The heat is on

BLOWING HOT AIR

Rich people driving SUVs and eating lots of meat are making the climate crisis worse, according to leaked documents from the third instalment of the IPCC’s landmark report, as The Guardian reports. Monday’s first part delved into the physical science of climate change — the second part is going to be about the impacts, and the third part (which is slated to be officially published in March 2022) is about ways of reducing human influence on the climate. Also among its findings are that greenhouse gas emissions have to peak by 2025, and all coal and gas-fired power stations must close in the next 10 years. Part three was leaked by scientists in the Spanish branch of Scientist Rebellion (an offshoot of Extinction Rebellion).

In an incredible display of argumentative gymnastics, senator and climate sceptic Matt Canavan yesterday somehow made his government’s climate inaction about being tough in the face of China. “This is the reason why we shouldn’t sign up to more reductions because it would be a free kick to China right now. China has already stolen thousands of jobs, Australian jobs, through their inability to be trusted,” he said. It comes as Sicily, in Italy’s south, is believed to have recorded Europe’s highest ever temperature on Wednesday — 48.8C — as an anticyclone of wildfire referred to as Lucifer swept in, Al Jazeera reports.

[free_worm]

HARD ACT TO FOLLOW

Welcome to the worst club, ACT. The nation’s capital is in lockdown for the next seven days. Meanwhile in NSW, Newcastle has had their lockdown extended, and authorities tightened Sydney’s lockdown yesterday, targeting people congregating around the beach in the name of exercise and people who live alone nominating one person to be in their bubble. The problem, SMH says, is that there’s no official list of single bubble nominees — so it’s nearly impossible to police.

NSW’s Gladys Berejiklian is expected to be in the hot seat at today’s national cabinet. WA’s Mark McGowan pulled no punches yesterday, calling her approach “a threat to the entire country”, news.com.au reports. McGowan argued that, rather than her easing restrictions when NSW is 70% vaccinated, she should “crush and kill the virus” like “every other state has done”. There were 10 COVID cases recorded in Queensland yesterday while Victoria recorded 21 new cases.

It comes as an app that generates fake check in confirmations is being promoted on anti-lockdown Telegram groups and conspiracy websites. Guardian Australia says the app, which is hosted on Russian servers, was brought to the attention of the Australian Government two weeks ago but is still live. Basically the app asks for your name and location and generates a confirmation that is near-identical to those of the Victorian, Queensland and NSW Governments. “This simple workaround creates what looks like a COVID QR tick of approval, but it doesn’t send your private information to the government”, the website states. As opposed to logging that information on a mysterious app.

LIBERAL MINDED

There are new rules for emerging political parties in Australia — they must have 1500 members to register (triple the current amount of 500) and can’t be named something similar to existing parties, Guardian Australia says. ABC’s Antony Green, political oracle extraordinaire, says it could mean problems for the much-hyped Liberal Democrats. Green tweeted that the Lib Dems would need approval from the Liberal Party to register with the word “Liberal”. It comes just one week after one-term former Queensland LNP premier Campbell Newman, who quit the party last month, announced his plan to run as a Liberal Democrat.

Meanwhile, the leader of the New Liberals (head spinning yet?) reckons the change was a stab at them. The Liberal Party has already complained to the AEC saying the New Liberals’ name will create voter confusion, as SBS reports — but the changes won’t retroactively rule out anyone who is already registered.

ON A LIGHTER NOTE

Now the Olympic Games has wrapped for another few years, the athletes who toted home medals from Tokyo are surely enjoying a bit of a victory lap (lockdowns permitting). But spare a thought for Japan’s Miu Goto, whose medal was chomped upon. And not by an enthused dog or a teething baby — by the mayor of her hometown, as BBC reports. Mayor Takashi Kawamura was at an event with Goto when he was so overcome with excitement that he pulled down his mask and munched merrily on the medal. Perhaps it elicited memories of that gold coin chocolate that appears around Christmastime and always tastes vaguely of candle wax.

There was an outpouring of anger over the incident. The term “germ medal” started trending on Twitter in Japan. Silver medallist Yuki Ota tweeted that she couldn’t understand why Kawamura had taken a bite. Even Toyota weighed in, calling the chomp “extremely regrettable”. The city received a whopping 7000 complaints and the mayor, mortified, promised to get Goto another. But the IOC confirmed on Thursday that they would cover the cost of a new one instead. All that over a little munch of a medal.

Hope you stay out of trouble this weekend.

THEY REALLY SAID THAT?

You can’t deliver what we haven’t got and in Walgett there have been similar issues … There’s still a very substantial percentage, in fact by far the majority of Aboriginal people in that section of our state have not received the vaccine.

Brad Hazzard

NSW’s health minister said limited supplies were to blame for many Indigenous Australians remaining unvaccinated within the western region’s outbreak. It comes just two weeks after the government’s decision to redirect 40,000 Pfizer vaccines from rural NSW to inoculate Sydney’s year 12 students (the jabs were later returned after the federal government stepped in). Curiously, earlier this week there were plenty of Pfizer doses being given to eligible teachers of several elite Sydney private schools like Knox Grammar, Pymble Ladies College, and Barker College, some of which have set up their own internal vaccination clinics.

CRIKEY RECAP

The Nationals’ Kyoto lie is just another rort

Bernard Keane

Aug 12, 2021

46

“Perhaps Joyce and McKenzie thought they were still on the backbench. Or perhaps they missed Scott Morrison’s notorious memo to the public service: it is governments that come up with policies and plans, and it is the public service that implements them. Public servants are to keep their mouths shut about policy in the Morrison government. Yet here was the deputy prime minister complaining that no one had bothered to do the policy work for him.

