Become a Founding Friend of the Climate Council today!

Late edition: see below.

The Climate Commission was shut down and the Climate Council has opened for business.

The twitter account @climatecouncil had such a rush of followers it was automatically suspended!  Hopefully it will be back on Twitter soon.

From the Climate Council website:

1. What is the Climate Council?

The Climate Council is a non-profit independent organisation which aims to provide clear, independent advice to the Australian community. We are fiercely independent and apolitical.

2. Why is it important?

Information: information is the currency of democracy, and Australians deserve to have independent information on the state of our climate. Similarly, emergency services, health professionals, local government and journalists need accurate information about a changing climate.

Action: already this year has been one of the earliest starts to the Australian bushfire season. Last summer was the hottest on record, breaking over 120 extreme weather records. This is the critical decade for tackling climate change and reducing our emissions. But we can’t tackle climate change without a well-informed public – and that’s where we come in. Our expert reports help journalists and the public, with timely, expert, and independent information about climate change and its effects on our economy, environment, security, and health.

3. Who is involved?

The Councillors: All the former Climate Commissioners are supporting the initiative with or without Government funding. We’re volunteering our time to get this set up. (Sou: The Commissioners were Professor Tim Flannery, Mr Roger Beale AO, Mr Gerry Heuston, Professor Veena Sahajwalla and Professor Will Steffen.)

The Public: over the last week, we’ve been flooded with people offering encouragement, support, and even donations to keep us going. They come from all political persuasions – they have one thing in common: they know that independent information so important in our democracy.

The Experts: we’ve worked with Australia’s leading experts in emergency services, climate science, health, and defence. Many of them have spoken out in the last week, to call for us to keep going. They know that climate change has real implications now for our health, our security, our food, and for extreme weather. They value the information we provide and they want us to continue, and to continue working with us.

4. How will it make a difference?

We’ll continue to provide journalists and the public with authoritative independent reports, starting with next week’s international climate science update. This will be accompanied by a range of communications materials relevant to different audiences, videos, infographics, fact sheets, and other resources. Similarly we will continue to provide information to the community directly through speeches, community forums and briefings.

The info-graphic below accompanied the Climate Commission’s Angry Summer report illustrating the wide-ranging number of records that were broken over the last Australian summer. (Click to enlarge)

Australia's Angry Summer

5. How do you plan to cover operating costs?

We have already had some seed funding, and we’re seeking funding from the public. If you’d like to help please visit our donate page.

Become a founding friend of the Climate Council and donate to help get it going.

Late edition:

4:00 pm Tuesday 24 September 2013
The ABC seems to be doing its bit.  I logged onto the home page of their main website and this is what was displayed.  It is unusual for the ABC to give top prominence to climate matters. (Click image to enlarge.)

• The top headline of the moment is the new Climate Council.
• The third top headline was a link to the Media Watch segment from last night, exposing the lies about the IPCC which were being spread by radio shock jocks, newspapers and bloggers last week.