Fletcher said the government would be asking platforms like Facebook and Twitter to develop voluntary codes of conduct to address disinformation on their platforms, as outlined in its response to the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission's inquiry into the market power of the platforms announced late last year. He added any crackdown on fake news needed to be balanced with freedom of speech.

Labor communications spokeswoman Michelle Rowland called for "further action" by the government, saying the spread of misinformation about the bushfires needed to be taken into account.

Greens leader Richard Di Natale, whose party has been the subject of some of the questionable online material, suggested the posts might be part of a "coordinated, complex and sustained" campaign.

"These sustained attacks are intended to muddy the waters, confuse voters and divert attention from critical issues like climate change," he said, calling on the social media platforms to do more.

Chairman of the ACCC Rod Sims said scams relating to donations for bushfire victims were an example of why a code of conduct needed to be implemented.

Online misinformation has become a feature of this unprecedented bushfire season. Credit:Alex Ellinghausen

"The code of conduct we recommended was to have quite clear processes to take things down, and for those processes to be monitored by ACMA. This is an example of the sort of thing to be taken down," Mr Sims said.

"It's got to be clearly false as opposed to something someone believes is false and that is a tricky line. I don't think you can take it to the bushfires at this stage, it is too contested."

Twitter Australia said it cared "deeply" about the harmful effect spread of misinformation could cause, however, it does not have a policy which allows it to validate the accuracy of content. Twitter will only take action when disinformation specifically violates existing policies.

"Everyone has a role to play in ensuring misinformation doesn't spread on the internet, and we encourage people who use Twitter not to share information unless they can verify that it's true," a Twitter spokesman said.

Facebook Australia spokeswoman Antonia Sanda similarly said the social media was focused on removing content and accounts which violated policies.

"We work with independent third-party fact-checkers who review and rate the accuracy of stories, photos and videos. We also encourage people to report when they see false news," Ms Sanda said.

Mr Davidson said AAP was doing as much as it could with resources allocated, but argued a bigger team would be needed moving forward.

"In our territory, we would probably concentrate on trying to debunk people who are making claims about facts and a lot of those are around political statements or statements that 'so and so' has done something, which aren't true. Those are more important than some imagery," he said.

Australian Associated Press is jointly owned by Nine, publisher of this masthead, News Corp Australia and Seven West Media.

Monash University's Carlo Kopp, who has been researching fake news and propaganda since the 1990s, said once misleading information is disseminated, it can spread as quickly as the plague.

"Viral or bacterial epidemics are controlled by quarantining the source of the contagion, controlling the pests spreading the contagion, and immunising its potential victims," Dr Kopp said. "If we apply this approach to fake news, it suggests shutting down producers of fake news, preventing its spread via social and mass media, and immunising the public and media by teaching people to be sceptical and cautious, rather than gullible."

Zoe Samios is a media and telecommunications reporter at The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age.

Fergus Hunter is an education and communications reporter for The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Online fact-checkers confront deluge of bushfire misinformation

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Mr Davidson's comments come as Communications Minister Paul Fletcher urged the Australian public to maintain a "healthy scepticism" about bushfire-related information they read online. "Sadly we have seen this bushfire emergency lead to significant amounts of disinformation online - and this is a reminder that disinformation online is a significant problem," Mr Fletcher said.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Multinational investment bank Barclays is being pressured by shareholders to phase out the financing of fossil fuel firms and projects in an effort to tackle climate change.

A group of shareholders have filed a resolution requiring the bank, which is one of Europe's biggest funders of the fossil fuel sector, to implement plans to stop providing financial services to firms that are not in accordance with the Paris Climate Agreement. The agreement requires carbon emissions to reach net-zero by 2050.

The resolution is being spearheaded by investment lobby group ShareAction and has been backed by 11 institutional investors and 100 individual Barclays shareholders. The group says it's the first ever climate-related shareholder resolution issued to a European bank.

"Last year saw record high emissions, and this year is expected to follow suit. This is at a time when the science warns us the next decade is critical in bending the emissions curve and delivering a low-carbon transition. Such a transition will cost trillions. Banks have a vital role to play in financing it, and are at a huge risk if they don't," the ShareAction group said in a statement.

The group says banks pump billions of dollars into companies at the forefront of the climate crisis, and Barclays alone was responsible for $85 billion of such funding since 2015. ShareAction says that makes it the sixth largest backer of fossil fuels in the world and the worst "climate offender in Europe."

Barclays says it's "working to help tackle climate change, and we meet with ShareAction and other shareholders regularly to update them on our progress."

The move comes just days after outgoing Bank of England governor Mark Carney said the financial services industry has dragged its feet in cutting investment in fossil fuels.

The resolution is set to be voted on in May at Barclays' annual meeting, but it may not be needed if the institution rolls out measures beforehand to satisfy the investor's demands.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
'Worst climate offender in Europe:' Barclays pressured to phase out fossil fuel funding

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Multinational investment bank Barclays is being pressured by shareholders to phase out the financing of fossil fuel firms and projects in an effort to tackle climate change. A group of shareholders have filed a resolution requiring the bank, which is one of Europe's biggest funders of the fossil fuel sector, to implement plans to stop providing financial services to firms that are not in accordance with the Paris Climate Agreement.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
The Bureau of Meteorology's annual climate statement released today confirms 2019 was the nation's warmest and driest year on record. It's the first time since overlapping records began that Australia experienced both its lowest rainfall and highest temperatures in the same year.

The national rainfall total was 37mm, or 11.7%, below the 314.5 mm recorded in the previous driest year in 1902. The national average temperature was nearly 0.2°C above the previous warmest year in 2013.

Globally, 2019 is likely to be the second-warmest year, with global temperatures about 0.8 °C above the 1961-1990 average. It has been the warmest year without the influence of El Niño.

Across the year, Australia experienced many extreme events including flooding in Queensland and large hail in New South Wales. However, due to prolonged heat and drought, the year began and ended with fires burning across the Australian landscape.

