Ecological unequal exchange, or the zero-sum model, can help us understand many things about the world’s international trade, political order and environmental degradation. It can help put out the air on a few misleading claims about our so-called postmodern western societies and help people understand that Europe is at the top because of ecological imperialism and an ecologically unequal exchange in the world-system.

To fully understand the idea of ecological unequal exchange one must first understand how the stratification system in the world works. This global stratification system, which can also be known as the division of labor, ranks nations into three different categories:

1. The top category is called the core. The world’s wealthiest nations who have enjoyed centuries of social and economic progress at the expense of poorer nations are placed here. Examples of nations placed in the core could be USA, England, Japan and the EU.
2. The second category is called the semi-periphery. Nations placed here mostly acts as a “middleman” to the bigger and wealthier nations in the core. Semi-periphery nations could for example be China, India, Russia and Brazil.
3. The last category is called the periphery. Poor third-world countries, most of who are from Africa and Latin America are placed in this category. These nations are characterized by their enormous exports of cheap labor and natural resources to the core.

Periphery nations are exporting large quantities of low-value products, such as metals and timber, to core nations for consumption. But the core nations are on the other hand not exporting these low-value goods. Instead they are exporting more high-value products such as cars and other technological goods. Simply put, the raw commodities are exported from poor nations to the core market in the rich world where the final product can be worth many times more when it’s been refined. The exported goods from the periphery also involve bigger ecological degradation than exports from the core. This degradation can for example be soil erosion, deforestation, polluted air and the loss of nutrients but also in a higher intensity of energy wasted and CO2 produced. Exports from periphery nations also involve a much higher intensity in underpaid human labor. So besides an unequal ecological exchange there is also an unequal exchange of embodied labor.

The European Union is a large importer of oil, coal, gas, minerals, metals, biomass etc. If you add the weight of all the goods together the EU imports four times more than it actually exports. Compare that to Latin America which exports about six times more than it imports and you can clearly see the difference. Colombia in Latin America imports every year around 10 million tons but their exports are about 70 million tons. Research has also shown that the EU-15 region exports are valued, in terms of money, at 4 times more than its imports. For periphery nations in Africa and Latin America one ton of import from the EU-15 region is worth 10 times more than one ton of export from these periphery nations to the EU-15 core.

You can see this stratification system in a more local environment as well. Consider for example a city and the countryside or even more local: the downtown of the city and its surrounding suburbs. Here the core is the city and the downtown. The countryside and the suburbs are the periphery. This global stratification system is dynamic. Good examples of this are Australia and Ireland who both have been former British colonies but now have advanced into core nations. But the system is still very much static and the unequal structure is kept intact mostly because of domestic political unrest and high levels of social inequality in the periphery nations, worsening terms of trade and unstable product prices on the global market. Many periphery nations also struggle with the legacy of imperialism and its postcolonial political institutions.

The rich nations are maintaining this unequal world system with the help from political and market-based ways. And what might be more shocking, or not, is that they sometimes even do this with sponsored or direct military power from the core nation itself. For example: The core nations are enforcing strong patent and intellectual property right laws and agreements that give a disadvantage to the periphery nations development. Worsening terms of trade, which I mentioned before, are also keeping the prices down on natural resources making it easier and easier for the core nations to keep importing and consuming. This means that periphery nations need to export more and more of their low-value goods to be able to pay for the high-value imports from the core. The USA is now importing more than half of the oil it consumes from nations outside its borders. Most of those imports come from Latin America. Venezuela and Bolivia who are both oil rich nations have lately tried to stand up against the energy and political influence from the core nations. The democratically elected Venezuelan leader Hugo Chavez has increased his nation’s control of major oil and energy projects from 40% to 60% in recent years. Chavez has used this extra income to raise his people’s living standards. Similar things are happening in Bolivia where the President Evo Morales have nationalized the countries energy industry. This has helped give Morales an approval rating of 80% back home. But core nations such as the USA are not happy over this as it might threaten their increasing oil imports. So both Morales and Chavez have been criticized by the core for their “weak commitment to democracy”. To secure future oil imports USA is now using “force to reassert dominance” via “state terror and coercion” in Afghanistan and Iraq.

The nations in the core are, because of their overconsumption and production scale, the main greenhouse gas polluters. Nations in the periphery are also big polluters but they are, according to researchers, hindered to pursue a more efficient and environmental friendly approach. The reason for this is that they are strained by economic debts, lack of technological knowledge and an export dependency which is based on a limited range of production.

You often hear claims by people that the developed nations are moving into a more dematerializing, postconsumerist, postmodern or service-focused economy where they consume more services than actual materialistic products. Many people state that this is a “great environmental victory”. World Bank and WTO analysts claims that exports from developing nations are “continually being upgraded” and that these exports to the core nations are improving developing nations own economic growth and development. But research has shown that developed nations who have moved into this postmodern service-focused economy has not yet lowered emissions in any significant way. Models have also shown that developing countries that take part in the international trade emits more than other periphery nations that are not as actively involved in the trade. The developed world has basically been able to outsource its dirty industries and the worst ecological impacts of production to nations in the periphery.

References:

• Roberts, J.T. & Parks, B.C. (2006). “A Climate of Injustice: Global Inequality, North-South Politics, and Climate Policy”
• Hornborg, A., J.R. McNeill & J. Martinez-Alier, red. (2007).”Rethinking Environmental History: World-System History and Global Environmental Change”
• Tabb, William K. (2007). “Resource Wars”
• Davis, Mike (2004). “The View from Hubbert’s Peak”

Photo credit: andriux-uk

Top climate scientists in the top scientific journal Nature recently stated that we have exceeded crucial planetary boundaries beyond which we are at high risk of unacceptable environmental change. These and other top climate scientists and biologists are stating clearly that the atmospheric CO2 concentration must be urgently returned to 300-350 ppm for planetary safety. Unfortunately, World governments are ignoring the science and are committed to increasing CO2, evidently not understanding that there can be no negotiation with the laws of Physics and Chemistry.

An Australian husband and wife with homeopathic beliefs were recently jailed for the manslaughter of their horribly neglected child. Accountability must also apply to all people who are ignoring scientific advice and international law and are complicit in the carnage of US wars (9-11 million excess deaths in US wars, 1990-2009, including 4 million infants) and in the worsening climate genocide (that will kill 10 billion people, including 6 billion infants). This inescapable legal, business, political and electoral Accountability for war crimes and climate crimes is detailed in a Letter being transmitted to all Federal MPs in climate criminal Australia (a world leader in annual per capita greenhouse gas pollution) and indeed to everyone so that, unlike many Germans in 1945, they cannot say “we didn’t know”.

Recently some of the World’s top climate scientists in a peer-refereed paper in the top scientific journal Nature stated that atmospheric carbon dioxide concentration (CO2) should be reduced from the present circa 390 parts per million (ppm) “and should not exceed 350 parts per million” in order to prevent “unacceptable environmental change”. [1].

Similarly, a Working Party of the prestigious UK Royal Society recently stated that “The Earth’s atmospheric CO2 level must be returned to less than 350ppm to reverse this escalating ecological crisis and to 320ppm to ensure permanent planetary health”, a view consonant with that of other top climate scientists who warn that the atmospheric CO2 must be urgently reduced to circa 300 ppm to save the Arctic ice, the Biosphere and Humanity . [2, 3].

Unfortunately World governments, backed by popular and corporate greed, are approaching the December 2009 Copenhagen Climate Summit negotiations committed to INCREASING atmospheric CO2, in stark contravention of the advice from the World’s top climate scientists. The best First World offer is from EU countries committed to no more than a 2 degree C temperature rise (relative to 1990), a ceiling of 450 ppm CO2-e greenhouse gas (GHG as CO2 equivalent) and a decrease in GHG pollution of 2% per year. [4].

However there can be no negotiation with the Laws of Physics and Chemistry. Thus over 90% of scientists polled at the March 2009 University of Copenhagen Climate Change Conference believed that 2 degrees C above 1990 was inevitable; the GHG concentration is already 475 ppm CO2-e (of which about 390 ppm is CO2); and top climate scientists from the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research, University of Manchester, have recently estimated that an annual 6-8% decrease in GHG pollution is required to stabilize atmospheric CO2-e at the present level. [4-6].

