That burning sensation

THE HEAT IS ON

Climate change inaction is leading us to “uncharted territory of destruction”, according to the United Nation’s latest report. Guardian Australia puts it this way: “The world’s chances of avoiding the worst ravages of climate breakdown are diminishing rapidly, as we enter ‘uncharted territory of destruction’ through our failure to cut greenhouse gas emissions.” It’s kind of bizarre to type sentences like that — call it the Don’t Look Up effect, I suppose — considering how excruciating it was to get to our newly minted 43% reduction in emissions target (well short of the 75% reduction we actually need). The target came 16 years after Al Gore’s An Inconvenient Truth and 33 years after Time declared our “endangered Earth” person of the year. Anyway, the UN report cited a third of Pakistan being underwater, the unprecedented heatwave in Europe, the unprecedented drought in China, the “megadrought” in the US and the near-famines in Africa as evidence that we are staring down climate change “tipping points”.

Get ready for a wet summer (officially): La Niña is back for the third consecutive year — and that means the risk of widespread flooding has just leapt up and mushrooms will continue to take over our cupboards. So why does La Niña make everything so soggy? The warmer waters in the north-east of the country team up with trade winds to put moisture into the atmosphere, ABC reports. The problem is that the ground is soaked already, our rivers are high and our dams are full, one expert told the broadcaster. It’s very unusual to have three La Niñas in a row — so why is this happening? “Climate change continues to influence Australian and global climate,” the Bureau of Meteorology states plainly. “Australia’s climate has warmed by around 1.47 degrees for the 1910-2020 period.” Brisbane residents will be given sandbags more than a month before the wet season usually begins to prepare for more flooding this year, Brisbane Times reports, after getting 80cm (!) of rain in February and March.

[free_worm]

VALE UNCLE JACK

Senior NT police were constantly covering up Zachary Rolfe’s unjustified use of force, according to allegations made by his former fiance who was also a NT police officer. Rolfe is a central part of a inquest into the death of Indigenous man Kumanjayi Walker, 19, who Rolfe fatally shot during an arrest in 2019. Rolfe was acquitted on all charges related to the shooting. Claudia Campagnaro told investigators Rolfe allegedly said he liked being a soldier because they could go out and kill people, The Australian ($) reports, while she also claimed a female colleague had scratched Rolfe’s face as “justification” for him punching Indigenous man Malcolm Ryder. Campagnaro also alleged Rolfe told her “he is ­always first to get his gun out”. Coroner Elisabeth Armitage said she’s not necessarily taking the comments as gospel, as the NT News continues, but they’re important to the inquiries. It comes after a bunch of text messages were downloaded from Rolfe’s phone that “reveal disturbing attitudes towards Aboriginal people”, the coroner’s counsel assisting said.

To other news now: revered Boon Wurrung, Dja Dja Wurrung, Woiwurrung and Yorta Yorta man Uncle Jack Charles has died peacefully aged 79 after an illustrious life of activism, music and the arts, the BBC reports. He was a survivor of the Stolen Generations, as Guardian Australia continues, but as an adult rose from a life of drug dependency and crime to wholly embrace theatre and acting, and star in a slew of movies — indeed Uncle Jack co-founded Australia’s first Indigenous-run theatre company, Nindethana, which means a “place for a corroboree”. He described himself as “a blackfella sans frontières, a blackfella without borders” in his portrayals of First Nations characters from all corners of the country in many films and productions. Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said Uncle Jack “uplifted our nation with his heart and his genius, creativity and passion”.

THE LONG WAIT

One in 10 people are walking back out of the emergency room without getting treatment in NSW, the SMH reports. There’s just no room, or else they feel like they’re waiting forever — in numbers, that’s 76,000 people going home without treatment between April and June. Yowza. It’s a 67.6% increase on 2019 figures, the paper adds. In addition, more than a quarter of patients are spending half an hour in corridors or parked outside waiting to enter emergency. It comes as Anthony Albanese will tell state and territory counterparts that the paid pandemic leave should stay in place while there’s mandatory isolation for COVID, The New Daily reports — it’s jointly state-federal funded and was due to expire on September 30.