Read more: 'This crisis has been unfolding for years': 4 photos of Australia from space, before and after the bushfires

Dean Lewins/AAP

The effect of the long dry

Bushfire activity for the 2018-19 season began in late November 2018, when fires burned along a 600km stretch of the central Queensland coast. Widespread fires later followed across Victoria and Tasmania throughout the summer.

Persistent drought and record temperatures were a major driver of the fire activity, and the context for 2019 lies in the past three years of drought.

The dry conditions steadily worsened over 2019, resulting in Australia's driest year on record, with area-average rainfall of just 277.6mm (the 1961-1990 average is 465.2 mm).

Almost the entire continent experienced rainfall in the lowest 10th percentile over the year.

Record low rainfall affected the central and southern inland regions of the continent and the north-eastern Murray-Darling Basin straddling the NSW and Queensland border. Many weather stations over central parts of Australia received less than 30mm of rainfall for the year.

Every capital city recorded below average annual rainfall. For the first time, national rainfall was below average in every month.

Record heat dominates the nation

2019 was Australia's warmest year on record, with the annual mean temperature 1.52°C above the 1961-1990 average, surpassing the previous record of 1.33°C above average in 2013.

January, February, March, April, July, October, November, and December were all amongst the ten warmest on record for Australian mean temperature for their respective months, with January and December exceeding their previous records by 0.98°C and 1.08°C respectively.

Maximum temperatures recorded an even larger departure from average of +2.09°C for the year. This is the first time the nation has seen an anomaly of more than 2 °C, and about half a degree warmer than the previous record in 2013.

The year brought the nation's six hottest days on record peaking at 41.9°C (December 18), the hottest week 40.5 °C (week ending December 24), hottest month 38.6 °C (December 2019), and hottest season 36.9 °C (summer 2018-19).

The highest temperature for the year was 49.9 °C at Nullarbor (a new national December record) on December 19 and the coldest temperature was -12.0°C at Perisher Valley on June 20.

Keith West in southeast South Australia recorded a maximum 49.2°C on December 20, while Dover in far southern Tasmania saw 40.1°C on March 2, the furthest south such high temperatures have been observed in Australia.

Accumulating fire danger over 2019

The combination of prolonged record heat and drought led to record fire weather over large areas throughout the year, with destructive bushfires affecting all states, and multiple states at once in the final week of the year.

Many fires were difficult to contain in regions where drought has been severe, such as northern NSW and southeast Queensland, or where below average rainfall has been persistent, such as southeast Australia.

The Forest Fire Danger Index, a measure of fire weather severity, accumulated over the month of December was the highest on record for that month, and the highest for any month when averaged over the whole of Australia.

Record-high daily index values for December were recorded at the very end of December around Adelaide and the Yorke Peninsula in South Australia, East Gippsland in Victoria and the Monaro in NSW. These regions which experienced significant fire activity.

Don't forget the floods

Amidst the dry, 2019 also included significant flooding across Queensland and the eastern Top End.

Heavy rain fell from January into early February, with damaging floods around Townsville and parts of the western Peninsula and Gulf Country.

Tropical cyclone Trevor brought further heavy rainfall in April in the eastern Northern Territory and Queensland. Floodwaters eventually reached Lake Eyre/Kati Thanda which, amidst severe local rainfall deficiencies in South Australia, experienced its most significant filling since 2010-11.

There was a notable absence of rainfall on Australia's snow fields during winter and spring which meant less snow melt. Snow cover was generous, particularly at higher elevations.

Dan Peled/AAP

What role did climate change play in 2019?

The climate each year reflects random variations in weather, slowly evolving natural climate drivers such as El Niño, and long-term trends through the influence of climate change.

A strong and long-lived positive Indian Ocean Dipole - another natural climate driver - affected Australia from May until the end of the year, and played a major role in suppressing rainfall and raising temperatures for much of the year.

Spring brought an unusual breakdown of the southern polar vortex which allowed westerly winds to affect mainland Australia. This reduced rainfall, raising temperature and contributing to the increased fire risk.

Climate change continues to cause long-term changes to Australia's climate. Conditions in 2019 were consistent with trends of declining rainfall in parts of the south, worsening fire seasons and rising temperatures.

Read more: Australia can expect far more fire catastrophes. A proper disaster plan is worth paying for

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Weather bureau says hottest, driest year on record led to extreme bushfire season

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
The Bureau of Meteorology's annual climate statement released today confirms 2019 was the nation's warmest and driest year on record. It's the first time since overlapping records began that Australia experienced both its lowest rainfall and highest temperatures in the same year.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
SYDNEY ― The number of wildlife estimated to have died in Australia's wildfire catastrophe has skyrocketed to more than 1 billion.

Chris Dickman, an ecologist at the University of Sydney, told HuffPost that his original estimate of 480 million animals was not only conservative, it was also exclusive to the state of New South Wales and excluded significant groups of wildlife for which they had no population data.

"The original figure ― the 480 million ― was based on mammals, birds and reptiles for which we do have densities, and that figure now is a little bit out of date. It's over 800 million given the extent of the fires now ― in New South Wales alone," he said.

"If 800 million sounds a lot, it's not all the animals in the firing line," he added.

That figure excluded animals including bats, frogs and invertebrates. With these numbers included, Dickman said, it was "without any doubt at all" that the losses exceeded 1 billion. "Over a billion would be a very conservative figure," he said.

An environmental scientist at the World Wildlife Fund Australia, Stuart Blanch, confirmed these estimates, reiterating that, given the expansion of the fires since the last calculations, 1 billion was a modest guess.

"It's our climate impact and our obsession with coal that is helping wage war on our own country," Blanch said.

Critically endangered species, including the southern corroboree frog and mountain pygmy-possum, could be wiped out as fires ravage crucial habitat in Victoria's Alpine National Park and New South Wales's neighboring Kosciuszko National Park.

Threatened species, such as the glossy black cockatoo, spotted-tail quoll and long-footed potoroo (both small marsupials), are also facing real risks of extinction in large parts of their range.

Dickman said bats, which have enormous populations along Australia's east coast and are critically dependent on forest habitat, undoubtedly also sustained enormous losses.

"The numbers would have to be huge. And they're very susceptible to the fires," he said.