Both the Biosphere and Humanity are already under acute threat. Australian medical science Nobel Laureate Professor Peter Doherty has said “We are in real danger”. The present species extinction rate is 100-1,000 times the normal rate. 16 million people die avoidably each year from deprivation, this carnage including about 9.5 million under-5 year old infants and increasingly being impacted by man-made climate change. [7, 8]

Top UK climate scientist Dr James Lovelock FRS has estimated that 1 billion people or fewer will survive this century due to insufficiently addressed, man-made climate change. This translates (from UN Population Division projections) to a First World-imposed climate genocide that is predicted to kill 10 billion non-Europeans this century, this carnage including 6 billion under-5 year old infants, 3 billion Muslims (a Muslim Holocaust 500 times greater than the WW2 Jewish Holocaust or the “forgotten” WW2 Bengali Holocaust), 2 billion Indians, 1.4 billion non-Arab Africans, 0.6 billion Arabs, 0.5 billion Bengalis, 0.3 billion Pakistanis and 0.3 billion Bangladeshis. [9].

Recently an Australian mother and her husband with homeopathic beliefs were sentenced to lengthy prison terms for the manslaughter of their child through failure to seek expert medical help in a timely fashion for a treatable condition. [10].

If lengthy imprisonment is the fit punishment for the manslaughter of ONE innocent child by no doubt loving but misguided parents, what then for the deliberate, knowing, and hence intentional mass murder of MILLIONS through war crimes and BILLIONS through climate crimes, the mass murder of the 4 million under-5 year old infants (so far) through war criminal US Alliance-imposed war and deprivation (passive genocide) in the still-occupied Occupied Palestinian, Iraqi and Afghan Territories and the mass murder of the 6 billion under-5 year old infants who will perish in the 21st century, First world-imposed climate genocide of 10 billion non-Europeans?

Articles 55 and 56 of the Geneva Convention relative to the Protection of Civilian Persons in Time of War unequivocally state that an Occupier must provide life-sustaining food and medical services to its conquered Subjects “to the fullest extent of the means available to it”. [11].

However UN Population Division and UNICEF data inform us that post-invasion excess deaths in the Occupied Palestinian, Iraqi and Afghan Territories total 0.2 million, 0.6 million and 2.3 million, respectively, and the annual under-5 infants deaths (90% avoidable) are 4,000, 41,000 and 338,000, respectively. Under-5 year infant deaths in Iraq under Sanctions (1990-2003) totalled 1.2 million. [12, 13].

A fundamental cause of this horrendous mass infant mortality is revealed by the World Health Organization (WHO) – what the Catholic Church has described as the Gaza Concentration Camp has been under blockade by war criminal Occupier Israel for 3 years and the annual total per capita medical expenditure permitted by the war criminal Occupiers in Occupied Iraq and Occupied Afghanistan totals $29 and $124, respectively, as compared to $6,714 and $3,122 in Occupier US and Occupier Australia, respectively. [14].

The UN Genocide Convention insists on prosecution of all people – whether governments or individuals – complicit in the crime of genocide, which it defines in Article 2 thus: “In the present Convention, genocide means any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnic, racial or religious group, as such: a) Killing members of the group; b) Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group; c) Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part; d) Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group; e) Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.” [15].

Such prosecution under the UN Genocide Convention for deliberate, intentional, knowing Climate Genocide (or for deliberate, knowing, intentional war crimes in the ongoing Palestinian, Genocide, Iraq Genocide and Afghan Genocide) applies to anyone complicit in genocide “whether they be constitutionally responsible rulers, public officials or private individuals” i.e. to elected governments, public servants and to the individual voters who elect them or fund them. [15].

Those who knowingly ignore, deny or obfuscate the horrendous harm from war and man-made climate change become accessories after the fact of war crimes and climate genocide, respectively.

While the US does not recognize the authority of the International Criminal Court (ICC), US Federal Law makes it a capital offence to commit war crimes causing death in violating International Conventions such as the Geneva Convention and the UN Genocide Convention to which the US is a signatory. [16].

By way of example to illustrate the dimension of the ongoing US Alliance atrocities, the current “annual death rate” is 7% for Occupied Afghan under-5 year old infants under the US Alliance – as compared to that of 4% (for Poles under the Nazis in WW2), 5% (French Jews under the Nazis and the Nazi-collaborator Vichy régime in WW2), 13% (Australian POWs of the Japanese in WW2) and 19% (Jews in Nazi-occupied Europe). [17].

The members of the US Alliance involved in the ongoing Iraqi Genocide and Afghan Genocide and the supporters of the US-backed occupation, colonization and ethnic cleansing of Palestine (the Palestinian Genocide) are known to all – these are variously the US, the UK, the EU, Canada, Israel, NATO and Australia. [8].

But who are the worst offenders in the worsening climate genocide – something that the World’s island nations diplomatically but incorrectly euphemize as “benign genocide”? [18].

“Annual per capita greenhouse gas (GHG) pollution” in units of “tonnes CO2-equivalent per person per year” is presently 0.9 (Bangladesh), 0.9 (Pakistan), 2.2 (India), 3.1 (Developing World), 5.5 (China), 6.7 (the World), 11 (Europe), 16 (Developed World), 23 (Canada), 27 (the US) and 30 (Australia; or 54 if Australia’s huge Exported CO2 pollution is included). [9, 19, 20].

Australia is evidently a world leader in annual per capita GHG pollution – its present value is 54 tonnes CO2-e per person per year (with its huge coal and LNG exports included), 60 times that of Bangladesh, an impoverished country acutely threatened by man-made global warming.

But who are the worst offenders in the worsening climate genocide – something that the World’s island nations diplomatically but incorrectly euphemize as “benign genocide”? [18].

“Annual per capita greenhouse gas (GHG) pollution” in units of “tonnes CO2-equivalent per person per year” is presently 0.9 (Bangladesh), 0.9 (Pakistan), 2.2 (India), 3.1 (Developing World), 5.5 (China), 6.7 (the World), 11 (Europe), 16 (Developed World), 23 (Canada), 27 (the US) and 30 (Australia; or 54 if Australia’s huge Exported CO2 pollution is included). [9, 19, 20].

Australia is evidently a world leader in annual per capita GHG pollution – its present value is 54 tonnes CO2-e per person per year (with its huge coal and LNG exports included), 60 times that of Bangladesh, an impoverished country acutely threatened by man-made global warming.

What can decent people do about the ongoing Muslim Holocaust and the worsening Climate Genocide?

Peace is the only way but silence kills and silence is complicity. Decent folk must (1) inform everyone they can about these atrocities (we cannot walk by on the other side) and (2) make those responsible Accountable for war crimes and climate crimes.

Accountability at a global as well as an intra-national level can be secured via Sanctions, Boycotts, Green Tariffs, Reparations Demands and International Criminal Court (ICC) prosecutions applied to People, Public Servants, Politicians, Collectives, Corporations and Countries complicit in war crimes and climate crimes.

However within democracies every voter becomes complicit in the crimes of elected representatives. Thus in climate criminal, war criminal Australia those voting for the pro-war, pro-coal, war criminal and climate criminal Liberal Party-National Party Coalition Opposition or the pro-war, pro-coal, war criminal and climate criminal Labor Party Government (collectively known as the Lib-Labs) become complicit in war crimes and climate crimes. The Australian Lib-Labs currently have about 90% support from an electorate remorselessly propagandized by the Murdoch Empire-dominated media with the pro-environment, pro-peace, anti-coal and anti-war Australian Greens only having about 10% electoral support.

Indeed older people (older voters) have 3 selfish reasons for taking action over man-made global warming. Older people are peculiarly threatened by the worsening climate emergency in three key areas that can be summarized by the “three Ds” of Devaluation (their pensions, superannuation, investments and family support will necessarily devalue in a non-sustainable carbon economy but GDP growth is assured in a renewable and non-carbon economy); Death (older people are frailer and more susceptible to heat stress through a weakened brain signalling system); and Descendants (their descendants will hate them for what they have done to the planet). [21].

However within democracies every voter becomes complicit in the crimes of elected representatives. Thus in climate criminal, war criminal Australia those voting for the pro-war, pro-coal, war criminal and climate criminal Liberal Party-National Party Coalition Opposition or the pro-war, pro-coal, war criminal and climate criminal Labor Party Government (collectively known as the Lib-Labs) become complicit in war crimes and climate crimes. The Australian Lib-Labs currently have about 90% support from an electorate remorselessly propagandized by the Murdoch Empire-dominated media with the pro-environment, pro-peace, anti-coal and anti-war Australian Greens only having about 10% electoral support.

Decent people must stand up to be counted for the sake of their children, their grandchildren, Humanity and the Biosphere. A powerful message for individual and collective action and empowerment is summarized as the ABC of action over war crimes and climate crimes: A, (hold those responsible for war crimes and climate crimes Accountable); B, wear a Badge (e.g. saying “PEACE” or “300 ppm”); and C, have a readily distributable Credo saying, for example: “Stop war, invasion, occupation, war crimes and genocide – stop killing children” and “For a safe and sustainable planet for all peoples and all species we must urgently reduce the atmospheric CO2 concentration to 300 ppm”. [3, 22, 23, 24].

