THE Australian Broadcasting Corporation’s news online is running with the headline ‘Climate change rallies held around Australia, with calls for Coalition to keep carbon tax’. So many could-be inspiring photographs and could-be inspiring captions follow the headline that I could have been on Facebook. 
Indeed the ABC “news item” would tick most of the boxes for pure propaganda.
I’m filing some quotes from the “news item” here for posterity:
“There is no sceptic at the end of a fire hose.”
“Emergency workers played a significant role in warning about the dangers of unchecked global warming.”
“The Climate Council’s Tim Flannery told 30,000 people in Melboure that Australian must make their voices heard.”
“Greens deputy leader Adam Bandt evoked the memory of the 2009 Black Saturday bush fires, while firefighters spoke of their fears of increasingly hotter days.”
“Mr McNulty says scientists were clear that global warming would make extreme weather events more frequent and severe.”
Meanwhile I stayed at home reading Friedrich Nietzche, and note that he wrote:
“Whoever fights monsters should see to it that in the process he does not become a monster.”
Jennifer Marohasy BSc PhD has worked in industry and government. She is currently researching a novel technique for long-range weather forecasting funded by the B. Macfie Family Foundation.