Over the weekend, Australia Zoo's Bindi Irwin shared sad news from the zoo's wildlife hospital.

"In September, flying fox admissions to the hospital skyrocketed by over 750% due to drought conditions and lack of food," she wrote. "Flying foxes are now being drastically affected by wildfires and we're again seeing an influx of these beautiful animals from across the country."

Koalas have lost more than 30% of their key habitat in New South Wales and may have lost a third of their population in that region, federal environment minister Sussan Ley told the Australian Broadcasting Corp. last month. Dickman said it would be a "tough" recovery for the iconic Australian marsupial, dependent on the availability of their food ― eucalyptus tree leaves ― after the blazes sweep through.

The University of Sydney's animal loss estimates also exclude livestock, which federal agriculture minister Bridget McKenzie expects will exceed 100,000 animals. Harrowing footage of thousands of dead animals beside roads has appeared on social media as the national Defence Force rushed to dig mass graves to avoid a health emergency.

WARNING GRAPHIC. Sorry to share these images near Batlow, NSW. It's completely heartbreaking. Worst thing I've seen. Story must be told. #AustraliaFires pic.twitter.com/E7jrgcuUiv
- ABCcameramatt (@ABCcameramatt) January 5, 2020

A graphic compiled by agriculture market analysis company Mecardo found that 8.6 million head of sheep and 2.3 million cattle were in the areas of New South Wales and Victoria affected by bushfires.

It could take months before the exact number of livestock losses are known.

Officials will reportedly kill thousands of camels in the country's northwest as they wreak havoc on communities with their water consumption during the drought and fire emergencies.

The fires across Australia have killed 25 people, destroyed or damaged more than 2,000 homes and burned nearly 31,000 square miles ― an area about the size of Austria.

Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison announced Monday that the federal government would commit $2 billion over two years to a new national bushfire recovery agency, and more if needed.

Despite sustained criticism, the government has taken a firm stance on climate policy, with Morrison dismissing calls to curb the nation's substantial coal industry and repeatedly pushing the party line: "We're meeting and beating our targets."

The bushfires alone are believed to have spewed as much as two-thirds of the nation's annual carbon dioxide emissions, the Sydney Morning Herald reported.

Dickman said that the only remaining glimmer of hope amid this disaster was that the government may finally heed the advice of ecologists and environmental scientists, who he said had been frozen out of policymaking for over two decades.

"With any luck, now the government will actually come back and think, OK, we do need the science. We do need the modeling predictions. We do need really good, informed advice about what we should be doing."

WWF Australia's environmental scientists have outlined a three-part plan to address the crisis, Blanch told HuffPost.

"One, reduce the threat by ending logging or bulldozing of mature forests... Secondly, a 10 million hectare major reforestation agenda, and, thirdly, in the very short term, more support for wildlife carers and wildlife hospitals around the country."
You can support organizations saving wildlife by donating to WWF Australia, NSW-based animal rescue group Wildlife Information Rescue and Education Service (WIRES), Zoos Victoria's bushfire emergency wildlife fund, Australia Zoo's Wildlife Hospital, or Port Macquarie Koala Hospital.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Number Of Animals Feared Dead In Australia's Wildfires Soars To Over 1 Billion

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
SYDNEY ― The number of wildlife estimated to have died in Australia's wildfire catastrophe has skyrocketed to more than 1 billion. Chris Dickman, an ecologist at the University of Sydney, told HuffPost that his original estimate of 480 million animals was not only conservative, it was also exclusive to the state of New South Wales and excluded significant groups of wildlife for which they had no population data.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Home

News

No 'silver bullet': Another authority..

No 'silver bullet': Another authority talks down controlled burns as Australian fire prevention

Victoria's fire chief says dry lightning, not arson, is the main cause of the state's destructive bushfires.

And he has joined Premier Daniel Andrews and NSW authorities in talking down the impact of controlled burns in preventing future fires.

Many, including Prime Minister Scott Morrison and locals, have raised fuel reduction practices as a key factor in the East Gippsland blazes.

But experts and the government say controlled burns are increasingly hard to execute and ineffective, and the CFA's chief fire officer Steve Warrington today joined their chorus.

"We can't see the fuel reduction burns as a silver bullet," he told Heidi Murphy on 3AW.
Click PLAY to watch his full comments on controlled burns Click PLAY to hear the full interview
'Get rid of the bush, or live with it': Experts say controlled burning isn't sustainable

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
No 'silver bullet': Another authority talks down controlled burns as Australian fire prevention

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Home News No 'silver bullet': Another authority.. Victoria's fire chief says dry lightning, not arson, is the main cause of the state's destructive bushfires. And he has joined Premier Daniel Andrews and NSW authorities in talking down the impact of controlled burns in preventing future fires.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
"What we're finding now is that air pollution tends to affect all parts of the body," he said. "There is increasing evidence around air pollution and neurological conditions, for example Parkinson's disease and Alzheimer's."

For Australians suffering through the bushfire crisis that has seen Sydney and Melbourne blanketed in smoke and Canberra recording the worst air quality in the world, the implications remain unclear. But Professor Jalaludin said researchers expected to see some level of increased risk.

"For individual people, the impacts could be low, but if there is pre-existing heart disease, high blood pressure and high cholesterol, air pollution might just tip you over into having a heart attack," Professor Jalaludin said.

Bushfires produce particulate-matter pollution - airborne particles that are small enough to enter and damage human lung tissue.

One of a handful of studies of comparable disasters is a 10-year research project examining health impacts from the Hazelwood coal mine fire in Victoria's La Trobe Valley, which blanketed the neighbouring town of Morwell with similarly toxic smoke over the 45 days it burned in early 2014.

Parliament House in Canberra engulfed in bushfire smoke. Credit:AAP

Fay Johnston, an associate professor of public health at the University of Tasmania's Menzies Institute for Medical Research, said early findings showed measurable changes to the lungs of young children exposed to smoke from the Hazelwood fire either as infants, toddlers or in the womb.

"Unborn babies exposed to the Hazelwood smoke were more likely to experience coughs or colds two to four years after the fires," Associate Professor Johnston said.