Photo credit: jurvetson

Top scientists and economists tell us that Carbon Trading (Emissions Trading Scheme, ETS) proposals are dangerous, fraudulent Ponzi schemes and that genuine, non-manipulatable, equitable Carbon Taxes are urgently required to help stop planet-threatening carbon burning. [1].

16 million people die avoidably each year from deprivation (including 9.5 million infants) – and this global avoidable mortality holocaust is increasingly climate change-impacted. However, estimates from Dr James Lovelock FRS indicate that about 10 billion people will die this century due to unaddressed global warming – this including 6 billion infants, 3 billion Muslims, 2 billion Indians and 0.3 billion Bangladeshis. [2, 3].

Excess deaths (avoidable deaths) associated with the Bush (now Obama) wars and occupations in 1990-2009 (Occupied Haiti, Occupied Somalia, Occupied Palestine, Occupied Syria, Occupied Iraq, Occupied Diego Garcia, Occupied Afghanistan and US robot drone-bombed NW Pakistan) now total 9-11 million. [3, 4, 5, 6, 7].

It can be estimated from UN Population Division data that there are a total of 655,000 non-violent avoidable deaths from deprivation per year and 1,795 each day in the various Occupied countries of the American Empire. Thus in the first 6 months of Obama’s rule as President of the United States of America there have been 328,000 avoidable deaths from deprivation in the Overseas American Empire – this figure of about 0.3 million avoidable deaths in the Overseas American Empire under Obama does not include violent deaths from military actions of the US or its surrogates (as a notorious US general once declared: “We don’t do body counts’). [5, 7].

UNICEF data informs that 4,000 under-5 year old Occupied Palestinian infants die each year, about 90% avoidably and due to war criminal Occupier non-provision of life-sustaining food and medical requisites unequivocally demanded of Occupiers by the Geneva Convention i.e. US-backed, Obama-backed, racist Zionist (RZ)-run Apartheid Israel deliberately murders 3,600 Occupied Palestinian under-5 year old infants each year. [8].

Of course if Obama were genuine he would insist on Carbon Taxes rather than ETS fraud; he would stop all wars, all occupations and the Iraqi Genocide and Afghan Genocide; and would insist that US-funded Apartheid Israel cease the illegal, war criminal abuse of Occupied Palestinians in what the Catholic Church describes as the Gaza Concentration Camp – but of course pro-Zionist, pro-war, pro-coal, Establishment-beholden Barack Hussein Obama (BHO) simply won’t.

[1]. Gideon Polya, “Experts: Carbon Tax needed and NOT Cap-and-Trade Emission Trading Scheme (ETS)”, Yarra Valley Climate Action Group, 2009.
[2]. Gideon Polya, “Body Count. Global avoidable mortality since 1950”, G.M. Polya, Melbourne, 2007.
[3].Gideon Polya, “Climate Disruption, Climate Emergency, Climate Genocide & Penultimate Bengali Holocaust through Sea Level Rise”.
[4]. Gideon Polya, “9-11 excuse for US global genocide. The real 9-11 atrocity – millions dead (9-11 million) in Bush wars (1990-2009)”.
[5]. UN Population Division: http://esa.un.org/unpp/ .
[6]. Gideon Polya, “Pro-Zionist Western genocide denial”.
[7]. Gideon Polya, “Hey, hey, USA, how many kids did you kill today? Answer: 1,000”.
[8]. UNICEF data on the Occupied Palestinian Territory.

This “business as usual” approach to the Climate Emergency by the Australian Government (and appallingly, supported by the Australian Conservation Foundation and the Australian Climate Institute) flies in the face of advice from top climate scientists – with many scientists saying that it is already too late to stop catastrophic climate change (e.g. see this recent UK Guardian report subtitled “Guardian poll reveals almost nine out of 10 climate experts do not believe current political efforts will keep warming below 2C” ; also see: http://copenhagenclimatecouncil.com/…/).

Climate Genocide has already begun in the non-European World in which 16 million people die avoidably every year from deprivation and deprivation-exacerbated disease. This Global Avoidable Mortality Holocaust is increasingly impacted by Anthropogenic Global Warming (AGW; man-made global warming) – there are already hundreds of thousands of Climate Refugees in Darfur (Sudan), India, Bangladesh, Myanmar and the Pacific, with far worse to come, especially for states that are drought-prone, mega-deltaic or which are small islands (see “Climate Disruption, Climate Emergency, Climate Genocide & Penultimate Bengali Holocaust through Sea Level Rise”).

In relation to already-commenced Climate Genocide, Australia is a disproportionate contributor to this man-made holocaust that is largely confined to the non-European World.

Australia is the world’s biggest coal exporter, the OECD’s worst per capita greenhouse gas (GHG) polluter and a remorseless world leader in annual per capita GHG pollution. “Annual per capita greenhouse gas (GHG) pollution” in units of “tonnes CO2-equivalent per person per year” (2005-2008 data) is 2.2 (India), 6.7 (the World), 11 (Europe), 27 (the US) and 30 (Australia; or 54 if Australia’s huge Exported CO2 pollution is included). Just as Australia has made contributions Palestinian Genocide tax deductible, so the latest Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS) of the extreme right wing, pro-coal, pro-war Rudd Labor Government provides massive, “business as usual” subsidies for GHG polluters (see “Pro-coal Australian Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS) devalues Australian lives, threatens Biosphere and ignores Science“).

Western Mainstream media and politicians (including those of climate criminal Australia) simply ignore the looming Climate Genocide – yet global avoidable deaths from deprivation and deprivation-exacerbated disease total 16 million already and are increasingly climate change-impacted, this figure being predicted to average 100 million avoidable deaths per year this century if the prediction of only 1 billion survivors this century by top UK climate scientist Professor James Lovelock FRS is realized (see Gaia Vince (2009), “One last chance to save mankind“, New Scientist, 23 January 2009 ; see also “Climate Disruption, Climate Emergency, Climate Genocide & Penultimate Bengali Holocaust through Sea Level Rise”).

The Western Mainstream media and politicians also turn a blind eye to the ongoing Palestinian Genocide, Iraqi Genocide and Afghan Genocide (post-invasion violent and non-violent excess deaths 0.3 million, 2.3 million and 3-4 million, respectively; refugees totalling 7 million, 6 million and 4 million, respectively; genocides as defined by Article 2 of the UN Genocide Convention).

There is nothing quite as racist as genocide, and racist White Australia with the support of both the Liberal-National Party Coalition Opposition and Labor Party Government (collectively known as the Lib-Labs) is intimately involved in all 4 genocides: it supports the ongoing Israeli Palestinian Genocide diplomatically, financially and legislatively (support for the Palestinian Genocide is actually TAX DEDUCTIBLE in racist White Australia) ; it has been actively involved militarily in the ongoing Iraqi Genocide since 1990 and involved financially (and corruptly) by subverting the pre-invasion UN Oil-for-Food Program at an estimated cost of over 20,000 Iraqi lives; it has been involved militarily in the Afghan Genocide, recently increasing its military commitment in response to a request from war criminal Obama by a massive 50% (see: http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/…/ ); and Australia leads the world in driving the steadily worsening Climate Genocide as outlined above.

A simple numerical confirmation of this racist Holocaust Denial and racist Genocide Denial in racist White Australia can be obtained by searching for the phrases using “Palestinian Genocide”, “Iraqi Genocide”, “Afghan Genocide” and “Climate Genocide” on Yahoo (yielding URLs totalling 103,000, 78,700, 16,500 and 16,100, respectively); on the Web-censoring Google (yielding URLs totalling 10,200, 12,500, 2,690 and 3,010, respectively); and on the taxpayer-funded Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) Search device (see ABC) – this yielding ZERO (0) results in all cases.

The Australian ABC is generally regarded as the most “liberal” of the Mainstream media of racist White Australia – and indeed is regarded as “left wing” by the hacks of the Murdoch and Fairfax media empires that dominate “news” reporting in holocaust-complicit and holocaust denying, “look the other way” Australia – the Land of Flies, Lies and Slies (spin-based untruths). It is not hard to imagine the awfulness of the other generally pro-coal and pro-war Australian Mainstream media in relation to holocaust commission, genocide commission, holocaust-ignoring and genocide-ignoring.

Peace is the only way but silence kills and silence is complicity. Decent people are obliged to inform others about these continuing atrocities.

People such as Bill McKibben are leading the way toward global commitment to reducing atmospheric CO2 concentration from the current 387 ppm to below 350 : “[NASA GISS director] Jim Hansen gave us the number we needed to work with. His team put out a paper saying quite unequivocally that 350 parts per million of CO2 is the max that we can have in the atmosphere, safely. We need to get below that, actually. It is a difficult number, obviously, because we have passed it. But at least it was a number, and something to work with, globally. Something to move these big international negotiations back far closer to science than they’ve been in the past. That’s what we set out to do “ (see “Bill McKibben on building a climate action movement”).

