In today’s edition, the national director of the Australian Youth Climate Coalition, Ellen Sandell, writes about that funny furry elephant that’s been grabbing headlines this week. The climate change elephant. Get it? The elephant in the room:

It seems strange that we had to resort to this: dressing up a volunteer in a furry animal costume and literally jumping up and down to get noticed. It’s hardly a dignified way to get attention for such a serious issue.

Trust me, we did write many other serious press releases over the past month in an attempt to put climate back on the election agenda.  These serious press releases were full of alarming facts such as the fact that an ice island, four times the size of Manhattan, recently broke off from Greenland.

The fact that a new study shows that due to warmer water, 40% of phytoplankton (the base of the marine food chain) has died since 1950. The fact that the world has just come out of its warmest April, May and June on record.

Interestingly, none of these “serious” press releases got picked up by the media.  But the elephant did.

Funny, huh? Not really.

More like a fundamentally depressing statement about the issue of climate change and its great fall from the top of the priority lists of voters, the policy pledges of politicians and the front pages of newspapers to … a guy in an elephant suit.

All in under three years. Hilarious.

***

To quote Bernard Keane’s talking points in this morning’s early election edition:

“Are we there yet?”

Almost.

In the meantime, remember to read your early-morning election email very carefully, keep checking the Crikey Tracker, tweet #ausvotes and your postcode for the Twacker, and remain glued to our blogs Pollytics, Poll Bludger, The Stump and First Blog on the Moon.

Delight in the mediocrity of it all with Shane Maloney’s Marginalia, then put your money where your mouth is and get punting at our Election Tipping Comp, but not before doing your research on Poll Bludger’s Electorate Form Guide.

Move in step with the Interpretive Dance Bandicoot (now with added pole dancing), and relive the incisive analysis of Bernard Keane, Richard Farmer and Guy Rundle.

Study  our rolling Policy Watch before you cast your (informed) vote and for all your campaign fluff, there’s Leftovers.

It’s all pulled together on our Campaign Crikey page.