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.

Australia is the world’s biggest coal exporter and a World leader in annual per capita greenhouse gas (GHG) pollution, threatening billions of impoverished non-Europeans with climate genocide – but the pro-Coal Federal Government still refuses to rake effective action against man-made global warming that acutely threatens the Planet (see “Australia’s “5% off 2000 GHG pollution by 2020” endangers Australia, Humanity and Biosphere”) .

Perhaps this shocking heatwave (above 43 C for 3 days, and it will be in the 30s for the next week in Melbourne) will make Australians demand action from their Federal Government which chooses to IGNORE the advice of top Australian, UK and US climate scientists about the acute seriousness of the Climate Emergency.

I spent the hottest day (30 January 2009) writing to Australian media and Federal MPs about the extraordinary IGNORING of the Climate Emergency and asking for a Senate Inquiry to identify the people who are evidently falsely advising the Government and People in relation to (a) the seriousness of the situation, (b) the futility, expense and lack of practical proof of “carbon dioxide sequestration” and (c) the importance of biochar for bringing down atmospheric CO2 to a requisite safe level of about 300 ppm (as recommended by leading climate scientists).

It should be noted that both the Labor Federal Government and the Liberal-National Coalition Opposition are pro-Coal, fervently supporting Australia’s world leading coal exports and supporting fossil fuel burning-based power. However the Liberal-National Coalition Opposition have recently broken ranks with the Government and supported more investment in renewable energy and return of carbon as biochar (charcoal) to the soil.

The following LETTER was personally addressed to each Federal MP of Australia and sent to ALL Australia Federal MPs over FALSE Climate advice to Government and the Public.

Dear Senator, Dr, Mr, Ms, Mrs,

The Liberal-National Party Coalition [Opposition] under Malcolm Turnbull must be congratulated for its sensible new approach to renewable energy and biochar – however an entrenched Culture of Ignoring and Denial in Australia means that it has a long way to go before it joins the informed and responsible Australian Greens in appreciating the urgent need for rapid, progressive cessation of fossil fuel burning and other greenhouse gas (GHG) pollution.

Top UK climate scientist Dr James Lovelock FRS (the Gaia hypothesis) (a) says that fewer than 1 billion people will survive this century due to unaddressed, man-made global warming; (b) says of carbon dioxide sequestration “That is a waste of time. It’s a crazy idea – and dangerous. It would take so long and use so much energy that it will not be done”; and (c) regards biochar as the last chance to save humanity and the biosphere: “There is one way we could save ourselves and that is through the massive burial of charcoal” (see New Scientist Environment, 23 January 2009).

However the Rudd Labor Australian Government (a) is remorselessly committed to an indefinite 2% annual increase in Australian Domestic and Exported greenhouse gas (GHG) pollution (contrary to top expert UK advice that an annual 6-8% decrease in GHG pollution is urgently needed to avert an atmospheric CO2-e concentration of 450 ppm) and to Australia as the world’s biggest coal exporter and a World leader in annual per capita GHG pollution, threatening billions of impoverished non-Europeans with climate genocide; (b) is committed to carbon dioxide sequestration (as stated overseas recently by Her Excellency the Governor General); and (c) totally rejects biochar as a solution (as stated recently by Climate Minister Penny Wong).

Top US climate scientist Dr James Hansen (NASA GISS) says that “we face a climate emergency”, a view shared by Dr Lovelock, and by other eminent scientists including Victorian Governor Professor David de Kretser AC and Australian Nobel Laureate Professor Peter Doherty who says: “We are in real danger”.

Australia urgently needs a public Senate Inquiry to identify those who are LYING to Government, Her Excellency the Governor General and the people of Australia over these massively life-threatening issues.

Yours sincerely,

Dr Gideon Polya
Macleod, Melbourne, Victoria 3085, Australia

PS For what outstanding World and Australian scientists are saying about the Climate Emergency see What Top World Scientific Experts Say and What Outstanding Australian Scientists Say.

PPS Below is a concise 1-page summary of Climate Emergency Facts and Required Actions – please transmit this to everyone you can in the interests of Australia and Humanity.

Climate Emergency Facts and Required Actions
Just as we turn to top medical specialists for advice on life-threatening disease, so we turn to the opinions of top scientists and in particular top biological and climate scientists for Climate Change risk assessment and Climate Emergency Facts and requisite Actions as exampled below (for detailed documentation of everything below see the Yarra Valley Climate Action Group website).