Bill McKibben’s organization 350.org has organized 24 October 2009 as an international day of climate action to demand this realistic and requisite target – please be part of this last ditch attempt to galvanize the tardy politicians of Planet Earth before their meeting in Copenhagen and (hopefully) before it is too late.

However we also need to take other personal actions that make the climate criminals and war criminals ACCOUNTABLE for their appalling crimes. Holocaust commission and genocide commission are unforgivably evil and holocaust denial and genocide denial are utterly repugnant. Decent people are obliged to eschew any avoidable personal or business dealings with – and hence deny any support for – people, media, corporations or countries complicit in genocide commission and genocide denial, whether in relation to the ongoing Palestinian, Iraqi and Afghan Genocides or the steadily worsening Climate Genocide that threatens the very biosphere of Planet Earth.

“Earlier this year, Bono and I spoke about the intersection between the extreme poverty in the developing world – especially in Africa – and the climate crisis. It is impossible to solve one of these issues without dealing with the other (Gore, 2008)”.

So if we are to solve the equality in the world, our uneven development and environmental problems we just can’t work on one of them. They are all connected and thus we have to deal with all of them at once.

The future is in the past

Could we really call today’s capitalist system based on a never-ending and unsustainable consumption as development? Why does one count the consumption of our nature as an income, as something free to use whenever and how we feel for it? The current global development is uneven, lacks equality and comes with a heavy environmental price. And as we today face a climate and ecological crisis beyond our wildest dreams we can see that the crisis and our problems have roots not just in our modern industrial and fossil burning society, but also in ancient Rome and in our colonial history.

You know how the old saying goes: “it was better before”. But was it? Just as John Bellamy Foster writes in The Vulnerable Planet “many of our fundamental ecological problems date back to preindustrial times.” The early civilizations were largely made up of agriculture economies and so they were vulnerable to ecological collapse from the degradation of soil. The Sumerian, Indus valley, Greek, Phoenician, Mayan and Roman societies all failed, as historical and archaeological evidence shows, in part to ecological factors (Foster, 1999: 36-37).

The Romans made huge impacts on their surrounding environment, which can still be seen today. Examples are deforestation, depletion of natural resources, loss of wildlife and pollution from cities and industries. Abandoned olive presses from the Roman Empire can be found in North Africa – where once trees and olives flourished there is now just deserts. The Roman smelting industries polluted the surrounding environments and poisoned its workers with lead, mercury and arsenic. Studies of the Greenland ice cap even show dramatic increases of lead in the atmosphere during the Roman era. Donald Hughes notes in Rethinking Environmental History, that the awful health and environmental conditions must have “favoured” the plague and helped it spread across the Mediterranean (Hughes, 2007: 27, 33, 35-37).

The collapse of the old civilizations can be seen as examples of what is happening today. You can think of the current world as a bigger and more advanced version of the Roman or Mayan empires. The environmental problems we face today is a mixture of old and new problems such as toxic and radioactive waste into waterways, deforestation in light of increased palm oil farming, dead seabed’s due to increased discharge of nutrients like nitrogen and phosphorous, species extinction on a much larger scale etc. Instead of just destroying local areas of the planet we are now in the business of global destruction. The early civilizations lacked proper understanding of economic and environmental policies, but we have that knowledge. And as our future is decided on our actions in the past we must not follow in the same direction as older and failed civilizations have. I wouldn’t blame technology for our ecological problems. And I don’t believe that if we reject our modern world we can reach ecological harmony. The root to our problem lies in our social systems, and so we need to basically reformulate and reorganize our society in order for a more sustainable and ecological friendly world to emerge (Foster, 1999: 35-36).

The rise of the North

Economies and development are in the end “constrained by ecological conditions”. As deforestation, “agriculture intensification” and other environmental problems contributed to the fall of the Roman and Greek civilizations even the people in ancient Rome made this connection (Hughes, 2007: 4, 12). But something that earlier was confined to more local areas of the world have due to globalization become global problems. As Clive Ponting shows, the uneven development and global problems we face today comes from our colonial history and the rise of Europe, which “drastically affected a whole range of ecosystems” and “reshaped the relationships between different regions” (Ponting, 1991: 194). The rise and expansion of Europe created, what we today call the Third World or Global South, and literally forced the world into a single system and world economy dominated by the “North”.

European powers such as Portugal, Spain and Great Britain created colonies and plantations around the world so that they could grow crops for their “luxury market” and for industrial needs during the 15th and the 18th century. These were crops, such as sugar cane and tobacco, which for some reason could not be grown in Europe. This was either because the climate was not suitable or they missed cheap labour, mainly in form of slaves, convicts or indentured servants (Ponting, 1991: 194-195, 198 also Foster 1999). The territories under colonial ruling, in the Canary Islands, Cuba, Peru, Australia, Brazil, Hawaii etc, were exploited and used just to benefit the home economy. The crops were only a selected few and were mainly grown on huge plantations owned and managed by Europeans which took up the best lands and displaced local farmers to smaller and less fertile grounds. The Europeans in control was only a tiny fraction of the total population and wanted others to do the manual work as they regarded the job done on the plantations as “degrading”. These “others” were usually slaves from places like Africa (Ponting, 1991: 196).

When slavery later was abolished in the 19th century the colonial powers used cheap indentured labour from countries such as India and China (Ponting, 1991: 196, 199). Different laws and taxes were also introduced by the Europeans, such as the agrarian land law introduced in Indonesia by the Dutch in 1870, which gave them complete control of all unused land (Ponting, 1991: 201), and the British hut and poll taxes in East Africa (Ponting, 1991: 203). These different taxes and laws resulted in that the local farmers had to work and grow the colonials “cash crops” to earn money. Or it created a similar “peculiar mixed system that was neither a true plantation nor a smallholding” where the farmers growing the crop “were neither slaves, as on islands such as Jamaica, nor landless labours as in Puerto Rico” but still forced to grow an particular crop for the Europeans (Ponting, 1991: 201). Also, import duties were introduced to pay for the costs for goods to Africans, but goods intended for the European farmers in Africa where exempted. By 1930 the African economy had been transformed and integrated into the international economy controlled by the white Europeans and increasingly the Americans (Ponting, 1991: 204).

The legacy of imperialism

Even after the countries previously under colonial rule achieved political independence and sovereignty not much changed. They were, and still are, under the influence of the Western world, their former colonial rulers. The plantations are still there and a majority of them still produced one single crop or resource. But now they were managed by large multinational corporations and companies such as the Firestone Rubber Company, who owned a 127,000 acres large plantation in Liberia, and the United Fruit Company (Ponting, 1991: 206, 212). It did not matter if the companies were disposed of the land and plantations they previously had owned or by being nationalised. The multinational corporations still dominated the processing and manufacturing of the raw commodities. And due to the overwhelming financial and economic powers the western countries had gained the trade was still in their favour. For example, the companies leave out many of the countries from the more profitable parts by not building any smelters or processing plants. Instead they export the raw commodities to their own home market where the final product can be worth many times more when it’s been refined. Another example is that the “North” around mid-1950 put a tax on already processed timber which meant that the Third World countries must export wood that hasn’t been processed and then import back value-added boards and papers (Ponting, 1991: 214, 216, 218).

In the beginning of the twentieth century Europe and the US had managed to transform former self-sufficient countries in the Third World to countries where the development took the form of providing raw resources and growing a selected few crops, or in some cases just a single crop, for other countries. In one word: monoculture. This in turn brought with it environmental damages to the soil, deforestation and a loss of biodiversity as the crop growing was produced over huge areas. Every year the production of export crops from the Third World grew by three-and-a-half percent while the actual food production for the home market grew much slower than the actual rise in population. This meant that the countries had to import a majority of the food needed. Cuba, Fiji and Tahiti are good examples of this. By 1950 the growing of sugar crops took up 60% of all farmland and consisted of up to 75% of the countries export in Cuba. Because of this Cuba had to import over half of its food. In Fiji during the early 1980’s the sugar was over 80% of all exports while it only employed 20% of the population. And in Tahiti during the 1950’s 75% of the farmland was used to grow crops that were only meant for export (Ponting, 1991: 212-214). James O’Connor argues that the “uncontrolled expansion of monoculture” in Third World countries is the result of uneven development. Brazil and sugar production in the 16th and 17th century, as an example, pushed the country into “deep poverty”, which it has never really recovered from. An example of the devastating effects on the environment uneven development “under the aegis of colonialism and of mindless economic expansion”, as O’Connor puts it, has brought forth was the vast deforestation around the world during the 19th and 20th century (O’Connor, 1989: 4-5).

