Panem et circenses

ON WEATHERING THE STORM

Australia will suffer some of the worst impacts of climate change unless we cut emissions and adapt faster, a damning UN report says. Some of Australia’s natural systems are already irreversibly changed, the report says — naming extensive coral bleaching on the Great Barrier Reef, the loss of giant kelp forests in the country’s south-east, and the extinction of the Bramble Cay melomys, Guardian Australia reports. If we limit warming to 1.5C, children under 12 will live through four times the amount of natural disasters in their lifetime, The Conversation continues. This is chapter two of the IPCC’s latest major assessment — in April, the final part will tell us how to cut emissions.

It comes as a natural disaster of “unprecedented proportions” has smashed northern NSW, the SMH reports, as the dangerous Queensland weather system charges south. Around 16,000 were evacuated, while in Lismore the flood levels reached a staggering 14.4 metres. Premier Dominic Perrottet says the worst is yet to come, the Daily Mail reports — Sydney will be smashed by damaging winds and flooding over the next two days by the dangerous “rain bomb” heading along the east coast. So far, at least eight people are dead, SBS reports, and about 50,000 homes in Queensland remain without power, The Brisbane Times adds, as Queenslanders begin the cleanup. In Brisbane, a 500-tonne crane snapped its moorings and was carried off by the torrent yesterday, spurring a fast evacuation of riverside apartments, parks, and restaurants, and the closure of a six-lane bridge, The Australian ($) reports.

Meanwhile, a deadly snake has gone viral for letting two mice and a frog — prey in regular times — hitch a ride on its back during Queensland’s wild floods, news.com.au reports. The footage showed the snake allowing the animals to cling to it in a waterlogged rain tank. All four of them were rescued and survived, and one commenter joked “When times get tough Aussies help each other out”.

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FUELLING THE FIRE

Petrol prices will get worse, The New Daily reports, amid Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Australia’s average price surged to 180.6 cents per litre last week, about 17% higher than the 12-month average. MotorMouth data shows Melbourne hit 177.3cpl on Monday, Sydney reached 183.9cpl and Brisbane 178.3cpl, up 19 cents from December. It takes about two weeks for international oil prices to hit the bowsers, so it should get more expensive in March. Meanwhile, Dan Murphy’s and BWS have both removed Russian booze from their shelves, ABC reports, and federal investments (and our super!) is being withdrawn from Russian assets, AFR adds.

Ukraine and Russia have been talking overnight, but fighting has continued — Ukraine’s second-largest city, Kharkiv, was hit by rockets that killed “dozens”, according to officials. The biggest convoy of Russian armed forces is moving closer to Kyiv, the capital. Half a million Ukrainians have now left the country (the population is 44 million) according to the UN — it’s the biggest movement since the Balkan wars. Switzerland, known for its neutrality, actually froze Russian President Vladimir Putin’s assets overnight, as well as those of 367 others. The Olympic Committee says Russians should be banned from all sporting events worldwide. But Russia’s ambassador to the U.N. Vasily Nebenzya says they were never going to occupy Ukraine, just “de-militarise and de-genocide” it, and slammed the West for putting weapons in the hands of Ukraine. These are all overnight highlights from The New York Times’ live blog.

DEFAMATION CASE CONTINUES

Former elite soldier Ben Roberts-Smith’s defamation case took another turn yesterday when a SAS soldier known only as Person Four spoke to the court about the violent death of a man in an Afghan village in 2012, the SMH reports. The soldier’s version of events was the same as three Afghan witnesses who gave evidence in July last year. Roberts-Smith has always maintained that the villager thought to be named Ali Jan was a “spotter” for the Taliban, and so a legitimate target, but the witnesses say he was a farmer visiting the town from another village. Jan was allegedly killed during a raid by Australian special forces — Person Four told the court he allegedly saw Roberts-Smith kick the handcuffed Jan off a cliff before he was shot dead, ABC says.

It’s a crucial point because Roberts-Smith is suing The Age, the SMH and the Canberra Times over 2018 reports that alleged he committed war crimes — including murder — as well bullying and domestic violence, as Guardian Australia continues. The papers are pleading a defence of truth, but Roberts-Smith is denying any wrongdoing including the alleged unlawful killing of Jan. Person Four told the court yesterday he watched Jan hit a rock, and described his shock. Person Four remains in the witness box and is expected to face cross-examination today.

ON A LIGHTER NOTE

Rachel Reva became a mum about three years ago, but it wasn’t the best start. Rachel accidentally threw up on her baby the first time she held him because immediately after childbirth she was still “so full of drugs” — isn’t it supposed to be the other way round? She had been told her mothering instinct would kick in, but settling her baby boy and getting him to feed was tricky. Rachel was still at the hospital and feeling down about it — where were the colourful animated birds trilling about the room, the soft light falling on the baby in her arms who miraculously somehow sleeps from 9pm to 7am each night?

That’s when Rachel noticed a simple handwritten note next to his crib with the simple affirmation: “You are doing an amazing job Rach”. Years later she still keeps that note close, and sometimes she writes her own to other young mums. Sometimes we just need a reminder, not that we are actually doing amazing, but that we are struggling and still showing up each day, pulling our old tired bones from the bed to put the kettle on, living through a pandemic and a war and a changing climate but managing to find a smile each day anyway. And that is kind of amazing. Last week I ordered an Uber Eats delivery for dinner and there was a little note on it that read “You’re doing great. Have an awesome evening. Kody, your Uber guy”. I couldn’t contact him to say thanks — so I’m paying it forward.

If no one has told you lately, Worm reader, I’m telling you now: You’re doing an amazing job.