Professor James Hansen (top US climate scientist, head, NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies): “We face a climate emergency”.
Nobel Laureate Professor Peter Doherty: “We are in real danger.”
Professor David de Kretser AC (eminent medical scientist and Governor of Victoria, Australia) “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.”
Dr Andrew Glikson (palaeo-climate scientist, ANU): “The continuing use of the atmosphere as an open sewer for industrial pollution has … raised CO2 levels to 387 ppm CO2 to date, leading toward conditions which existed on Earth about 3 million years (Ma) ago (mid-Pliocene), when CO2 levels rose to about 400 ppm, temperatures to about 2–3 degrees C and sea levels by about 25 +/- 12 metres.”

Major Climate Emergency Facts
1. Atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2) concentration has increased to 387 parts per million (ppm) as compared to 280 ppm pre-industrial and is increasing at about 2.5 ppm per year with average global temperature about 0.8 degrees C above the pre-industrial.
2. Man-made global warming due to greenhouse gas (GHG) pollution from carbon dioxide, methane and nitrogen oxides is already associated with major ecosystem damage (Arctic, ocean, coral reefs), melting of glaciers and Arctic sea ice, sea level rise, methane release from melting tundra and positive feed-back effects accelerating GHG pollution and warming.
3. Consequences of atmospheric CO2 concentration increase and warming to current 387 ppm: major ecosystem damage; current species extinction rates are 100-1,000 times greater than previously; to over 400 ppm: “new territory” not seen for millions of years with acute dangers from positive feedbacks; to over 450 ppm: major damage and death to coral reefs and associated fisheries; to over 500 ppm: major loss of ocean phytoplankton, ocean life, cloud seeding, the Greenland ice sheet and densely populated global coastal regions due to massive sea level rises.

Climate Emergency Actions URGENTLY Required
1. Change of societal philosophy to one of scientific risk management and biological sustainability with complete cessation of species extinctions and zero tolerance for lying.
2. Urgent reduction of atmospheric CO2 to a safe level of about 300 ppm as recommended by leading climate and biological scientists.
3. Rapid switch to the best non-carbon and renewable energy (solar, wind, geothermal, wave, tide and hydro options that are currently roughly the same market price as coal burning-based power) and to energy efficiency, public transport, needs-based production, re-afforestation and return of carbon as biochar to soils coupled with correspondingly rapid cessation of fossil fuel burning, deforestation, methanogenic livestock production and population growth.

END LETTER.

I would urge everyone around the world to similarly write to their Leaders and all their Government and Opposition MPs about the mounting Climate Emergency – and to distribute the above “Climate Emergency Facts and Required Actions” summary to everyone they can.

Photo credit: Amir Farshad Ebrahimi

Australians (and indeed most people in the Western Murdochracies) live in an Orwellian world in which “war is peace, slavery is freedom, ignorance is strength and 2 plus 2 does not equal 4”. [1]

Thus Australia is the world’s biggest coal exporter and a world leading per capita greenhouse gas polluter (the Developed World’s worst) but linear projections from official US Energy Information Administration data indicate that the Australian Government’s “carbon pollution REDUCTION policy” actually means that Australia’s disproportionately huge, annual Domestic plus Exported greenhouse gas pollution (in Mt CO2-e = million tonnes of CO2-e) will INCREASE from 885 Mt CO2-e (2000) to 1245 Mt (2020; an increase of 41%) to 1586 Mt (2050; an increase of 79%). [2]

Similarly, the Australian Government accepts the Israeli “Gaza rockets” excuse for the ongoing Gaza Massacre (over 300 Occupied Palestinians dead and 1,000 wounded, so far), ignoring official Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs data that 23 Israelis have been killed by Gaza rockets and mortars in the last 8.25 years. [3]

This latter statistic corresponds to an “annual homicide rate” of 0.4 per million (Israelis from Gaza rockets and mortars) as compared to 15 per million (Israelis murdered by Israelis), 164 per million (Palestinians killed violently by Israelis), 902 per million (Palestinian non-violent deaths through Israeli-imposed deprivation), 56 per million (Americans), 200 per million (African-Americans), 300 per million (Americans by Guns) and 473 per million (people of Detroit, Michigan, USA). [4]

Decent people must say NO to lying, racism, violence, state terrorism, climate genocide and greed-driven terracide. Thus outstanding Jewish American scholar Professor Jared Diamond is clear in his climate warnings and in stating in his best-selling book “Collapse” the “moral principle, namely that it is morally wrong for one people to dispossess, subjugate, or exterminate another people.” [5]

Dr Gideon Polya
29 Dwyer Street, Macleod, Victoria 3085, Australia
Telephone (day or night): 03 9459 3649

[1] Big Brother in George Orwell’s “1984”.