It is worth noting that Japan was never colonized by the “North” and thus the country was able to be ranked among the other advanced capitalistic states by 1890 (Foster, 1999: 89, 91).

So the former colonial powers have created a world and economic system where the countries in the Third World are bound and intertwined to supply the “North” with crops and other raw commodities (Tabb, 2007: 33). Twenty percent of the total food grown in the world goes from the Third World to the developed and industrialised countries while only 12% goes in the opposite direction. The “South” still exports more food than it imports, even during major periods of hunger and starvation. For example in the famine of 1876-1877 in India wheat was still being exported to the Great Britain (Ponting, 1991: 214). Ponting says that the “North” became developed and received their high material and living standard on the expense of the poor people in the Third World via economic and environmental exploitation with poverty and human suffering as a result (Ponting, 1991: 222-223). O’Connor says that the worst environmental and human disasters “as a rule occur in the Third World” and that the victims “are typically the rural poor”, but also the “oppressed minorities and poor in the First World”, i.e. the West (O’Connor, 1989: 2).And when it comes to climate change it is, unfortunately, the ones that are the least responsible for the climate crisis, primarily the poor people in the Third World, who are the most vulnerable and will be affected the worst from the devastating effects a changing climate will bring (McMichael, 2008: 15).

After the former colonial rulers had left during the end of the 18th and early 19th century and the countries gained independence they did not just face economical or environmental problems but also more deadly ones such as genocides and wars over resources. The norm for many new countries and their leaders after they had gained independence was complete control of the army and the power to intimidate and bully its own people. An example of this is Rwanda. There the Belgians had ruled the country by giving the native minority of Tutsi chief’s superior status and control over the Hutus, a large native group in the country. After the Belgians left the country in 1962 Tutsi dictators were left to rule, which in turn led to the killing of hundreds of thousands of people in the Rwandan genocide in 1994 (Tabb, 2007: 33).

William K. Tabb argues that these dictators and other ruthless leaders are fuelled by easily extracted resources and that this resource extraction still in today’s world continues to “spur extremes of violence and war”. A study by Jeffrey Sachs and Andrew Warner in 1997 shows that the higher a country depends on the export of their natural resources slows down the countries growth and that it “significantly and substantially increases the risk of conflict” and civil wars (quoted in Tabb, 2007: 33).

The struggle over oil

And here is where the oil comes in. In today’s world traditional wars where you normally fight for a specific land area are very rare. Instead civil wars over resources have become the standard. Countries rich on oil such as Nigeria, Gabon, Sudan, Congo and Chad have a long history of military dictatorship and coups which have resulted in starvation, diseases and the death of millions of people and the destruction of the local environment. In Angola, for example, millions of people have died in the civil war that was started because of the “wholesale looting” of the countries oil reserve and natural recourses (Tabb, 2007: 34-35). The huge sums of money generated from the valuable resources was sent to banks overseas and almost never found its way to the people of Angola. Today imperialism has taken the form of global organisations such as the World Bank, IMF and the WTO. And as Tabb points out that in these troubled areas where you can find precious resources you will find foreign corporations and the World Bank ready to work with the local leaders for their share of the cut. Global Witness reports that even though Congo Brazzaville is the fourth largest oil producer in Africa it has a debt of over $6.4 billion. This huge debt is a consequence of the “influence peddling and bribery” of the former French state company Elf Aquitaine (cited in Tabb, 2007: 34-35, 40). In the past countries and their governments would be directly involved in these troubled areas. But today they have to some extent been replaced by global organisations and corporations. When it comes to the Iraq war and occupation many corporations and organisations besides the US army is involved. One example is Blackwater Worldwide, a private military company which has played a substantial role as a contractor for the US government in Iraq.

As peak oil (also called Hubbert’s peak) comes closer and world oil demands and prices soar – the demand grew by 1.5% in 2002, 1.9% in 2003 and 3.7% in 2004 (Tabb, 2007: 39) – the former “Anglo-American petroleum dominance” in the world is loosing ground to state-controlled producers such as Kuwait Petroleum, Abu Dhabi National Oil, Saudi Aramco and Sonatrach, but also from Western oil producers such as StatoilHydro. These state-controlled companies holds “at least half of the world’s proven” reserves and a quarter of current oil production. Instead of investing into alternative and renewable energy sources to combat the high energy costs and becoming energy independent USA and Great Britain have panicked and is using “force to reassert dominance” via “state terror and coercion” in Afghanistan and Iraq. Unfortunately these occupations and resource wars have failed and instead of creating stable governments it has resulted in more terrorism, the alienation of the rest of the world and an increasing cost of oil (Tabb, 2007: 38-40).

But it is not just in the Middle East there is an energy struggle going on. Latin America currently supplies more oil to the US than the Middle East does (Davis, 2004: 2). And Third World countries such as Venezuela and Bolivia, both oil rich nations, have in recent years tried to stand up against the North’s energy and political influence. Venezuela and its democratically elected leader Hugo Chavez has increased the nations stake in major energy projects from 40% to 60% in the countries oil company Petroleos de Venezuela. Norway’s share in StatoilHydro is for example about 62% (Wikipedia.org). And instead of going the same path as Congo Brazzaville, Hugo Chavez has used the money generated from his country’s oil to raise his people’s living standard. The President of Bolivia, Evo Morales have nationalised the countries energy industry, similar to what is happening in Venezuela. For this Evo Morales have gained support back home with an approval rating of 80%. This can be compared to George Bush’s own 33% approval rating back home in USA. For this, both Morales and Chavez have been criticized by the “North” for their “weak commitment to democracy” (Tabb, 2007: 39-40).

In Columbia leftwing ELN guerrillas are threatening the oilfields and pipelines operated by the US-based company Occidental Petroleum. That is why Special Forces, the CIA and private security contractors from the US is currently involved in an “an ongoing reign of terror” called “Operation Red Moon” in the Arauca province. T. Christian Miller, reporting in the Los Angeles Times, says that the consequence has been that “mass arrests of politicians and union leaders have become common. Refugees fleeing combat have streamed into local cities. And killings have soared as right-wing paramilitaries have targeted leftwing critics” (quoted in Davis, 2004: 2).

And in the Straits of Malacca, a narrow passage of East Asia’s oil supply, the Malaysian foreign minister have complained that USA is “exaggerating the threat of terrorist piracy” to justify deploying military forces there (Davis, 2004: 2).

Climate change

Because our development and “global market infrastructure” is based almost solely on the burning of fossil fuels, such as oil and coal, the earth is warming up and our climate is changing. And as we stand in front of the biggest environmental crisis ever, namely man-made climate change, our efforts on slowing down the devastating effects can scuttle because of our worlds uneven development.

James Lovelock, known for proposing the Gaia hypothesis, has said that he believes that climate change is now irreversible. He predicts that the major part of the humans, more than six billion people, will get wiped out of the face of the earth due to wars, starvation, epidemics and chaos during the rest of the century due to the effects of a changing climate. Lovelock estimates that by year 2100 there will only be around 500 millions people left who struggles to survive on the few remaining liveable places on earth: Scandinavia, Canada and Iceland (Goodell, 2007). Lovelock writes that:

“Gaia, the living Earth, is old and not as strong as she was two billion years ago. She struggles to keep the Earth cool enough for her myriad forms of life against the ineluctable increase of the sun’s heat. But to add to her difficulties, one of those forms of life, humans, disputatious tribal animals with dreams of conquest even of other planets, has tried to rule the Earth for their own benefit alone. With breathtaking insolence they have taken the stores of carbon that Gaia buried to keep oxygen at its proper level and burnt them. In so doing they have usurped Gaia’s authority and thwarted her obligation to keep the planet fit for life; they thought only of their own comfort and convenience. (quoted in Lovelock, 2006: 146)”

Gore says that our “overdependence” on fossil fuels and our weak policies on climate change show what can happen “when reason is replaced by the influence of wealth and power” (Gore, 2007: 191). Since the “market” has become one with development, McMichael argues, we have responded to this climate crisis by framing “solutions to climate change in market terms”. This, McMichael warns, results in “commodification of the ecological commons through green market solutions such as carbon trading, emission offsets, and biofuels, to sustain, rather than question, current trajectories of accumulation and consumption”. McMichael says that because the world is already now warming up much faster than what the IPCC’s “conservative” numbers estimated and that the world’s resources are finite and “deeply unequal”, the idea of the green growth is an “oxymoron”. McMichael argues that the fog of “promises of market prosperity” has covered the effects and impacts of development on our climate, “let alone be recognized for the catastrophe that it already is”, warning that it “will remain so long as market solutions prevail”. The world is slowly realising this. The 2007/2008 Human Development Report says that “climate change is the defining human development issue of our generation”. And the eight Conference of Parties (COP8) of the UNFCCC in Dehli declared that “climate change is a serious risk to poverty reduction and threatens to undo decades of development efforts” (McMichael, 2008: 1-2).

