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Introduction

Disinformation is confusing! In order to respond we need to make sense of what is happening. The Commons Librarians have collated definitions, types of misinformation and disinformation, and common tactics used to spread them. You may like to use these materials to start conversations in your community, run training sessions, or inform planning. 

Definitions: Disinformation, Misinformation and Malinformation 

Wardle and Derakhshan provide the following definitions in their report “Information Disorder” (2017):

• Dis-information – Information that is false and deliberately created to harm a person, social group, organization or country. 
• Mis-information – Information that is false, but not created with the intention of causing harm. 
• Mal-information – Information that is based on reality, used to inflict harm on a person, organization or country (2017: 20).

Shout Out UK produced this short video to explain the differences:

A Catholic advocacy group spreads anti-trans ads using misleading data.

An update on my major project of the moment: launching my 30,000 page database of FOIA minutes. All of the minutes have been uploaded to my website, but generating an accessible and searchable database of these pdf files has taken significantly longer than expected. Expect the database to go live over the next two weeks. In the meantime, I’m covering some of the most explosive secrets these documents have to offer. There is so much juicy material in this treasure trove, so stay tuned!

This article was reposted, in slightly different form, from the Practice of Place blog, which focuses on the art and science of creating thriving public and shared places. It is shared here with permission. All images were provided by the author.

A group of Australia’s leading climate and environment organisations have signed an open letter, coordinated by the Australia Institute and published today in the Sydney Morning Herald, The Age, and The Canberra Times, calling on the federal government to tell Australians when it will stop approving new coal, oil and gas projects.

The open letter comes as world leaders convene this week at the 79th session of the UN General Assembly in New York, to accelerate efforts to prevent the most dangerous impacts of climate change.

To ensure Australia is doing its fair share for a safe climate, the open letter signatories are calling on the government to:

• Tell Australians and the rest of the world when Australia will stop approving new coal, oil, and gas projects.
• Stop offsets being used to justify new fossil fuel projects.
• End native forest logging.

“Even though the world’s climate scientists and the UN Secretary-General have all declared that new fossil fuels are incompatible with a safe climate future, the Australian government is stubbornly continuing to approve new coal, oil and gas projects” said Rod Campbell, Research Director at the Australia Institute.

“Just yesterday, the federal government approved three new coal mines out to the 2060s, which will produce over 1.3 billion tonnes of emissions.

“To approve huge new coal mines while world leaders meet to discuss the most dangerous impacts of climate change is absurd, but also consistent with Australia’s disappointing track record on the issue.

Henry Dyer, Michael Fleming, and Or Shachar

Trading activity in benchmark U.S. Treasury securities now concentrates on the last trading day of the month. Moreover, this stepped-up activity is associated with lower transaction costs, as shown by a smaller price impact of trades. We conjecture that increased turn-of-month portfolio rebalancing by passive investment funds that manage relative to fixed-income indices helps explain these patterns.

The approval of three new coal mines in the Hunter Valley, during a rapidly escalating climate crisis, is shocking given the federal government’s stated commitment to climate action, the Australia Institute has said.

Key Points:

• The federal government has approved three coal mines in the Hunter Valley
  • Whitehaven Coal’s Narrabri Underground Mine Stage 3 Extension Project
  • MACH Energy Mount Pleasant project
  • Glencore and Yancoal’s Ashton-Ravensworth Underground extension
• The lifetime carbon equivalent emissions from these three projects are expected to be 1.357 billion tonnes.
• This decision will extend the operating life of these coal projects into the 2060s.
• The Australia Institute’s Coal Mine Tracker shows that these are the fifth, sixth and seventh coal mine projects to be approved in this term of government.

“These approvals are inconsistent with Australia’s climate goals and reinforces our country’s reputation as one of the world’s major fossil fuel exporters,” said Rod Campbell, Research Director at the Australia Institute.

Introduction

Learn to identify disinformation and misinformation with games and courses collated by the Commons Library. Disinformation is often intentionally confusing! Having creative ways to learn can help you prepare for the real life battle around truth and meaning.

Prevention, not cure, may be a more effective way to combat misinformation. – Source

Games

Harmony Square

Don Watson joins Dr Emma Shortis on this episode of After America to discuss the cult-like support Donald Trump has manufactured, the “mad” AUKUS agreement, and his latest Quarterly Essay, ‘High Noon: Trump, Harris and America on the Brink’.

This discussion was recorded on Friday 20 September 2024 and things may have changed since recording.

Guest: Don Watson, author of ‘High Noon: Trump, Harris and America on the Brink’

Host: Emma Shortis, Senior Research for International & Security Affairs, the Australia Institute // @EmmaShortis

Show notes:

‘High Noon: Trump, Harris and America on the Brink’ by Don Watson, Quarterly Essay (September 2024)

American Journeys by Don Watson (January 2018)

‘Enemy Within: American Politics in the Time of Trump’ by Don Watson, Quarterly Essay (September 2016)

Theme music: Blue Dot Sessions

To mark PPE@10 this feature continues a series of posts to celebrate ten years of Progress in Political Economy (PPE) as a blog that has addressed the worldliness of critical political economy issues since 2014. 

I have always been fascinated by the place of mining in capitalist development. Growing up West Australian in the 2000s, I witnessed first-hand the incredible wealth generated next to the inequality, violence and environmental devastation of the last mining boom. I soon came to understand that studying mining sharpens our focus on a bigger tension at the heart of global capitalism – the ever-present tension between modernisation and destruction mediated by social conflict and resistance.

Supporters and detractors of mining both recognise the rapid economic, social and political change that mining brings can completely transform societies. If this is true in Australia, it is certainly so in Indonesia, where the research for my new book Undermining Resistance: The governance of participation by multinational mining corporations took place.

My research for the book was motivated by a simple question: How can people affected by mining shift the uneven distribution of impacts and benefits?

Michael Fleming

Standard metrics point to an improvement in Treasury market liquidity in 2024 to levels last seen before the start of the current monetary policy tightening cycle. Volatility has also trended down, consistent with the improved liquidity. While at least one market functioning metric has worsened in recent months, that measure is an indirect gauge of market liquidity and suggests a level of current functioning that is far better than at the peak seen during the global financial crisis (GFC).

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