[2] “Australia’s “5% off 2000 GHG pollution by 2020” endangers Australia, Humanity and the Biosphere“: http://sites.google.com/site/yarravalleyclimateactiongroup/australia-s-5-off-2000-ghg-pollution-by-2020-endangers-australia-humanity-and-biosphere .

[3] “List of Qassam rocket attacks”: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Qassam_rocket_attacks .

[4] “America’s Most Murderous Cities”: http://www.forbes.com/2007/11/08/murder-city-danger-forbeslife-cx_de_1108murder.html .

[5] Professor Jared Diamond, “Collapse” (Prologue, p10, Penguin 2007 edition).

According to the organizers: “Australia’s Climate Action Summit will be two days of facilitated meetings and workshops. There will be an open public program for anyone to join, and a restricted program for people from climate change groups, who will create a strategic national climate campaign and form a national grassroots network. The weekend will be followed on the Monday by one day of dynamic training in climate campaigning skills for taking action, facilitating climate action groups, effective lobbying and more.”

On Tuesday 3rd February, the first day of the 2009 Federal Parliament, there will be a demonstration at Parliament House and the grassroots climate network created at Australia’s Climate Action Summit will launch its national campaign at Parliament House.

According to the organizers “One year into the Rudd Government we still haven’t seen strong action for a safe climate. Current policies doom the Great Barrier Reef to extinction. Time is running out. 2009 is a critical year for an international agreement on climate change, so join with thousands of other Australians in demanding urgent action from our Government! Come to the two-day Summit or join the human circle around Parliament House”.

CRUCIAL to effective action on the Climate Emergency is clearly INFORMING the public, politicians and climate activists about (a) Climate Emergency FACTS and (b) required Climate Emergency ACTIONS.

The following suggested SUMMARY of key Climate Emergency Facts and Actions for the Australian Climate Action Summit is a distillation of key concerns raised within the Australian Climate Emergency Network (CEN) since its inception in Melbourne, Australia in 2008. Authoritative documentation of the following assertions can be found in many detailed documents placed on the Web for public information by the Melbourne-based Yarra Valley Climate Action Group.

Climate Emergency Facts

1. Expert opinion on Climate Emergency. We must take very seriously the views of top climate scientists and top scientists in relation to the Climate Emergency – just as we would the views of top medical specialists in relation to a serious medical problem – and many are stating that the World is facing a Climate Emergency and Sustainability Emergency e.g. Dr James Hansen (Head, NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies): “we face a climate emergency” ; Nobel Laureate Professor Peter Doherty “we are in real danger” ; 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”.

2. Expert opinion on climate position. According to Dr Hansen and 8 UK, French and US climate change scientist co-authors (2008):

“Paleoclimate data show that climate sensitivity is ~3 deg-C for doubled CO2 [carbon dioxide; atmospheric CO2 280 ppm pre-industrial], including only fast feedback processes. Equilibrium sensitivity, including slower surface albedo feedbacks, is ~6 deg-C for doubled CO2 for the range of climate states between glacial conditions and ice-free Antarctica. Decreasing CO2 was the main cause of a cooling trend that began 50 million years ago, large scale glaciation occurring when CO2 fell to 450 +/- 100 ppm [parts per million], a level that will be exceeded within decades, barring prompt policy changes. If humanity wishes to preserve a planet similar to that on which civilization developed and to which life on Earth is adapted, paleoclimate evidence and ongoing climate change suggest that CO2 will need to be reduced from its current 385 ppm to at most 350 ppm”.