When it comes to responsibility for the current climate crisis the world is just as uneven and unequal. The “North”, i.e. the West, is responsible for about 80% of the worlds CO2 increase. An average person living in Great Britain will in only 11 days emit as much CO2 as an average person in Bangladesh will during a whole year. And just a single power plant in West Yorkshire in Great Britain will produce more CO2 every year than all the 139 million people combined living in Uganda, Kenya, Tanzania, Malawi, Zambia and Mozambique (McMichael, 2008: 2). But still, in light of these unequal differences USA demands that they won’t lower their emissions before the Third World countries does. And this is exactly why the current climate talks aren’t getting anywhere.

The old colonial past and today’s imperialism in the shape of the World Bank, IMF and the WTO (Tabb, 2007: 40) has created a rift between the “North” and the “South” and their relationships today. Or as George Monbiot puts it: “Rich countries once used gunboats to seize food. Now they use trade deals” (The Guardian, Tuesday August 26 2008). This rift takes the form in expression of criticisms such as the comment from the Argentinean President Kirchner who said that “the North should meet its ‘environmental debts’ just as it demands the “South” meet its ‘financial debts’”. Or Brazil’s President Lula who said in February 2007 that “the wealthy countries are very smart, approving protocols, holding big speeches on the need to avoid deforestation, but they already deforested everything” (Philip McMichael, 2008: 3-4). You can say that the “de-localization” of crop growing to countries in the Third World with low wages and a weak environmental system was done to conserve the environment in Europe (McMichael, 2005: 284).

An example of how the “North” has been able to get away easily from their climate and ecological responsibilities is Kyoto’s Clean Development Mechanism (CDM), a part of something that Philip McMichael calls “market environmentalism”. CDM encourages Western countries to meet their very own reduction targets, not by reducing their CO2 emitting sources back home, but by investing in cheap solutions in the “South” (McMichael, 2008: 6, 16). The European Union agreed on a new climate deal during the end days of the 2008 United Nations Climate Change Conference in Poznań, which was held during December 1-12. The EU promised that they will cut their emissions with 20% by 2020. But the actual emission cuts could end up being as little as 4% by 2020 (Black, BBC News, 2008). That is because of special exemptions for dirty industries in Europe as well as allowing cheap emission cuts overseas to be counted to the EU total (WWF, 2008). These emission cuts done overseas will make it easier for us in the “North” to reduce ‘our’ emissions but harder for the developing countries in the “South” to reduce theirs. Monbiot calls this “carbon colonialism, in which Europe picks the low-hanging fruit in developing countries, leaving them with much tougher choices later on” (The Guardian, Friday 12 December 2008).

Roberts and Parks argue (quoted in McMichael, 2008: 3) that

“when powerful states disregard weaker states’ position in the international division of labor in areas where they possess structural power, they run a high risk of weaker states ‘reciprocating’ in policy areas where they possess more bargaining leverage. The issue of global climate change – which itself is characterized by tremendous inequality in vulnerability, responsibility, and mitigation – can therefore not be viewed, analyzed, or responded to in isolation from the larger crisis of global inequality.”

Robert and Parks also list three points from where this “rift” and “mistrust” comes from: 1) Wasteful Western consumption, 2) A state’s ability for environmental reforms is a function of the state’s position in the international scene of labour, and 3) The West’s approach to more sustainable and environmental issues will hinder the “South” from their economic development. John Rapley argues that we in the West must “probably have to bear the expense of environmental adjustment”, because if we don’t the countries in the Third World will continue to take advantage of cheap and CO2 polluting technologies. If we don’t manage to get away from this rift between “North” and “South”, developed and underdeveloped, we will never be able to agree on any lasting climate policies that will be powerful enough to combat climate change and its devastating effects (McMichael, 2008: 3-5).

What development and for whom?

In the beginning I asked if we really could call our current capitalistic system for development. But, what should be developed and for whom? McMichael lists two different forms of development: food security through the global market, and its alternative: food sovereignty.

The privatization of food security through the global market was constructed in 1986-1994 during the Uruguay Round, a forerunner to the WTO’s agreement on Agriculture in 1995. This agreement means that nations no longer have the right to independent and sustainable food within its borders. Instead of letting the producers and consumers manage and decide over the food system it puts corporations and the demands of the global market in control of it. McMichael calls this the corporate food regime, and says that the only benefactors of this “political construct” are about 15% the world’s population.

Food sovereignty is an alternative way to reach food security. The concept of this idea was put forward by Via Campesina, an international movement of mainly farmers, during the World Food Summit in 1996. Simply put: food sovereignty lets people and nations decide and define their own food and agriculture production. Food sovereignty does not rule out trade, instead it creates a more sustainable and self reliant trade between nations (McMichael, 2004: 277-278 and McMichael, 2005: 269-270, 281, 290-291).

Capitalism destroys and divides

As we know, capitalism is all about profit. The higher the profit is, the higher the growth rate will in theory be, which in turn leads to a higher rate of depletion of various recourses which ultimately leads to a higher rate of pollution (O’Connor, 1989: 11). At the end of capitalism there is environmental destruction.

An example on what kind of effects capitalism can have is the current financial crisis in the auto industry. The auto giants, such as GM, Ford and Chrysler, have for years in their race for short-sighted economic gains resisted and done everything in their powers to stop stronger compulsory MPG and CO2 emission standards. They have even denied climate change and their promises that they could cut their greenhouse gases voluntarily have all failed. As a result the average car sold in the US today is less efficient than the Model T Ford from 1908 (The Guardian, Tuesday 7 October 2008). Why? Because as Henry Ford II once explained: “minicars make miniprofits”. And like John Z. DeLorean, former GM executive, have said:

“When we should have been planning switches to smaller, more fuel-efficient, lighter cars in the late 1960s in response to a growing demand in the marketplace, GM management refused because ‘we make more money on big cars’ “(quoted in Foster, 1999: 124).

And with help from the US government, Standard Oil and Firestone Tire these auto companies deliberately dismantled earlier mass transportation system in the US during the 1930s to the 1950s. During most of the twentieth century the US government decreased funding for public transportation while they wastefully poured money into highways in an effort to increase the corporate profits that comes with private motoring. While this was happening the auto companies bought up electric streetcar lines and converted them to busses. This is today known as “the Great American streetcar scandal”, “General Motors streetcar conspiracy” or “the National City Lines conspiracy” (Wikipedia.org). Between 1936 and 1955 the number of electric streetcar lines had dropped from around 40000 to 5000 in the US as a result. GM also used it’s nearly monopolistic control over the bus and locomotive market to make sure that public transportation kept loosing ground to private motoring. And so with devastating effects for the environment, but also in a technology sense, USA today have to rely on private motoring for 90% of all ground transportation of goods and people, which is more than any other country in the world. One can’t defend these actions by claiming they did not know about the effects. Bradford Snell, a U.S. government attorney, once stated in a famous report to a US Senate committee that: “motor vehicle travel is possibly the most inefficient method of transportation devised by modern man” (Foster, 1999: 114-116, 124).

John Bellamy Foster argues that capitalism has had “overwhelmingly negative results” for our planet (Foster, 1999: 32). For example, the commercial trade, i.e. capitalism, in fur has led to the destruction of entire ecosystem and an enormous and never before seen slaughter of wildlife. Some of the animals worst affected by the fur-trade during the 16th and 17th century was beavers, martens, seals, bears, raccoons etc. Between 1797 and 1803 on the island of Mas Afuera in the Juan Fernandez Islands, off the coast off Chile, over 3 million seals were killed for their fur. In the early 19th century six million southern fur seals were clubbed to death resulting in the nearly extinction of fur seals in the Atlantic and Indian Ocean (Foster, 1999: 42-43).

Capitalism doesn’t just result in environmental destruction and resource depletion but it also divides people. A fine example of this is the memorandum from Lawrence Summers. On December 12, 1991, Lawrence Summers, the chief economist for the World Bank, wrote an internal memo that was leaked to the British publication the Economist on February 8, 1992. In it he says that the World Bank should be “encouraging MORE migration of the dirty industries to the LDCs [Less Developed Countries]”, and that “the economic logic behind dumping a load of toxic waste in the lowest wage country is impeccable”. He also writes that “the demand for a clean environment for aesthetic and health reasons is likely to have very high income elasticity” (quoted in Foster, 2002: 60-61). In fewer words: Summers says that people in the Third World are worth less than people in the North, and thus they could be exploited more by the capitalistic world system. But it’s not just in the Third World that capitalism takes the form as environmental racism. In Los Angeles over 70% of African Americans and 50% of Latinos live in areas with the highest amount of air pollution. This can be compared to the 34% of white people living in the same areas (Foster, 1999: 138).

