EXTINGUISH THE AUTUMN REBELLION
We get that there was unusual summer weather, but attacking the city with bees is EXtreme
Note: this article is written for the purpose of the ATS1206 fact checking assignment and may contain deliberate falsehoods, misleading statements and imprecise content. It is not a genuine news article.
Hardworking Aussies are fed up with extremists. Last October we saw Extinction Rebellion protesters blocking Melbourne intersections which put on a strain on police resources (16,000 officers and 111 protestors arrested), stopped emergency services (45 demonstrators charged) and cost taxpayers hundreds of thousands of dollars (ABC News 13/10/19). Like police, we are over it with everyday Aussies asking, what’s the point? This April we can plan for an even greater sting from this radical group. Their plan is to release hives of bees at every Melbourne CBD intersection to cause panic and casualties. We should have listened to Kerri-Anne Kennerley last October when she said these terrorist morons should be used as speed bumps and deported (@10NewsFirst, 2019).
So let’s step back a bit and try and logically understand what these radical Extinction Rebellion protesters are up to.Their website claims that we are “facing an unprecedented global emergency. We are in a life and death situation of our our making (2020, The Truth, para.1).” Just a minute, we’ve had massive bushfires in 2009, 2006 and 2003. How is this unprecedented? Natural disasters create emergencies all the time - they are not our doing at all. They
are called natural for a reason. Even the State Government of Victoria’s Climate Ready Victoria report states that over the last 100 years air temperatures have risen due to the fuel from fossils burning in bushfires (2015, p. 2). And their projection of annual average temperature changes in 2030 are only up 0.09 degree (2015, p. 6). This is really not a lot - who wouldn’t like a slighter warmer temperature anyway? Even NASA’s blog says that the earth isn’t cooling and confirms this is a good thing (2019).
Extreme protesters trying to save some bees Picture: Rick Rycroft/AP
But the really catastrophic claim from these radicals comes in their website’s argument that, “many current life forms will be extinct by the end of this century (2020, The Emergency, para. 1).” This is no doubt where their concern for bees comes in. A loss of
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23 February 2022
some bees is really not an issue - many children will be grateful for not getting a bee sting - unless of course they are at a Melbourne intersection in April.
The use of science to justify a point of view is a common tactic for crackpots. As the Senator Jim Moran stated, “my views on climate change aren’t governed by
evidence” (2020, Twitter ABC News Breakfast #QandA). As Professor Peter Doherty of ANU reiterates, real climate scientists have a barrage of climate denialist information
“My views on climate change aren’t governed by evidence”
Senator Jim Moran
come across their desks every day. (2020, Twitter @ProfPCDoherty #QandA). This use of science is used by Extinction Rebellion to provide “warnings” (2020, The Truth, para. 10) including those of the Union of Concerned Scientists (1992). Really? We should believe a group of 17 trade unionists that we should curtail environmental destruction? Then there is the warning from a group of unidentified 184 scientists with the catastrophising title, “World Scientists’ Warning to Humanity: A Second Notice (2017)” They blame material consumption and population growth for an “imperilled biosphere” but contradict their view by stating that humans have stabilised the ozone layer (2017, p. 1026). If we turn to the Climate Change 2014 Synthesis Report : Summary for Policymakers from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) we can see some common sense prevailing when they show that CO2 emissions will not be greater than 1000 until 2100 (2014, p. 9).
The tactics of these radicals are not new to environmental politics. Libby Lester explains that activists attempt to spread their message through the media with their “weapons of choice... symbols, meanings and disturbing images” (Lester 2006, p. 53). Playing dress-ups in bee costumes or medieval Venetian outfits and releasing bees is certainly disturbing, but its hard to see how they will win fans by doing so. Traditionally, the news media provides the least expensive and best alternative for environmental causes to gain access to the mass media and they do
this through protests. (Lester 2006, p. 54) These radicals want to mimic the success of the Franklin River blockade back in the 1980s where 4000 protestors blockaded the wilderness area. That event, explains the Peace Review, was “characterised not just by the presence of violence but by adherence to, and promotion of, principles of violence.” (Varney 2007, p.386).
The media has a clear role to play in this issue. These new radicals should be silenced for as Lester and Hutchins (2009, p. 579) state, “if the exercise for the green groups is to win converts, they still have to do the hard work and get journalists to take pictures and to tell the story.” So don’t tell their story, don’t photograph it, and when they release the bees in April, don’t get stung.
Medieval and faceless.The typical image of protestors. Picture: Emilia Terzon/ ABC News
Purpose:The purpose of this assignment is to learn how to manage, evaluate, and interpret sources of information relevant to issues in global media. Students are invited to utilize strategic and interdisciplinary thinking to analyse media texts.
Task:Using the outline below as a guide, apply skills and concepts covered in our Unit to produce an 800-word Fact-Check. It should correct false or misleading facts, identify and analyse bias, and evaluate the overall reliability ofthe news report attached.
Your Fact-Check must include:
- Overview
- Judgement
- Sources consulted
- Verification and Corrections of the factual content.
- Identification and analysis of any instances of bias or misleading content
The Fact Check should employ an objective writing style.
A template for the presentation will be provided.