"Kids exposed after they were born were more likely to be prescribed antibiotics in the year after the fire ... And if a woman was pregnant and got a lot of smoke at the time of the fire, we found these women had a higher risk of gestational diabetes."

She said it was difficult to draw conclusions from the results due to the small sample size - with the diabetes study based on about 700 de-identified medical records and about 300 children participating in the wider follow-up study - and potential increased medical vigilance after the fire.

A study of adults exposed to smoke from the Hazelwood fires also found increased rates of respiratory symptoms.

As the federal government's response to the bushfire crisis turns to the recovery effort, Health Minister Greg Hunt on Monday said the government had deployed eight Australian Medical Assistance Team specialists to provide "immediate clinical and logistical assistance" to people evacuated from bushfire-affected communities in Victoria.

Medics, doctors, nurses and psychologists are also being deployed to priority areas in NSW, including Batemans Bay, Moruya, Narooma and Bega Valley on the south coast.

Labor health spokesman Chris Bowen called on the Morrison government to "prioritise working with the states to develop a respiratory care plan to service those in bushfire-impacted areas", saying waiting lists to see a respiratory specialist in rural and regional areas were "simply too long".

Batemans Bay on New Year's Eve. Credit:Bloomberg

"The government should also listen to calls from Labor to add climate as a national health priority so we are prepared for the health impacts of disasters such as this," Mr Bowen said.

Dana is health and industrial relations reporter for The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Health impacts of bushfires won't be known for years, experts say

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
"What we're finding now is that air pollution tends to affect all parts of the body," he said. "There is increasing evidence around air pollution and neurological conditions, for example Parkinson's disease and Alzheimer's." For Australians suffering through the bushfire crisis that has seen Sydney and Melbourne blanketed in smoke and Canberra recording the worst air quality in the world, the implications remain unclear.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
The ongoing bushfires in eastern Australia have killed six people and destroyed more than 680 homes in New South Wales.

The scale of the area burned by the fires is immense, with at least 2.2m hectares burned or currently burning in NSW and Queensland.

Previously, we showed how quickly individual fires could spread by animating hotspot data, but we have since had many requests to show the overall scale of the fires.

While there is data available for burned areas generated from satellite imagery, it is not yet available for the current fires.

Instead, we have constructed a simple polygon that matches the area of each fire or fires selected, with the ability to overlay it on different capital cities for scale.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
How big are the fires burning on the east coast of Australia? Interactive map

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
The ongoing bushfires in eastern Australia have killed six people and destroyed more than 680 homes in New South Wales. The scale of the area burned by the fires is immense, with at least 2.2m hectares burned or currently burning in NSW and Queensland.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
An incredible bit of footage led the nightly news last weekend. A firetruck rounds the bend in the small country town of Nelligen, New South Wales. In the background we can see smouldering bushland. The truck slows as the firefighter behind the wheel spots the camera. He leans out of the cab of the truck and shouts.

"You from the media?" he jabs his finger at the camera, looking exhausted and furious.

"Tell the Prime Minister to go and get FUCKED from Nelligen."

Like the scale of the fires themselves, it may be difficult for an outsider to fully comprehend just how badly Prime Minister Scott Morrison and his Liberal government have responded to them. It's not just that they ignored warnings about this specific fire season, though they did; nor is it that they denied funding to the rural fire services when they begged for it, although they also did that. It's that from the moment the country started to burn, the people who run it have done everything in their power to ignore the true scope of the catastrophe - even as the blaze spread, the air grew thick with smoke and people began to die.

The reasons for this failure are worth exploring, because this is a problem not unique to Australia. The New York Times was one of the many international outlets who pointed to these fires in Australia as the new normal under climate change, and they're right about that. But far more alarmingly, Australia right now is a case study of how many governments and media will respond to these disasters, and just how bad that response will be.

If you were holding out hope that the cynical and partisan way we currently talk about climate change can't possibly hold in the face of actual climate disasters - when it's undeniably manifested itself in unbreathable air and burning homes and smoldering coastline - let go of that hope now. These fires have shown the status quo to be a stubborn thing, possibly an immovable one. It's rooted fast in place by money and politics and ideology.

People in New Zealand - which is as far from the east coast of Australia as the city of New York is from Haiti - can smell Australia burning.

So far, at least 24 lives have been lost and over 1,500 homes have been destroyed. Hundreds of millions of animals have died. An area of 10.7 million hectares has been burnt to the ground. The sheer scale of this area is difficult to convey, but if measuring things in Cubas is helpful to you, it's around one Cuba.

While the rural and regional areas burn, urban centres are being choked by the ash and smoke. The NSW Department of Health considers any Air Quality Index reading over 200 to be "hazardous" last week, instruments in the capital city of Canberra read 3,463. People in New Zealand - which is as far from the east coast of Australia as the city of New York is from Haiti - can smell Australia burning.

There's not enough space here to catalogue every failure from the Australian government in response to the above, but the whole fiasco can be broken down into two broad phases: smug calm then blind panic. The first phase lasted until very recently and is best typified by two weeks in early December. The fires had been raging for months, and Sydney had been breathing noxious smoke for weeks. On Dec. 10, around 20,000 people took to the streets in protest of the government's policies on climate change. Many of those 20,000 wore masks, not for anonymity, but because they couldn't breathe. But the line from the government was clear - now wasn't the time to talk about political matters, the PM's focus was on helping the regional and rural communities who were trying to save their houses.

Two days later, when he was asked by reporters if he would consider payments to the volunteer firefighters currently working unprecedented hours trying to save those houses, his answer was no. We haven't needed to pay them in the past, he explained, and we don't need to start now.

At some point in the days that followed, Morrison took his family to Hawaii for a holiday without telling the public. When people noticed he was missing on the 16th, his office flat out denied he was even there. Once they were forced to admit it, they said he wouldn't be cutting his holiday short. Again, the message was clear - these fires are sad, but it's nothing out of the ordinary.

On the 19th, Morrison agreed to come home. By this time two volunteer firefighters had already died and a mass protest had formed outside the Prime Minister's residence in Kirribilli. When he eventually confronted the media four days later, his tone was petulant. Would he rule out another holiday before the end of the year? That was only nine days away - a request reasonable to the point of redundancy. He refused.