Karl Marx came up with the term “metabolic rift” to explain the rift capitalism have created between social systems and natural systems. This rift, he claimed, led to ecological crisis and the exploitation of the environment. As people moved into cities they lost the contact with nature, and thus they became less likely to consider what the best for the environment was, and how their actions and decisions affected it (McMichael, 2008: 11 and Foster, 1999: 63-64). Marx also noted that as the income for the workers in the cities increased companies (capitalists) searched for cheaper workers outside of the city (Moore, 2000: 136-137). Today when half of the world’s people live in cities this is happening on a much larger and more global scale. More people than ever have lost the direct contact with nature (Satterthwaite, in the Guardian 2007). And instead of companies and corporations looking for cheaper workers in the countryside they now look outside the nation’s borders, mainly in Third World countries.

When it comes to climate change McMichael says that the “only sound solution” is by basically reformulating the generally accepted perspective of development. But he warns that resistance, for what science says needs to be done to tackle the climate crisis, will come from “corporate interests”, “politicians with short-time horizons” but also from strong talks “of neo-liberalism that represents market solutions as commonsense” (McMichael, 2008: 14). He concludes that the “de-carbonization of the material economy will require substantial de-commodification to establish sustainable development, which in turn means the development subject would no longer be the high-mass consumer, but a politically-mobilized social and ecological steward”. And that this time the goal for the “North” is not just to supply and “secure” its home markets with valuable raw materials and other commodities. Now it’s also about supplying the Third World with “environmental repair or caretaker services” to be able to lessen the damages and problems that the system itself has created (McMichael, 2008: 16-17).

Immanuel Wallerstein says that he is “relentlessly pessimistic” on how sustainable development could be possible under capitalism (Hornborg, 2007: 22-23). He also says that we are “in the middle of a transition” away from capitalism to something else. But what that is and if it will be better or worse he do not know. “The outcome will be decided by the political activity of everyone now and in the next twenty-five to fifty years”, he writes (Wallerstein, 2007: 384-385).

Hopefully. Another world is possible.

I belong to a Melbourne-based Climate Action Group called the Yarra Valley Climate Action Group (YVCAG) which is very active in public education through public meetings, participation in public demonstrations and by providing a series of very well-referenced Climate Emergency Fact Sheets on its website. Thus people confused by the vehement and dishonest denial by climate sceptics can use the YVCAG resource and discover what top climate scientists and top scientific bodies think about the accelerating global warming crisis by consulting “Climate Emergency: what top world scientific experts say“.

Our local Climate Action Group is variously linked to scores of like-minded Climate Action Groups around the Continent and Commonwealth of Australia through two umbrella organizations, namely the Climate Emergency Network and the Climate Movement. However our efforts at public education are negated by the Power of Money. Australia is the world’s biggest coal exporter with coal exports currently worth A$55 billion per annum; about 92% of Australia’s electric power comes from fossil fuel burning; and the Australian coal industry is worth in total about A$100 billion annually – with the coincident reality that Australia resolutely ignores the disproportionate impact it is having on the Earth’s environment through its world-leading annual per capita Domestic and Exported fossil fuel-derived CO2 pollution.

Thus consulting the US Energy Information Administration database we obtain the following information on “annual per capita fossil fuel-derived carbon dioxide (CO2) pollution” in “tonnes (t) per person per year” for Australia and other major polluters (2004 data): 19.2 (for Australia; 40 if you include Australia’s coal exports; 2007 value about 47), 19.7 (the US), 18.4 (Canada), 9.9 (Japan), 4.2 (the World), 3.6 (China), 1.0 ( India) and 0.25 (for Bangladesh). Of course “annual per capita fossil fuel-derived CO2 pollution” is but one – albeit a very important – indicator of climate impact. The Germanwatch Climate Change Index 2008, a comparison of the 56 top CO2 emitting nations, takes other parameters into account in ranking. In this ranking of 56 top CO2 emitting nations, Sweden and Germany are #1 and #2 for greenhouse responsibility, while shale-oil-rich Canada (a US ally), coal-rich Australia (a US ally), the USA and oil-rich Saudi Arabia (US-linked) rank #53, #54, #55 and #56, respectively (Source) .

However the 2 major Australian parties ( Labor and the Liberals, collectively known as the Lib-Labs and together commanding about 90% of the Australian vote) are resolutely committed to the Coal Industry and remorselessly ignore Australia’s disproportionate contribution to global CO2 pollution and global warming. This Culture of Ignoring also extends to Ignoring of the consequences our participation in all post-1950 US Asian wars (so far associated with 25 million Indigenous Asian excess deaths); Ignoring of horrendous genocidal crimes of Australia’s great allies the UK and the US (from the British-imposed Indian Holocaust involving 1.5 billion excess deaths in the period 1757-1947 to the real 9-11 atrocity, the 9-11 million violent and non-violent avoidable deaths in the Bush wars, 1990-2008); and Ignoring of passive mass infanticide in the Occupied Iraqi and Afghan Territories (about 1,000 under-5 year old Indigenous infants dying every day) and horrendous child sexual abuse at home in Australia (1/3 of Australian women are sexually abused as children).

As a biological scientist I decided to attempt to Measure (to Quantify, Quantitate, get Numbers on) this Australian Culture of Ignoring in which “business as usual” Australia “looks the other way” in relation to its involvement in Genocide (according to the UN Genocide Convention “intent [by stated policy or sustained action] to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnic, racial or religious group”); the Climate Emergency (accelerating Global Warming that is already associated with mass species extinctions and the melting of the Arctic); the Sustainability Emergency (diminishing biological productivity with increasing population); Climate Genocide ( millions are already dying impacted by Climate Change and Dr James Lovelock FRS estimates that over 6 billion people will die this century due to unaddressed Climate Change); Climate Racism (imposing deadly effects of Climate Change on people of particular races, specifically the non-Europeans of the Developing World); and Climate Terrorism (cold-blooded imposition of death and the threat of death upon billions of innocent people in pursuit of Australia’s fanatical ideology of greed and growth regardless of consequences).

My Experiment has involved sending the following Letter to about 2,000 Australian journalists, politicians and academics and assessing the Response. You will be SHOCKED by the Response, which is detailed at the end of the Letter.

Letter

I am writing to eminent and influential Australians about serious threats to Australia and the World from the Climate Emergency, Exceptionalism and a Culture of Ignoring. I would be very grateful if you would disseminate this analysis to everyone you can in the national and global interest. Rational risk management successively involves (a) accurate data, (b) scientific analysis (with a scientific methodology involving the critical testing of potentially falsifiable hypotheses) and (c) systemic change to minimize risk. Unfortunately, as outlined below, this protocol is typically subverted in Australia and elsewhere by media, politician and academic substitution of (a) spin, lies, censorship and intimidation, (b) anti-science spin (involving the selective use of asserted facts to support a partisan position) and (c) “blame and shame” (with war and genocide being the ultimate expressions of this perversion).

1. Holocaust ignoring & “history ignored yields history repeated”. Few Australians would be aware of the following atrocities involving Great Britain that have been largely deleted from British history: the Great Bengal Famine (1769-1770, 10 million victims), the man-made World War 2 Bengal Famine (1943-1945, 6-7 million victims) and the real 9-11 atrocity, the 9-11 million avoidable deaths associated (so far) with the Bush Wars (1990-2008). While 3 major histories published recently in Australia utterly ignore the WW2 Bengal Famine, in 2008 this atrocity was exposed in a BBC broadcast involving myself, 1998 Economics Nobel Laureate Professor Amartya Sen and other scholars. Denial of the World War 2 Jewish Holocaust (6 million dead, 1 in 6 dying from deprivation) attracts 10 years in prison in Austria.

2. Climate Emergency ignored & Great Barrier Reef doomed. According to top US climate scientist Dr James Hansen (Head, NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies): “paleoclimate evidence and ongoing climate change suggest that CO2 will need to be reduced from its current 385 ppm to at most 350 ppm” and “we face a climate emergency”. Nobel Laureate Professor Peter Doherty:“We are in real danger”; Governor of Victoria Professor David de Kretser AC: “There is no doubt in my mind that this is the greatest problem confronting mankind at this time and that it has reached the level of a state of emergency”; and top Australian climate scientists: ditto. Yet the Federal Government and its advisers propose an increase in atmospheric CO2 to 450-550 ppm despite the scientific advice that coral dies above 450 ppm due to ocean acidification and warming; that ocean phytoplankton and the Greenland ice sheet go above 500 ppm (with dire consequences); and that 550 ppm is globally catastrophic. The Federal Government and its advisers have effectively ignored Australia’s world leading coal exports and annual per capita Domestic plus Exported CO2 pollution; the deaths of about 5,000 Australians annually from coal burning-derived pollutants; and the “true cost” of coal burning-based power (4-5 times that of the highly subsidized “market price”). “10% off 2000 levels by 2020” (Garnaut) means a 50% increase in Australia’s Domestic and Exported CO2 pollution and “60% off by 2050” (Federal Government Policy) means a doubling of total CO2 pollution.

