Photo of Wilkins Ice Shelf used 13 months after it was taken

In the same story in The Australian, it transpires that a photo of the Wilkins Ice Shelf, taken 13 months ago and used widely to spread alarm about climate change, has been used again last month to, er..., spread alarm about climate change.

British newspaper The Observer this month published prominently a story with a photograph of breaks in the Wilkins shelf.

"A huge ice shelf in the Antarctic is in the last stages of collapse and could break up within days in the latest sign of how global warming is thought to be changing the face of the planet," the story began.

In March last year, US news agency msn published the same photograph with a similar story that began: "A vast ice shelf hanging on by a thin strip looks to be the next chunk to break off from the Antarctic Peninsula, the latest sign of global warming's impact on Earth's southernmost continent." The photograph was published by numerous other outlets, including The Australian.

A spokeswoman for the British Antarctic Survey said the photograph in both stories was taken in March last year.

Nationals Senate leader and climate hero Barnaby Joyce is rightly hopping mad:

Nationals Senate leader Barnaby Joyce said the misuse of the photograph and the similar story lines 13 months apart reflected how the Wilkins ice shelf break-up was being recycled annually to fuel global warming concerns.

Senator Joyce said Mr Garrett's entry into the debate demonstrated how it was being hijacked by misinformation.

"We are on the edge of a possible pandemic that could cause untold misery and people are running around tilting at windmills," he said.

Read it here.