Wishing you a calm Tuesday.

SAY WHAT?

Eventually it was at the point of no return and we looked at each other and said — right, we’re swimming. There was a whole tyre under a tree and we hung onto it and kept going up the street.

Janelle Saffin

As the floodwaters poured into the town, the member for Lismore left her home to stay with a friend on higher ground — but like something out of a Hollywood action flick, the pair were forced to take a leap of faith into the floodwaters as they continued to rise. Saffin is working with her parliamentary colleagues to get food and medical supplies into the area.

CRIKEY RECAP

No, the Proud Boys aren’t going to Ukraine: how a small troll went viral

Cam Wilson

Feb 28, 2022

2

“These posts were flimsy trolls. Some contained images lifted from elsewhere on the internet (a video of a plane taking off posted from the account was lifted from a 2018 video from an airline YouTuber), others contained clearly fake images that had been altered (like a 2017 image from the Texas Military Force Museum photoshopped to feature a Proud Boy who had ‘arrived’ in Europe).

“Despite this, these claims were amplified by a number of Australian and international journalists (including from The New York Times), military commentators and other Twitter users with hundreds of thousands of followers.”

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Narrative of the weak liberal West being outfoxed by strong, smart Putin is being shown up for the myth that it is

Bernard Keane

Feb 28, 2022

37

Unlocked

“From the ABC’s Stan Grant — still all at sea in the history of Western liberalism — we heard that the West doesn’t understand how Putin is all about identity while we in the West have been obsessed with ‘pluralism and multiculturalism’ and ‘diversity’, riven by “a demographic, economic and cultural fault line that runs through the liberal pluralist West …

“Bizarrely, Nine newspapers today saw fit to publish a piece of appeasement propaganda from a right-wing commentator that somehow linked the invasion to low birth rates in the ‘post-everything West, where children are too often seen as a present cost, not a blessing for the future’.”

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Facebook approved five obviously fake Australian election ads. Can we trust them to police the poll?

Cam Wilson

Feb 28, 2022

15

Unlocked

“Staff from the Australian affiliate of global tech think tank Reset designed five graphics featuring election misinformation themes that were common in the 2020 US election and submitted them for approval for advertising on Facebook in the future.

“These advertisements included false claims that unvaccinated Australians won’t be allowed to vote, that major parties had been caught printing ballots, that voting would be electronic, and that the election would be cancelled due to COVID-19. They were scheduled to run several months in the future to avoid any chance that Facebook users would be misinformed.”

READ ALL ABOUT IT

Four stories you may have missed amid Russia-Ukraine war (Al Jazeera)

Climate change is harming the planet faster than we can adapt, UN warns (The New York Times)

Which countries are sending military aid to Ukraine? (Al Jazeera)

Home at last! Tears as first flight lands in Christchurch from Oz without need for MIQ (Stuff)

Estée Lauder fires executive John Demsey (The Wall Street Journal) ($)

UK petrol prices pass the ‘grim milestone’ of 150p for the first time (The Guardian)

Russia faces financial meltdown as sanctions slam its economy (CNN)

Pfizer shot is far less effective in 5- to 11-year-olds than in older kids, new data show (The New York Times)

Russian airline Aeroflot violated Canadian airspace after ban, Transport Canada says (CBC)

THE COMMENTARIAT

‘We can’t wait to fix this’: Why the latest IPCC report should spur action — Greg Mullins and Lesley Hughes (The Age): “Australia is one of the most vulnerable developed countries in the world. Right now, rainfall and flood records are being obliterated in south-east Queensland and Northern NSW. These communities have hardly had time to recover from past disasters and again they’re facing profound heartbreak and loss. Every Australian remembers Black Summer, a bushfire disaster that the world’s media labelled the ‘canary in the coal mine’ as they watched the horror of climate change playing out in real time.

“For many, it was the moment when climate change switched from being a future hypothetical to ‘something that’s here, hurting us now’. This is happening under the watch of national governments around the world, including our own Morrison government. A government whose inaction is contributing to catastrophic levels of global warming. If we continue on our current trajectory, the extreme weather that drove the Black Summer fires will be average by 2040.”

Russia’s Putin gambles that the West is weak — Tony Abbott (The Wall Street Journal via The Australian) ($): “Yet the West’s bigger surrender has been economic and cultural. For at least 15 years, much of Western policy has been directed to reducing carbon-dioxide emissions … Then there’s globalisation, which has undoubtedly made the world richer but at the cost (as we’ve only lately come to realise) of strengthening the West’s competitors and exporting its manufacturing base …

“The worst contemporary folly is the constant undermining of Western civilisation, history and national virtues. Partly it is deliberate subversion by cultural Marxists, but mostly it’s the polite acquiescence of diffident and historically ignorant people conditioned not to give offence. These days the rights of men who want to be women routinely trump those of women who don’t want to face unfair competition in sport. Religious free speech is still OK, as long it’s not the Bible you’re quoting.”

HOLD THE FRONT PAGE

WHAT’S ON TODAY

Eora Nation Country (also known as Sydney)

• NSW Premier Dominic Perrottet and Prime Minister Scott Morrison will be at a Stand with Ukraine gathering at the Sydney Opera House.

• The 2021 Australian of the Year Grace Tame will reflect on the last year and the power of collective women’s voices at a UNSW talk.

Kaurna Country (also known as Adelaide)

• Minister for Health and Wellbeing Stephen Wade, Leader of the Opposition Peter Malinauskas, SA Greens’ Robert Simms, and SA Best’s Frank Pangallo will speak about aged care, ageism, digital inclusion, housing, health and more at the Adelaide Pavilion.