So, about 40,000 of us “marched” (I was more like strolling on a warm afternoon!) in Sydney; many, many more around the world.

The march was loosely organised around colour groups – Australia’s first nations peoples at the start, mostly in black, then a large contingent of Pacific Islanders (who are already feeling the effects) in red, many nations and many faiths in purple, youth and future generations in blue, and so on.

It was good fun, colourful, musical, good spirited. Lots of drummers, many colourful and imaginative costumes, an “ecopella” choir, a lone clarinetist, and many more.

So now we’ll see if the Paris talks become global actions, or not.

Reporting the news?

Most news outlets reported the march in Sydney, in Australia, and the world, fairly and as you’d expect – a few colourful photos, a few quotes from marchers and speakers at the pre-march rally, an estimation of the numbers.

But Sydney’s Telegraph, owned by Rupert Murdoch, was predictable (I actually did predict its response beforehand). It rarely provides genuine news these days, but is very selective about what it publishes, always puts a spin on what it does report (often very nasty in its headlines and digitally distorted photos), and has its favourite people and causes to hate. Climate change is one of its big hates, and columnists, cartoonists and letter writers are carefully selected to present the same misinformation. I predicted it would only mention the march briefly, and it would find a way to spin it to attack one of its favourite targets.

And so it proved. Yesterday there was the smallest possible news item, in a little box down the bottom corner of the page, and all it said was that the deputy leader of the opposition had criticised the Prime Minister at a rally in Sydney (the PM is one of the people the Telegraph are trying to undermine). That’s all.

But today there was a report of anarchists in Paris making a protest which resulted in clashes with the police, so of course this received a large spread because it suited the Telegraph‘s ideological purposes.

It is no wonder there is wavering support for the necessary action, when one of only three newspapers in Sydney gets so much misinformation and so little truth.