On the surface, Morrison's response makes no sense. Even from a cynical standpoint, there seems to be very little to gain in playing down a national crisis of this sort. A strong response rallies the nation. It shows you're a leader who acts. Best of all, there's no partisan division to navigate. It is a political truism that everyone, regardless of how they vote, does not want the country to be on fire.

But this isn't about people, it's about ideology, and to accept the unprecedented scale of the fires and act accordingly is to accept that the climate is changing and something needs to be done. That's it. To me, this is the most striking aspect of the crisis - the debate about how best to douse a burning country has been seamlessly press-ganged into service in the ongoing culture war, all of which is amplified and buttressed by an increasingly demented right-wing media and an absurdly powerful fossil fuels lobby.

It's difficult to overstate the influence and vitriol of the conservative media in Australia. The Murdoch press enjoys one of the world's densest concentrations of media ownership here, and it is perhaps for this reason that we manage to produce, despite an international reputation for insouciance, some of the most monumentally cruel and rabid conservative policy in certain areas. Immigration is one of these areas - long before Americans were appalled at the government locking up refugee children, it was policy in Australia. Climate change is another. And if Australia is a sort of proving ground for just how much bile a populace can stomach from its media, it's worth watching how they've behaved during these fires.

In this crisis, the conservative media have defended Morrison against the most benign attacks even as the death toll climbed and the fury mounted; they have dismissed experts with decades of in-field experience as "activists"; they've spread thoroughly debunked theories about these fires being caused by environmentalists' opposition to preventative land clearing; even bushfire victims themselves were branded as "feral" when they had the temerity to heckle the PM during a photo opportunity in their fire-ravaged town of Cobargo. Possibly most telling of all, Craig Kelly, a member of Morrison's government, went on UK television to deny any link between the fires and climate change, where even a wet gollum like Piers Morgan couldn't let it pass. Back home, pundits on Sky News defended him, saying that they "didn't know anymore more across the science than [Kelly]."

Richo (on Craig Kelly): I don't know anyone who is more across the science
Alan Jones: Absolutely@slpng_giants_oz@MadFckingWitch pic.twitter.com/iCtZQ4P9V5
- Trevor Smith (@Smithwatcher) January 7, 2020

And so warnings weren't heeded, rescue efforts weren't funded, Hawaiian jaunts weren't called off, not through incompetence, but through sheer bloodymindedness. If you take one thing away from all of this, know that there are people in both the government and the media who would sooner see the country burn than confront the enormity of this problem.

All of this should terrify you, because the appalling response to this crisis in Australia isn't an aberration. Like the fires themselves, it's the product of years of adverse conditions - a dominant conservative press, a powerful fossil fuel lobby, a class of politicians in the thrall of both - that would look very familiar the world over.

No one is being told to calm down anymore. The smug reassurances have given way to blind panic as it comes apparent that not even the friendly media can shield the government from the rising ire of the public. But even as the army is called in to assist in the relief effort, even as Morrison agrees to pay volunteer firefighters, even as a two billion dollar recovery fund is pledged, the government refuses to alter its climate change policy.

There are two more months of summer left.

Ben Jenkins is a writer from Sydney, Australia. He writes mainly for television but occasionally for The Guardian and elsewhere, and has a semi-regular newsletter of short nonfiction and fiction.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
The people in power will let your country burn

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
An incredible bit of footage led the nightly news last weekend. A firetruck rounds the bend in the small country town of Nelligen, New South Wales. In the background we can see smouldering bushland. The truck slows as the firefighter behind the wheel spots the camera.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
The NSW Police Force has taken legal action against more than 180 people for bushfire-related offences since late last year.

Numerous bush and grass fires have impacted the state, claiming the lives of 18 people and destroying hundreds of millions of animals and livestock, thousands of homes, and more than 4.9 million hectares of land, so far this bushfire season.

Since Friday 8 November 2019, legal action - which ranges from cautions through to criminal charges - has been taken against 183 people - including 40 juveniles - for 205 bushfire-related offences.

Of note:

24 people have been charged over alleged deliberately-lit bushfires

53 people have had legal actions for allegedly failing to comply with a total fire ban, and

47 people have had legal actions for allegedly discarding a lighted cigarette or match on land.

Strike Force Tronto, comprised of detectives from the Financial Crimes Squad's Arson Unit, has been working closely with individual police area commands and police districts to provide specialist assistance and advice to police on the ground.

Investigations into the cause, origin and overall impact of fires are continuing and since the latest State of Emergency was declared last Thursday (2 January 2020), Strike Force Tronto has provided expertise to six Police Area Commands and eight Police Districts.

As inquiries continue, police are appealing to the community to provide footage and/or images from phones, dashcam, or other devices, that show any of the fires in their infancy, even if only from a distance.

Vision of images can be provided to local police stations or uploaded through Crime Stoppers online.

Penalties relating to bushfires under the NSW Crimes Act, the Rural Fires Act, and Rural Fires Regulation include:

- Damaging property with the intention of endangering life - up to 25 years imprisonment;
- Manslaughter - up to 25 years imprisonment;
- Starting a bushfire and being reckless as to its spread - up to 21 years imprisonment;
- Lighting a fire when a total fire ban is in place - up to 12 months imprisonment and/or a $5500 fine;
- Not putting out a fire that you have lit - up to 12 months imprisonment and/or a $5500 fine;
- Failing to comply with a bush fire hazard reduction notice - up to 12 months imprisonment and/or a $5500 fine;
- Light or use a tobacco product within 15metres of any stack of grain, hay corn, straw or any standing crop, dry grass or stubble field - up to a $5500 fine.

For more information on bushfires, monitor www.rfs.nsw.gov.au or call the Bush Fire Information Line on 1800 679 737.