Meanwhile doctors, nurses, physios and psychologists in WA’s health system might strike after rejecting another public sector wages offer from the McGowan government, The West ($) reports. The union wants a pay rise in line with the consumer price index in Perth (7.4%) but was offered only 3% with a one-off payment of $2500. The union called it an “insult”. Speaking of health — obesity-related cancer rates have nearly quadrupled in Australia over the past three and a half decades, Guardian Australia reports. Researchers found that the chance of developing these cancers (including colorectal, liver, gall bladder, pancreatic and more) was 2.95 times higher if you were born in the 1980s and 90s, compared with 1940.

ON A LIGHTER NOTE

Cockatoos are teaching each other how to evade our defences and our days are numbered. OK, I exaggerated that last bit, but they really are smartening up. A while back it was observed that cockatoos had developed the ability to open garbage bins — prying the lip upwards, hobbling around to the side and flicking the lid backwards. Now they’re learning the trick from each other and feasting on the goo inside together in some sort of avian garbage conspiracy, as The New York Times reports. “I’ve seen them eating chicken bones and ham sandwiches, but they really like bread,” one scientist said. Big deal, I hear you thinking. Bang a brick on there and call it a day. If only it was so easy. Scientists conducted a far-reaching study of 3000 garbage bins and found the cunning cockatoos just nudge the bricks off. Other bin protection ideas having varying levels of suburban success: a shoe, a rock, a rubber snake, and a pool noodle. See the garbos still have to be able to empty the bin — a fine line to walk.

But that’s when scientists observed something curious. Humans are like cockatoos, the boffins noted. We copy each other’s bin protection tactics too. So they shifted their attention. Of 172 residents surveyed, two-thirds of people said they learnt their bin protection trick by spying on what their neighbours did. The bricks, rubber snakes and noodles had their moment, “but cockies got too clever”, one respondent solemnly reported. So now we’re trying sticks. It’s a kind of human-bird innovations arms race, and needless to say the cockatoos are winning. But at least the scientists are excited. “It’s really wonderful to see data showing that likely this is what’s happening,” one said. Meanwhile, we residents are left to pick up the pieces (of garbage), outsmarted by a cheeky bird with a brain no bigger than a couple of sugar cubes. That’ll quell any cockiness we had about being the superior species.

Wishing you a little bit of cockatoo-like innovation today too.

SAY WHAT?

In every interaction I had with the queen, she was warm, insightful and engaging. She was a magnificent monarch, a stoic leader, and importantly just a lovely lady.

Ben Roberts-Smith

The former soldier will go to London to be in the official commemorations for Queen Elizabeth, despite battling the Nine newspapers in court over reports that portrayed him as an alleged war criminal and a murderer. The newspapers are relying on a defence of truth, and allege he was involved with the execution of a man in Afghanistan.

CRIKEY RECAP

Man shouts at Prince Andrew and gets arrested. What law was he breaking?

Charlie Lewis

Sep 13, 2022

18

“While many nations around the world have what’s called lèse-majesté laws — French for ‘to do wrong to majesty’ — as it turns out, the UK is not one. A law making it illegal to call for the abolition of the monarchy in the UK is still on the books, but we’re assured it’s not enforced any more. In Scotland, a lèse-majesté law was struck off in 2010 (apparently having not attracted a conviction since 1715).

“Separately, a monarch can’t have civil or criminal proceedings taken against them. (How far is Andrew down the line of succession again?) According to police, the Scottish man, identified as Rory, was ‘arrested in connection with a breach of the peace’. The woman being moved away from the House of Commons was simply making way ‘to facilitate vehicle access and egress through the gates’ and was not arrested.”

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Qantas is paying the price for undervaluing pilots and laying off engineers

Michael Sainsbury

Sep 13, 2022

29

“The engineers are stretched to breaking point after a pandemic redundancy program cut 35% of staff at Qantas alone. Similar cuts were made at Jetstar and both cohorts are struggling to keep the airline’s planes in the air, a significant part of the reason for dozens of flight cancellations each day across the group, engineers said.

“Meanwhile, Joyce received a 5% pay rise of $287,000 in the 2022 financial year, bringing his total pay package up to more than $5.5 million according to the company’s annual report released last Friday. Senior executives received similar rises, yet a spokesperson for the company has said the carrier cannot afford a better pay deal for engineers.”