“Joyce and the Nationals’ fallback position is that their experience with the Howard government’s endorsement of land clearing restrictions under the Kyoto Protocol — which allowed Australia to count reductions in land clearing by farmers that should have never been permitted in the first place — shows that the cost of climate action will be borne by farmers.”

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Anti-vaxxers are flooding Parliament with petitions about vaccines

Cam Wilson

Aug 12, 2021

17

“The top three petitions by number of signatures ever are Rudd’s media diversity petition, a request to call a climate emergency (bearing 400,000 signatures), and a plea to stop mandatory COVID-19 vaccinations — a favourite demand of anti-vaccine campaigners.

“More than 300,000 people signed the vaccination petition in the four weeks it was open. The reason provided for the petition is that “experimental vaccines being tested for Covid-19 Is [sic] going against the Nuremberg Code if made mandatory”. This refers to a misreading of research ethics forbidding the use of experimental treatments, not vaccines that have been proven safe and effective.”

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Two decades and billions of dollars later, what happened to Afghanistan’s military?

Lynne O'Donnell, Foreign Policy

Aug 12, 2021

83

“Yet in the past week, 10 provincial capitals have fallen in Afghanistan. According to security and regional sources, four of those capitals were effectively handed to the insurgents by national forces that refused to put up a fight. Experts are now predicting the national capital, Kabul, will come under attack as soon as next month.

“There should have been plenty of time for the US-funded political and military leadership to develop a strategy to defend the country. After all, international combat missions ended in 2014, after which much of the fighting was led by the Afghans. As the speed and ferocity of the Taliban advance attests, though, that didn’t happen … The reasons for the monumental failure, these experts say, stem from the government of Afghan President Ashraf Ghani.”

READ ALL ABOUT IT

See how vaccines can make the difference in Delta variant’s impact (The New York Times)

‘Historic’ day for women seeking abortion (The Australian) ($)

Taliban take 10th provincial capital in a week (BBC)

Census Data Show America’s White Population Shrank for First Time in US History (The Wall Street Journal)

China’s COVID-zero strategy could leave it isolated for years. That may be the way Beijing wants it (ABC)

US asks Taliban to spare its embassy in coming fight for Kabul (The New York Times)

Travel diary of a 17,000 year old woolly mammoth stored in its tusk (ABC)

Natalie Portman, Benjamin Millepied and kids leave Sydney COVID lockdown (Herald Sun) ($)

Israel preparing to resume settlement building in West Bank (The Guardian)

Messi PSG contract involves cryptocurrency payment (The New Daily)

Belarus Olympic defector Tsimanouskaya auctions medal on eBay (Al Jazeera)

THE COMMENTARIAT

If we don’t have a climate policy, the world will give us one — Waleed Aly (The Age): “Morrison can spruik “technology, not taxes” as his policy, but if this happens, we’ll be paying a carbon tax. It just means other countries will be getting the money. Little wonder Australia stamped its feet when the European Union announced a proposal to do exactly this. Protectionism!’ we shout, promising to take our case to the World Trade Organisation. But these tariffs aren’t designed to give local producers an advantage. They’re designed to level the playing field, so that companies in countries who are paying a carbon price can compete with overseas companies who aren’t.

“And smarter people than me have said that if the scheme targets particular products rather than particular countries, it will probably be legal. We can plead for other countries not to do this. But why would they listen to a country that won’t even adopt the same net zero target they are? That’s the abiding irony of this situation. While our own internally divided government is jostling over the costs of any climate policy, those costs might well be imposed by other nations, and soon.”

Overwhelm (n): ‘An unstoppable feeling of despair’ — Helen Trinca (The Australian) ($): “The internet reveals bloggers and others have written about ‘the overwhelm’ in recent years, but it surfaces now as a perfect word to describe the sense of a giant wave, not quite a tsunami, that knocks you off your feet, dumps you in the surf, and leaves you struggling to get upright. Over and over again … And for many of us, it’s about the fact that while every conversation is about COVID, there is somehow nothing left to say.

“… The overwhelm has more to do, too, with the uncertainty that has become a certain part of our lives. Every week may feel repetitive when you can’t break it up with restaurant meals, visits to friends, trips to the gym, picnics, or in-­person shopping therapy, but the lack of certainty about when it will end is destabilising and, well, overwhelming. We may not have realised how much our sense of self depends on planning next month or year or decade, but we know now how flat we feel when we can’t even book a week at the coast.”

HOLD THE FRONT PAGE

WHAT’S ON TODAY

Stoney Creek Nation Country (also known as Launceston)

• Science and Technology Minister Michael Ferguson and scientist Ben Arthur will launch National Science Week and the STEM Excellence Awards at Launceston College, with Triple J’s Dr Karl on the big screen.

Larrakia Country (also known as Darwin)

• NT Labor Senator Malarndirri McCarthy and author Richard Creswick launch his new book They Gave Us a TV Station to Play With: TV Comes to Darwin.

Yuggera Country (also known as Brisbane)

• Writer and former journalist Stephen Stockwell launches his new book, The Voyage and the Vision at Avid Reader.

Whadjuk Nyoongar Country (also known as Perth)

• Accelerator for Enterprising Women will hold their summit event partnership with Murdoch University, offering business tips, tricks, and inspirational guest speakers.