Strike Force Tronto is the lead investigative body on suspicious or deliberately-lit bushfires which lead to death, serious injury or significant property loss.
Anyone with information that may assist Strike Force Tronto investigators is urged to contact Crime Stoppers: 1800 333 000 or https://nsw.crimestoppers.com.au. Information is treated in strict confidence. The public is reminded not to report crime via NSW Police social media pages.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
The NSW Police Force has taken legal action against more than 180 people for bushfire-related offences since late last year. Numerous bush and grass fires have impacted the state, claiming the lives of 18 people and destroying hundreds of millions of animals and livestock, thousands of homes, and more than 4.9 million hectares of land, so far this bushfire season.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
The satellite images are at once mesmerising and horrifying . A vast arc of fire blazes across the rim of the land; a cone of heat encases a whole continent; a veil of smoke shrouds the ocean and will soon circle the globe.

This season's catastrophic bush fires in Australia have scorched roughly 20 million acres of the country, killed at least 25 people and, according to some staggering estimates, led to the death of a billion animals.

Videos of singed kangaroos and parched koalas prompted an outpouring of grief on social media.

Download the new Indpendent Premium app

Sharing the full story, not just the headlines

Where the fires have been quelled, a blackened desolation remains, with thousands of homes lost and communities uprooted.

Survivors and eyewitnesses spoke of an apocalyptic orange sky and fierce winds that meant the roaring of the blaze was often heard before it was seen. So extreme were the conditions - the country experienced a record heat wave, on top of three years of devastating drought - that banks of clouds created by the flames have generated their own fire-driven thunderstorms.

There's a political storm brewing in Australia, as well.

In its epicentre is conservative prime minister Scott Morrison, who has been criticised not just for his initial lax handling of the crisis - he was on holiday in Hawaii as his nation burned - but, more importantly, for his broader resistance to political measures aimed at mitigating climate change.

Mr Morrison remains infamous for a stunt he pulled in 2017, when, as Australia's treasurer, he showed up to a session of Parliament brandishing a lump of coal and a message to his colleagues not to be "scared" by fossil fuels.

He came to power in 2018 in an internal party coup that unseated then-prime minister Malcolm Turnbull, whose attempts to set targets for the reduction of greenhouse gas emissions were resisted by rivals within the rightwing Liberal Party.

Under his watch, Australia stopped payments to the Green Climate Fund, the UN-backed mechanism that assists developing countries hit by climate disaster.

When the United Nations chaired a climate meeting in September in New York, Mr Morrison skipped the session. And in last month's major climate conference in Madrid, Morrison's government came under particular criticism for thwarting collective efforts to set meaningful emissions targets.

The international community has taken note. A report published last month by a group of think tanks that ranked 57 countries on their national climate action policies placed Australia sixth from bottom.

A separate study in November ranked Australia as third-worst among the Group of 20 nations. Though Australia just produces a bit more than 1 per cent of the world's greenhouse gas emissions, it's the world's biggest exporter of coal, whose use is a major factor in the warming of the planet.

The bush fires alone have emitted some 350 million tons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere since last September.

In the midst of the crisis, Mr Morrison has offered mostly a tepid brand of climate denial, pointing to a long history of seasonal fires.

"They are natural disasters," he told reporters last week. "They wreak this sort of havoc when they affect our country, and they have for a very long time."

In comments to Reuters on Tuesday, Angus Taylor, Mr Morrison's emissions reduction minister, waved away criticism over policy and said the "bush fires are a time when communities must unite, not divide".

Allies elsewhere cautioned against policies that could negatively impact Australian business. Right-wing media have also pointed to reports of dozens of arsonists contributing to the blaze as supposed evidence that the current catastrophe is not entirely linked to climate change.

The scientific consensus is pretty clear, though. In an interview for PBS with Christiane Amanpour, leading Australian climate scientist Tim Flannery said the current situation was "part of the long-term trajectory of climate change", and it's "conspired together with a windy season to produce these horrific fire conditions".

He pointed to 12 reports his own organisation produced warning the Australian government of the mounting effects of climate change on the country.

"Even without human help, Earth can be at times inhospitable," noted an editorial in The Washington Post.

"All the more reason to avoid priming the planet for worse - extreme weather, intense heat waves, more drought, more flooding, rising seas, species die-offs, disease proliferation, and more foreseeable and unforeseeable consequences. Australia, which has profited off fossil fuel extraction and use, has a responsibility to help lead the world."

But Mr Morrison and his ilk have long resisted meaningful climate action or schemes that would raise the cost of energy.

This current round of fires may force a new reckoning.

"Debate over climate - whether it is changing, and if so what to do about it - has become a culture wars issue over the years to the point where it has proved to be a useful political device for parties of the right," wrote columnist Tony Walker in the Sydney Morning Herald.

But, he noted, "the ground is shifting politically", with more and more Australians recognising the urgency of the environmental threat they face.
The Washington Post

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Australian PM continues to deny climate crisis despite 'apocalyptic wildfires'

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
The satellite images are at once mesmerising and horrifying . A vast arc of fire blazes across the rim of the land; a cone of heat encases a whole continent; a veil of smoke shrouds the ocean and will soon circle the globe.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.provider_name
IndigenousX Showcasing & Celebrating Indigenous Diversity

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
2019 - 20 will be remembered for the catastrophic bushfires that have raged up and down the coast of New South Wales, Queensland and Victoria.

During these fires I have spent much of my time volunteering on either a Fire Truck or Fire Boat with my local brigade, or as part of the Incident Management Team, filling the role of Fire Behaviour Analyst.

Also, as an Aboriginal Cultural Fire Practitioner, I see the role Aboriginal Cultural Burning can play in managing fire in NSW and the rest of Australia.

Over the past years I have been undertaking my Masters by Research looking at what my Wiradjuri Cultural Practice has to say about Cultural Burning. Aboriginal Language, Story and Cultural Practice provide the basis and inform our approaches Aboriginal Cultural Burning.

This is my story about how I have contributed to the firefighting effort in NSW. It is maybe not widely acknowledged or known but Aboriginal people have and continue to play vital roles in the firefighting effort. From Planning Officers, Firefighters on the trucks, and in other essential roles in bushfire planning and Caring for Country. Many Aboriginal people across NSW have been undertaking the Cultural Practice of Burning which has in the past provided the added benefit, on top of the cultural maintenance, of reducing the bushfire threat.

