Have you got climate zombies? We debunk the myths that refuse to die

Have you got climate zombies?

They might pop up in your social media feed, or manifest in comments under climate change news online. They might even appear at your Christmas lunch. And they're rife in some media outlets — they often come out after dark.

Climate denial has been funded by industry and lobby groups.

They're the cases against climate science that were buried years ago, yet somehow, refuse to die.

"It's the Milankovitch cycles", "CO2 is good for plants anyway", "What have the scientists ever done for us?"

You might have even been infected yourself. It's no surprise really, a multi-billion dollar campaign funded by the likes of Donors Trust, Donors Capital Fund, Koch-affiliated foundations, and parts of the fossil fuel industry has been animating these damned corpses since the '80s.

So consider this your own handy guide for killing the undead. Or at least a shield for deflecting their relentless pursuit of brains.

Good luck out there.

Read the ABC News story by Nick Kilvert - “Have you got climate zombies? We debunk the myths that refuse to die.”

Senate inquiry to grill Great Barrier Reef Foundation chairman over $444m grant

The chairman of the Great Barrier Reef Foundation and two more board members have agreed to appear at a Senate inquiry examining a $443.8m government grant to the not-for-profit.

The government has been under pressure to explain the process
 behind the awarding of the grant to the Great Barrier Reef Foundation.

John Schubert, who attended a meeting with the prime minister, Malcolm Turnbull, and the environment and energy minister, Josh Frydenberg, on 9 April that led to the awarding of the grant, will appear before the Senate committee for questioning at a second hearing on 18 September.

Stephen Fitzgerald, a former chairman of Goldman Sachs, and Grant King, president of the Business Council of Australia, have also agreed to give evidence.

“The committee is also seeking the attendance of another member of the board and agreed to consider summoning this member of the board if necessary,” committee chair Peter Whish-Wilson said on Wednesday.

Read the story from The Guardian by Lisa Cox - “Senate inquiry to grill Great Barrier Reef Foundation chairman over $444m grant.”

The changing disease climate

Virus and bacterial diseases don’t appear out of nowhere, and most require a host to stay active, reproduce and evolve. Insects and other animals play a key role in this - around 60 percent of infectious diseases that affect humans are zoonotic – which means they’re spread from animals to humans.

Australia has never experienced a large outbreak of foot-and-mouth disease.

But this is a pattern also true of 75 percent of new or emerging infectious diseases.

Tracking disease prevalence, spread and movement among populations of animals is the role of veterinary epidemiologists like Dr Simon Firestone, Professor Mark Stevenson and Dr Anke Wiethoelter at the University of Melbourne.

“A nice analogy would be that a traditional veterinarian’s client is a single animal; a veterinary epidemiologist’s client is the country and all the farms and animals in that ecosystem,” Professor Stevenson says.

Read University of Melbourne Pursuit story - “The changing disease climate.”

"Cooking the books' as we cook the planet

U

nderstanding climate change can be really simple or incredible complex and so almost impenetrable.

And it is the latter upon which our climate denying Federal Government depends when it introduces policies to a largely uninformed public.

Today’s Melbourne Age says, “The Australian government is changing how it expresses climate change targets in way that could make it appear to the public as though it is cutting greenhouse gas emissions more rapidly than it is.”

The story - “What's in a target? Australia warned not to 'cook the books' on emissions cuts” – reports: “As bureaucrats in the Prime Minister's department work on a pledge Australia can take to a year-end global climate summit in Paris, it is understood they are canvassing shifting the year against which any cut is measured.”

“Australia's emissions were significantly higher in 2005 than 2000. By adopting the later year as a baseline, the government could announce a bigger target number without increasing what it is doing to reduce emissions into the atmosphere,” the Age reports.