3. Expert opinion on where climate is going. Dr Andrew Glikson (an Earth and paleo-climate research scientist at Australian National University, Canberra, Australia):

“For some time now, climate scientists warned that melting of subpolar permafrost and warming of the Arctic Sea (up to 4 degrees C during 2005–2008 relative to the 1951–1980) are likely to result in the dissociation of methane hydrates and the release of this powerful greenhouse gas into the atmosphere (methane: 62 times the infrared warming effect of CO2 over 20 years and 21 times over 100 years) … The amount of carbon stored in Arctic sediments and permafrost is estimated as 500–2500 Gigaton Carbon (GtC), as compared with the world’s total fossil fuel reserves estimated as 5000 GtC. Compare with the 700 GtC of the atmosphere, which regulate CO2 levels in the range of 180–300 parts per million and land temperatures in a range of about – 50 to + 50 degrees C, which allowed the evolution of warm blooded mammals. The continuing use of the atmosphere as an open sewer for industrial pollution has already added some 305 GtC to the atmosphere together with land clearing and animal-emitted methane. This raised CO2 levels to 387 ppm CO2 to date, leading toward conditions which existed on Earth about 3 million years (Ma) ago (mid-Pliocene), when CO2 levels rose to about 400 ppm, temperatures to about 2–3 degrees C and sea levels by about 25 +/- 12 metres. There is little evidence for an extinction at 3 Ma. However, by crossing above a CO2 level of 400 ppm the atmosphere is moving into uncharted territory. At this stage, enhanced methane leaks threaten climate events, such as the massive methane release and fauna extinction of 55 million years ago, which was marked by rise of CO2 to near-1000 ppm”.

4. Expert opinion about current and future biological consequences. With atmospheric CO2 at 387 ppm (versus 280 ppm pre-industrial and presently increasing at 2.5 ppm per year) and global average temperature 0.8 degree C above pre-industrial, the World is already seeing mass species extinction at rates 100-1,000 times that in the fossil record (see: nature.com and nationalgeographic.com); major ecosystems are being destroyed due to drought, deforestation, Arctic ice melting, tundra melting, glacier melting, and ocean warming and acidification (see IPCC); world coral reefs have already been severely damaged and will die above 450 ppm CO2 from ocean warming and acidification (see: sciencemag.org ; abc.net.au); ocean phytoplankton and the Greenland ice sheet go above 500 ppm CO2; (see Dr James Lovelock’s book “The Revenge of Gaia”); already 16 million people die avoidably each year due to increasingly climate-impacted deprivation (see my books “Body Count. Global avoidable mortality since 1950”: and “Jane Austen and the Black Hole of British History. Colonial rapacity, holocaust denial and the crisis in biological sustainability”); and according to top UK climate scientist Dr James Lovelock FRS over 6 billion people will perish this century due to unaddressed anthropogenic global warming (AGW).

Climate Emergency Actions

1. Our core values must be that we have no right to bargain away the lives of others – there must be a safe climate future for all people, all species, and all generations, NOW e.g. the survival of Australia’s Great Barrier Reef is simply NOT negotiable.

2. Our core goals must be concurrent halt to man-made greenhouse gas emissions, removal of excess carbon dioxide from the atmosphere to less than 350 ppm, and active cooling of the Earth (by re-afforestation, biochar addition to depleted soils).

3. Core scientific risk management methodology must be generally adopted – this successively involving (a) accurate data (with zero tolerance for lying), (b) scientific analysis (this involving the critical testing of potentially falsifiable hypotheses), and (c) systemic change and INFORMING (to rationally minimize risk with requisite urgency).

4. Cessation of fossil fuel burning must occur ASAP with concurrent rapid uptake of non-carbon renewable (solar, wind, wave) and geothermal energy systems, the best of which are now roughly equivalent in cost to the “market cost” of coal burning.

5. To accelerate cessation of fossil fuel burning, society must insist that the “true cost” of fossil fuel burning (4-5 times that of the “market cost”; huge environmental cost and human avoidable morbidity and avoidable mortality) be identified, sourced and fully met by the perpetrators (the World may apply Sanctions against the worst climate criminal nations).

6. There must be immediate cessation of huge direct and indirect subsidies for fossil fuel burning (currently $10 billion per annum in Australia, population 21 million).

7. Livestock contribute 18% of annual man-made greenhouse gas pollution globally. Methanogenic livestock must be rapidly phased out (e.g. by high conversion efficiency fish aquaculture, soy milk, plant-derived protein and fat).