One of the most iconic images of this bushfire season has been the Rural Fire Service (RFS) Fire Spread Prediction Map. Known as the "Red Map", it indicates the areas that will potentially come under ember attack and the areas that will be possibly impacted by fire.

How this map is compiled is probably a mystery to most. The people behind this map are a special type of firefighter, the Fire Behaviour Analysts or FBANS. FBANS use special tools, experience, and intuition developed from years of firefighting to predict how the fire is going to behave and where it is going to go.

Bushfires are managed by a team of people called the Incident Management Team (IMT), they are usually based at a Fire Control Centre near to the fire ground. The team comprises specialists in various rolls including Planning who develop the "Incident Action Plan", the strategies to be used to fight the fire, Operations who are essentially the combat arm of the IMP, deploying resources and coordinating the firefighting both on the ground and in the air.

Other essential elements of the IMT include Logistics which manage the flow of resources to the firefighting effort including food, accommodation, equipment and other essential requirements to keep the massive force of firefighters in the field.

In large incidents like the current NSW Bushfire Crisis, these IMTs spread across NSW fire grounds are coordinated by the RFS State Operations Centre.

As one of the Fire Behaviour Analysts deployed during this bushfire crisis my role has been to prepare predictions of the likely progression of the fire under the prevailing conditions. The development of the prediction map requires an assessment of the weather for up to three days into the future with the help of the Bureau of Meteorology (BOM) staff based at the BOM Desk in RFS Head office.

This information gives an idea of the direction the fire may head at different times, and with other data derived from this information using Fire Prediction Models, FBANs look at the terrain, fuel loads, plus other things like vegetation structure and a great deal of experience and intuition to produce a predicted fire map.

The Red Map is a combination of all these predictions done by members of the FBAN team.

These maps provide a range of information to the IMT and allow them to plan the deployment of firefighters, decide on back burning strategies and plan warning and evacuations. While the predictions are in most cases accurate they do not usually take into consideration suppression activities out on the fire ground, so may not represent the final shape of the fire.

These Fire Prediction Maps provide an essential tool in the firefighting effort.

One of the most common questions I'm asked over the years is what the difference between hazard reduction and cultural burning?

Hazard reduction is a strategic tool that can be used to reduce the progression and intensity of a fire by reducing the level of fuel. Hazard reductions do not normally stop fire ignitions as they are generally deployed in a restricted way to strategically slow the progression of a fire to achieve objectives such as asset protection or strategically slow the progression of intense fire so that firefighters might have a change to contain it. The total area burnt each year is only a small percentage of the forested areas in NSW including National Parks Estate. This makes them ineffective in stopping ignitions but useful in the overall firefighting effort.

Hazard Reductions are implemented according to "prescription", objectives for the burn and a set of environmental and weather conditions under which the hazard reduction will be undertaken. These conditions under which the burn will be undertaken to meet the identified objectives is referred to as the "window" under which the weather and conditions are suitable for implementing the burn successfully, that is to meet the objectives set for the hazard reduction.

One of the issues with hazard reduction is that the "window" is not opening as frequently as it has in the past making undertaking hazard reduction more risky. Another growing risk with hazard reduction is that as the window opens, undertaking a lot of burns at once during the open window can raise smoke issues which can have as big an impact on people as the fire its self with increased hospitalisations and illness.

Another interesting but scary occurrence in this bushfire crisis is that hazard reductions have had little effect in stopping or even slowing the progression of the intense fires we have been experiencing. There are even occurrences where these fires have burnt back through areas only burnt a month before in the leaf fall from the previous fire.

Cultural Burning, in contrast, is firstly one of the ways Aboriginal people maintain their relationship with Country. Non-Aboriginal People sometimes struggle with understanding the basis of how Aboriginal Cultural Fire Practitioners implement an Aboriginal Cultural Burn; it does not generally look like a hazard reduction. This is because it is not.

An Aboriginal Cultural Burn is not guided by a prescription, it is guided by the close relationship that the Aboriginal Cultural Fire Practitioner has with Country and everything in it.

This relationship based approach allows for the involvement of other than human beings such as bettongs, bandicoots, lyrebirds, wombats and brush turkeys who all assist with Cultural burning by turning over and reducing the leaf litter.

Cultural Burning is a landscape wide approach unlike the more strategic hazard reduction approach. It provides for emergent outcomes for a range of species who contribute in various ways to the implementation, Cultural Burning in its true sense is not just people driven, this is important as it respects the relational requirements of Aboriginal Cultural Practice.

Aboriginal people in NSW already contribute to the firefighting and fire management effort driven by a strong desire to maintain their connection to Country and to Care for Country in a modern world. The Aboriginal Cultural Practice of Cultural Burning can and does assist in fire management, what is needed is support for Indigenous groups around NSW and Australia to reignite, maintain and expand Cultural Burning as a practice that has maintained the environment and plant and animal species, including humans, for thousands and thousands of years.

There are just no more excuses to justify not engaging with Aboriginal people on Cultural Burning.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Cultural Burning is about more than just hazard reduction |

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
2019 - 20 will be remembered for the catastrophic bushfires that have raged up and down the coast of New South Wales, Queensland and Victoria. During these fires I have spent much of my time volunteering on either a Fire Truck or Fire Boat with my local brigade, or as part of the Incident Management Team, filling the role of Fire Behaviour Analyst.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
The Professor and The Hack is a frank discussion about politics and current affairs from two of the most experienced and trusted sources in the country.

Network 10's Hugh Riminton and Peter Van Onselen discuss what is happening in Australian politics and get to the bottom of what is really going on.

A 10 Speaks podcast.

The Professor and The Hack is a frank discussion about politics and current affairs from two of the most experienced and trusted sources in the country.

Network 10's Hugh Riminton and Peter Van Onselen discuss what is happening in Australian politics and get to the bottom of what is really going on.

A 10 Speaks podcast.

Informed and relevant content

Really enjoy this podcast as a supplement to some of the other auspol commentary podcasts. Good personalities with balanced views (when I don't agree with a position, they are still well reasoned and clear).