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Russia’s losses in Ukraine are fuelling a new enemy of far-right ideologues

Alexey Kovalev, Foreign Policy

Sep 13, 2022

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“The best-known individual among the critics is Igor Girkin, known by his nom de guerre, Strelkov. He is a retired federal security service officer and a Russian Civil War reenactment aficionado who has proudly admitted that he ‘pulled the trigger of [the 2014 Donbas] war’ when he led a band of armed Russians across the Ukrainian border, seized the city of Slovyansk, and held it for some six weeks.

“By all accounts, Strelkov is a violent extremist — and quite possibly a war criminal for carrying out extrajudicial killings in the occupied Donbas in 2014. But he has become much-quoted in the Western press — and even profiled — as a critic of Putin’s war strategy since April, when he openly said Russia’s retreat from the Kyiv suburbs and parts of north-eastern Ukraine had made a Russian defeat inevitable.”

READ ALL ABOUT IT

Putin calls for calm as Azerbaijan and Armenia engage in deadliest clashes since 2020 (National Post)

[Lindsey] Graham proposes 15-week abortion ban, seeking to unite Republicans (The New York Times)

Climate impacts headed to ‘uncharted territories of destruction’, UN chief warns (CBC)

Ukraine war: we’ve retaken 6000 sq km from Russia, says Zelenskyy (BBC)

Fears of more flooding as Pakistan death toll crosses 1400 (Al Jazeera)

Jean-Luc Godard, French cinema legend, dies age 91 (CNN)

US incomes were flat last year, census figures show (The Wall Street Journal) ($)

THE COMMENTARIAT

Evidence suggests Wikipedia is accurate and reliable. When are we going to start taking it seriously? — Liam Mannix (The Age): “What interests me about all this is: it’s not something we should expect. Wikipedia is free. Its editors are volunteers. There is no expertise or academic qualifications required. We are told again and again that we can’t trust it because anyone could be writing it. It should be the worst place on the internet. Yet published evidence suggests it is reasonably reliable – at least as reliable as its competitor the Encyclopedia Britannica. Still Wikipedia remains a knowledge pariah. Journalists and academics can’t use it as a reference. Nor can students, though they can use Britannica …

“Wikipedia may be humanity’s best effort at collecting all our knowledge in one place. It has more than 6.5 million articles and is now 90 times larger than the full 120-volume Britannica. Scientists have actually done a lot of work looking at how accurate Wikipedia is across all sorts of topics. Wikipedia is acknowledged as the best source of information online for knee arthroscopes, for example. Its cancer information is as accurate and in-depth as a database maintained by experts. Its nephrology information is comprehensive and fairly reliable. Its drug information is accurate and comprehensive, even when compared to textbooks. Its political coverage is accurate. It’s a highly-complete and accurate resource on musculoskeletal anatomy.”

HOLD THE FRONT PAGE

WHAT’S ON TODAY

Online

• Former chief scientist Alan Finkel will speak about Australia’s aspiration to become a renewable energy powerhouse in a webinar hosted by the Australian Academy of Technological Sciences and Engineering’s ACT division.

Ngunnawal Country (also known as Canberra)

• Chair of the board of Tesla Inc, operating partner of Blackbird Ventures, and chair of the Technology Council of Australia Robyn Denholm will speak to the National Press Club.

• Minister for Industry and Science Ed Husic, Tyro and Xero’s David Thodey, the Australian Banking Association’s Anna Bligh, AFR’s Tom Burton, the Department of the Environment and Energy’s Kushla Munro, and Deloitte Asia Pacific’s Rob Hillard are among the speakers at The Australian Information Industry Association’s Tech and Sustainability Conference.

Yuggera Country (also known as Brisbane)

• Queensland Minister for Energy, Renewables and Hydrogen Mick de Brenni, Greens Senator Larissa Waters, and Queensland Assistant Minister for Hydrogen Development and the 50% Renewable Energy Target Lance McCallum will all speak at Smart Energy Queensland at the Royal International Convention Centre.

• Anti-fracking demonstrators will march to demand the Palaszczuk government rejects fracking exploration applications that cover areas of Lake Eyre Basin floodplains.

Eora Nation Country (also known as Sydney)

• Author Clive Hamilton will chat about his new book, Provocateur, at Glee Books.