8. Deforestation contributes about 20% of annual man-made greenhouse gas pollution globally but can be halved for a mere $20 billion per annum disincentive paid to the Third World (cheap solar cooking can also make a massive contribution).

9. Non-carbon public transport must rapidly replace carbon-based private transport, freeway-based systems and the genocidal Western “food for fuel” biofuel perversion.

10. Urgent population control is required coupled with major resource use efficiency and global equity (e.g. Australia’s annual per capita carbon pollution is about 10 times the global average) – all achievable with truth, reason and cultural change.

Australia is the World’s biggest coal exporter and is among the World’s worst greenhouse gas polluters (Australia’s annual per capita Domestic and Exported fossil fuel-derived CO2 pollution is about 10 times that of the World and of China, about 40 times that of India and about 160 times that of Bangladesh; see ““Coal is King” Australia CO2 pollution Fact Sheet”) .

Paradoxically, while Australia is a world-leading carbon polluter, Australia is itself seriously threatened by climate change – the Great Barrier Reef is acutely threatened by ocean warming and acidification; the warming of the Indian Ocean is forcing water-bearing weather southwards, causing severe, sustained drought in the southern Australian states; the Northern Territory Kakadu wetlands and the huge and agriculturally vital Murray-Darling River system are severely threatened.

For a cogent analysis of this kind of greed-driven, denial-enabled, slow, collective suicide see Professor Jared Diamond’s seminal book “Collapse” about the collapse of civilizations (it includes a chapter on Australia).

The global Climate Emergency means that ALL countries need to act urgently on man-made greenhouse gas pollution to reduce atmospheric CO2 to below 350 ppm. Please use the above key Climate Emergency Facts and Actions Summary in YOUR advocacy in YOUR country.

Shortly after the huge 2007 Walk Against Warming held around Australia, the newly-elected, extreme right-wing Rudd Labor Government actually signed the Kyoto Protocol but then proceeded to help the US sabotage the December 2007 Bali Climate Change Conference by refusing to agreed to defined targets (see “Bali Farce: Climate Criminal, Climate Racist US, Australia & Canada Threaten Bengal, India & the PLANET”).

Demonstrators at the 2008 Walk Against Warming hoped that they might – somehow – spur the lethargic, pro-Coal, climate criminal Australian Government into SOME action over the Climate Emergency.

Tens of thousands attended the rally at Martin Place in Sydney’s central business district. For some photos of the Sydney Walk Against Warming click here.

Cate Faehrmann of the Nature Conservation Council was one of the speakers at the Sydney Walk Against Warming Rally stating that greenhouse gas pollution must be reduced “to the levels that science is telling us is necessary for a safe climate, not just to the level the fossil fuels industry can live with. How hard is it to stop logging our native forests and protect them in perpetuity to the vital role they play in stabilising our climate? How hard is it to build a fast and efficient rail service at the same time as you are planning new suburbs?”

8,000 people attended the Walk Against Warming rally in Melbourne, Australia. There was a similar huge Walk Against Warming rally in Melbourne. We were there at the Melbourne Walk Against Warming with our local Climate Action Group, the Yarra Valley Climate Action Group together with other Climate Action Groups associated with the Climate Emergency Network and the Climate Movement.

For photos of the Melbourne Walk Against Warming Rally click here – the big red on white banner stating CLIMATE EMERGENCY was held aloft by OUR local Yarra Valley Climate Action Group. See the OTHER side of our banner.

A succession of eminent speakers at the Melbourne Rally urged the public to get the Australian government to take urgent action to tackle the Climate Emergency facing Australia and the Planet.

Thus eminent Australia climate scientist and member of the Nobel Prize-winning IPCC, Professor David Karoly, stated that through existing pollution the world is ALREADY committed to temperature rises of 2 degrees Centigrade, massive polar region ice loss, massive sea level rises, massive ecosystem damage, coral reef damage and mass species extinction – he urged action to minimize the damage that is already in the pipeline.

The Melbourne Rally was addressed by video from “chilly” New York by US climate scientist Dr James Hansen (top US climate scientist; Director, NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies; member of the prestigious US National Academy of Sciences; 2007 Award for Scientific Freedom and Responsibility of the prestigious American Association for the Advancement of Science; for 1880-present NASA GISS Global Temperature graphed data click here: and http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/graphs/ ). Dr Hansen summarized the existing Climate Emergency, the dire threat to the Planet from combustion the huge remaining coal reserves and the urgent need for the public to become involved and insist on action.