Minus one star for the ads being louder than the actual podcast. Get your levels even. There is no reason for this problem to occur in a podcast let alone on commercial television 😡

Does the Hack ever get to speak?

Look the Professor is hot and that voice is smooth as, but can't he let the Hack speak now and again? Poor Hugh. He's Michelle from Destiny's Child.

Five Canberra Bubbles

I stumbled across this podcast during the 2019 election campaign and have been hooked ever since. I'm so glad they kept it going after the election. Both Hugh and Peter bring a different point of view to what's happening in Canberra and sometimes challenge each other's view along with the listener. I give this podcast five Canberra bubbles out of five.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
‎The Professor and The Hack on Apple Podcasts

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
‎The Professor and The Hack is a frank discussion about politics and current affairs from two of the most experienced and trusted sources in the country. Network 10's Hugh Riminton and Peter Van Onselen discuss what is happening in Australian politics and get to the bottom of what is really going o...

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
A United Nations watchdog on poverty and human rights is the latest to call attention to the looming threat of a "climate apartheid." In a report presented to the Human Rights Council on Friday, U.N. special rapporteur Philip Alston writes that climate change is an "unconscionable assault on the poor."

He cites a World Bank estimate that climate change could push at least 120 million more people into poverty globally by 2030 unless immediate action is taken. This is backed up by a study from Stanford University published earlier this year, which found that the disparity in per capita income between the richest and poorest nations is roughly 25 percent larger now than it would be if human-caused climate change weren't at play.

"We risk a 'climate apartheid' scenario where the wealthy pay to escape overheating, hunger, and conflict while the rest of the world is left to suffer," Alston said in a statement. Global warming tends to exacerbate economic and racial inequities - an effect that's been described as a new form of 'apartheid' by the likes of Desmond Tutu, the South African Nobel Peace Prize laureate, for the past decade.

The recent U.N. report adds that global warming will have far-reaching effects on just about any humanitarian issue - housing, migration, and more. "Human rights might not survive the coming upheaval," the report concludes.

The U.N. Human Rights council appoints dozens of special rapporteurs to serve as independent watchdogs. They investigate human rights abuses and report back to the council on specific issues. Alston is one of several special rapporteurs who have focused on climate change in recent years.

Victoria Tauli Corpuz, the U.N. special rapporteur on the rights of indigenous peoples, wrote in a 2017 report, "Climate change not only poses a grave threat to indigenous peoples' natural resources and livelihoods, but also to their cultural identity and survival."

A 2015 report by Hilal Elver, the special rapporteur on the right to food, concluded that climate change threatens to leave an additional 600 million people vulnerable to malnutrition by 2080.

In the new report, Alston writes that climate change has long been on human rights defenders' radar, but is usually treated as an afterthought. He calls out international institutions for marginalizing climate change as a "niche issue."

Taking on the climate crisis needs to be an integral piece of all international rights groups' work, rather than a bullet point way down on a laundry list of issues, he contends. "As a full-blown crisis that threatens the human rights of vast numbers of people bears down," Alston said, "the usual piecemeal, issue-by-issue human rights methodology is woefully insufficient."

Sign up for our newsletter!

Never miss a beat! Sign up for The Beacon today. It's your daily dose of good news coupled with all the latest environmental coverage from Grist. Stop freakin' and sign up for The Beacon. You're gonna love it.

Sign up today!

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
U.N. report: 'Human rights might not survive' climate crisis

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
A United Nations watchdog on poverty and human rights is the latest to call attention to the looming threat of a "climate apartheid." In a report presented to the Human Rights Council on Friday, U.N. special rapporteur Philip Alston writes that climate change is an "unconscionable assault on the poor."

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
The wildfires raging along Australia's eastern coast have already pumped around 400 million metric tons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, further fueling the climate change that's already intensifying the nation's fires.

That's more than the total combined annual emissions of the 116 lowest-emitting countries, and nine times the amount produced during California's record-setting 2018 fire season. It also adds up to about three-quarters of Australia's otherwise flattening greenhouse-gas emissions in 2019.

And yet, 400 million tons isn't an unprecedented amount nationwide at this point of the year in Australia, where summer bush fires are common, the fire season has been growing longer, and the number of days of "very high fire danger" is increasing.

Wildfires emissions topped 600 million tons from September through early January during the brutal fire seasons of 2011 and 2012, according to the European Union's Copernicus Atmosphere Monitoring Service.

But emissions are way beyond typical levels in New South Wales, where this year's fires are concentrated. More than 5.2 million hectares (12.8 million acres) have burned across the southeastern state since July 1, according to a statement from the NSW Rural Fire Service.

Climate change doesn't spark wildfires. But rising temperatures and decreasing rainfall dries out trees, plants, and soil, converting them into fuel that can amplify fires when they do break out.

A 2018 report by Australia's national science agency and the Bureau of Meteorology concludes climate change has contributed to the nation's worsening fire conditions, noting that average temperatures have risen more than 1 ˚C.

In turn, these huge fires are fueling climate change. As trees and plants burn, they release the carbon stored in their trunks, leaves, branches, and roots. That creates a vicious feedback loop, as the very impacts of climate change further exacerbate it, complicating our ability to get ahead of the problem.

The fires have had devastating effects on the ground in Australia:

Sign up for The Download - your daily dose of what's up in emerging technology

"It's probably fairly well known that Australia's got the world's highest rate of extinction for mammals," Chris Dickman, a professor of terrestrial ecology, said in an interview with National Public Radio. "It's events like this that may well hasten the extinction process for a range of other species. So it's a very sad time."

The situation grew more dangerous in recent days, as hot and windy conditions returned. Two giant fires merged into a "megafire" straddling New South Wales and Victoria, and covering some 600,000 hectares (1.5 million acres).

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Australia's fires have pumped out more emissions than 100 nations combined

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
The wildfires raging along Australia's eastern coast have already pumped around 400 million metric tons of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, further fueling the climate change that's already intensifying the nation's fires. That's more than the total combined annual emissions of the 116 lowest-emitting countries, and nine times the amount produced during California's record-setting 2018 fire season.