3. Ignoring of horrendous Australian child abuse. Unreported by media, UN Population Division data indicate that the “annual death rate” is 2.7% and 6.2% for under-5 year old infants in Occupied Iraq and Occupied Afghanistan, respectively, as compared to 10.2% for Australian prisoners of war of the Japanese (for which crime Japanese generals were tried and hanged). This appalling infant mortality is 90% avoidable and largely due to Occupier non-supply of life sustaining requisites demanded by the Geneva Convention. Thus WHO data indicate that “annual total per capita medical expenditure” permitted in Occupied Iraq and Occupied Afghanistan is $130 and $26, respectively, as compared to about $3,000 (in Occupier Australia) and $6,400 (in Occupier US). Domestically, while the “Little Children Are Sacred” Report was unable to quantitate the extent of abuse of Indigenous children, it quoted data indicating that 34% of Australian women have been sexually abused as children. Yet these horrendous realities are effectively ignored and were ignored at the Australia 2020 Summit.

4. Genocide commission and genocide ignoring. Article 2 of the UN Genocide Convention defines genocide as “acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnic, racial or religious group”. “Intent” can be surely established from “sustained, remorseless policy leading to destruction”. Australia is complicit in an ongoing Iraqi Genocide (post-invasion excess deaths 2 million, post-invasion under-5 infant deaths 0.6 million, 6 million refugees); Afghan Genocide (post-invasion violent and non-violent excess deaths 4-6 million, post-invasion under-5 infant deaths 2.1 million, 4 million refugees); Aboriginal Genocide (9,000 avoidable deaths annually; 90,000 avoidable deaths under the previous Coalition Government; annual avoidable death rate (1.8%) about twice that in non-Arab Africa; “annual death rate” 2.2% (Indigenous Australians) and 2.4% (Indigenous Australians in the Northern Territory) as compared to 2.5% (Australian sheep)); and Climate Genocide ( Australia is a world leader in greenhouse gas pollution; climate change is increasingly impacting Third World deprivation that avoidably kills 16 million people annually; Professor James Lovelock FRS says that over 6 billion people will perish this century due to unaddressed climate change). These horrendous realities are ignored but I have made a detailed, formal complaint to the International Criminal Court.

5. Australia ignores acute nuclear, greenhouse and poverty threats. The prestigious American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) has nominated nuclear, greenhouse and poverty threats as the acute threats facing humanity. Yet Australia is a major uranium exporter and is intimately linked to US nuclear terrorism via joint communications facilities, military cooperation and welcome to nuclear-armed naval vessels in Australian capital cities. Australia’s “annual per capita fossil fuel-derived CO2 pollution” in tonnes CO2 per person per year is 27 domestically but 47 including CO2 from coal exports –10 times worse than for China and the World and 40 times worse than for India. Indeed Australia helped the US sabotage the December 2007 Bali Climate Change Conference by firmly rejecting any greenhouse gas reduction targets and the latest estimate based on Government Policy is that Australia will actually double its annual greenhouse gas pollution by 2050. Australian greed and profligacy is already contributing to the submergence and salinization of Pacific Island States and devastation of coastal deltaic parts of India, Myanmar and Bangladesh adjoining the Bay of Bengal.

6. US state terrorism is killing and threatening Australians. It is estimated that about 0.1 million people (about 300 in Australia) die avoidably each year due to opiate drug-related causes. About 0.6 million people (about 2,000 Australians) have died due to the US restoration of the Taliban-destroyed Afghan opium industry from 5% of world market share in 2001 to 93 % in 2007 (UNODC World Drug Report data). In mid-2006 25,000 Australian citizens were subjected to bombing and rocketing in Lebanon in the face of Australian bipartisan support for the perpetrator. UNICEF data indicates that 2,400 Occupied Palestinian infants (many with Australian relatives) die avoidably each year due to denial of life-sustaining requisites by the Occupier – however an Australian Muslim meeting the zakkat religious charitable obligation by donating money to sorely deprived Gaza hospitals potentially faces up to life imprisonment under Australian Anti-Terrorism laws. 7,000 Westerners have been murdered by Muslim-origin non-state terrorists in the last 40 years (this total including Israelis and assuming no US complicity in the 9-11 atrocity). No Australians have been murdered in Australia by Muslim-origin non-state terrorists yet UNICEF data show that Australia is war criminally complicit in the avoidable deaths of 1,000 Occupied Iraqi and Occupied Afghan infants every day.

7. Australia now ignores the fundamental truth that love of Australia means love of Australians, wild Australia and Australian values. By “looking the other way” Australia is complicit in the avoidable deaths of 9,000 Indigenous Australians every year and the avoidable deaths of about 300 Australians annually due to US opium industry promotion in Occupied Afghanistan. US intelligence organizations have found that Australians (and Americans) are now more threatened from non-state terrorism due to the Bush War on Terror (in horrible reality a War for Oil and Hegemony). The families of hundreds of thousands of Australians in the Middle East are subject to real terror from US Alliance and Apartheid Israeli violence. Australia is acutely threatened by linkage to US nuclear terrorism. Bipartisan commitment to fossil fuel burning kills about 5,000 Australians each year from the effects of coal burning pollutants alone. There now appears to be bipartisan agreement for a new, biological “Brisbane Line” involving the destruction of WA coral reefs and the Queensland Great Barrier Reef in the interests of the Australian coal industry. Notwithstanding the 1967 Referendum result, there is bipartisan agreement for race-specific suspension of the 1975 Racial Discrimination Act in relation to Northern Territory Indigenous Australians. The entrenched mainstream media, politician and academic IGNORING of the horrendous realities outlined above violates not only rational risk management for the safety of Australians but also violates the principles of a “fair go” and of being “fair dinkum”. My words and statistics having failed, I have painted HUGE paintings for Peace and Mother and Child that I would dearly love to DONATE to public institutions (for images see “Truth , Beauty & Saving the World – Science, Art & Nuclear, Greenhouse & Poverty Threats”. For further details and detailed documentation of the above see Yarra Valley Climate Action Group Fact Sheets: and my recent books “Body Count” (see: http://globalbodycount.blogspot.com/ and http://mwcnews.net/Gideon-Polya ) and “Jane Austen and the Black Hole of British History”. Please inform everyone you can.

Responses

The Response so far has been minimal. People associated with the Australian Greens have responded positively but the “score” of people actually responding to my plea to “please inform others about my concerns” currently stands at 4 out of about 2,000 addressees or about 0.2%. In relation to Jesus Christ’s parable of the Good Samaritan who helped the badly beaten Jewish traveller, about 99.8% of these variously eminent and influential Australians surveyed here have “walked by on the other side”.

I am actually an agnostic Humanist scientist but love the humanitarianism of Jesus Christ and indeed am Number 1 in the World on the Web for saying “thou shalt not kill children“. I am therefore happy to reiterate the Christian theme that decent folk aware of the Climate Emergency must “bear witness” to the horrendous reality. We cannot walk by on the other side. We must inform everyone we can.

Dr Gideon Polya published some 130 works in a 4 decade scientific career, most recently a huge pharmacological reference text “Biochemical Targets of Plant Bioactive Compounds” (CRC Press/Taylor & Francis, New York & London, 2003). He has recently published “Body Count. Global avoidable mortality since 1950” (G.M. Polya, Melbourne, 2007); see also his contribution “Australian complicity in Iraq mass mortality” in “Lies, Deep Fries & Statistics” (edited by Robyn Williams, ABC Books, Sydney, 2007). He has just published a revised and updated 2008 version of his 1998 book “Jane Austen and the Black Hole of British History” as biofuel-, globalization- and climate-driven global food price increases threaten a greater famine catastrophe than the man-made famine in British-ruled India that killed 6-7 million Indians in the “forgotten” World War 2 Bengal Famine (see recent BBC broadcast involving Dr Polya, Economics Nobel Laureate Professor Amartya Sen and others). When words fail one can say it in pictures – for images of Gideon Polya’s huge paintings for Peace and for Mother and Child see “Truth , Beauty & Saving the World – Science, Art & Nuclear, Greenhouse & Poverty Threats”) .