One speaker told of the submergence of Pacific Islands that is happening NOW, and specifically of the Carteret Islands in Papua New Guinea. The speaker told how a system of maternal inheritance had operated there but the present mothers would not be able to pass their inheritance on to their daughters because it would be drowned due to rising sea levels due to global warming.

However the example given could just as easily have been of Bengali islands in West Bengal, India and in Bangladesh. Thus Lohachara Island, once home to 10,000 Indians, finally disappeared under the waves in 2006, see: “Disappearing world: global warming claims tropical island. For the first time an inhabited island has disappeared beneath rising seas”.

Climate Criminal Australia is not only disproportionately destroying the Planet – it is also in the process of destroying Australia’s (and the World’s) Great Barrier Reef (15% gone already and projected to die off completely above the MINIMUM atmospheric CO2 target of the Australian Government of 450 ppm), Australia’s Northern Territory Kakadu wetlands and the Murray-Darling River system (that covers one third of Australia, and which is involved in most of Australia’s agriculture).

The pro-Coal, pro-War Australian Labor Government and the pro-Coal, pro-War Liberal-Country Party Opposition (collectively known as the Lib-Labs) refuse to act to reduce Australia’s world-leading CO2 pollution – a position of greed, cowardice, climate racism and criminal irresponsibility that is simply explained by the reality that Australia’s coal industry , including its world-leading coal exports, is worth $100 billion and 25,000 jobs each year whereas the priceless Great Barrier Reef is only worth (in purely economic terms from tourism and fisheries ) $7 billion and 63,000 jobs each year (source).

To decent Australian who love their country the survival of the Great Barrier Reef is NOT NEGOTIABLE.

We all contribute to this mounting disaster, to the Climate Emergency and Sustainability Emergency but some countries do so disproportionately, most notably the oil-exporting Gulf States, the rain-forest destroying South East Asian states and racist, climate criminal (and war criminal) Western countries with the highest annual per capita fossil fuel-derived carbon dioxide (CO2) pollution – the US, Canada and Australia (for details see the Climate Emergency Fact Sheets of the Yarra Valley Climate Action Group).

Thus a Germanwatch is a German Climate Change Performance Index that compares the 56 worst greenhouse gas emitting nations on the basis of pollution contributions and policy directions. Of these countries in 2008, Sweden, Germany, Iceland, Mexico and INDIA are the BEST, ranking 1,2 3, 4 and 5 , respectively. However the very WORST polluters are Canada (#53), Australia (#54), the USA (#55) and Saudi Arabia (#56) (see source). however a key point made by these observers is that “even the winners are no winners”.

Another comparison reveals that in terms of “annual per capita fossil fuel-derived carbon dioxide (CO2) pollution” Australia is the world’s #1 Developed Nation CO2 polluter. 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 world-leading coal exports), 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).

An appalling level of media, politician and academic censorship – an entrenched Culture of Ignoring , Denial and of lying by omission and commission – means that most Australians are unaware of Australia’s shocking “annual per capita exported and domestic fossil fuel-derived carbon dioxide (CO2) pollution” that currently (2008) stands at about 50 tonnes (t) per person per year and is set to increase enormously under the pro-Coal Rudd Labor Federal Government. Thus the Federal Governments election promise of “60% reduction of Domestic CO2 pollution by 2050” in actuality means a 50% INCREASE in Domestic plus Exported CO2 pollution by 2050.

Decent Australians can protest (as in the Walk Against Warming) and otherwise INFORM others about the Climate Emergency and appalling climate criminal Government inaction.What can decent people around the World do about this disaster due to climate criminal inaction?

Decent people around the World must defend their OWN country and their OWN people – as well as defending the Planet, including Australia’s own Great Barrier Reef that the climate criminal White Australians are in the process of KILLING – by (a) INFORMING others, (b) applying SANCTIONS and BOYCOTTS (e.g. as successfully applied against the UK-, US-, Apartheid Israel- and Australia-supported Apartheid régime in South Africa for denying equal rights to Indians and Africans) and (c) URGING their Governments to bring climate criminal Australia and like climate criminal countries to the International Criminal Court over ongoing Australian involvement in Climate Genocide – I have done MY duty as an Australian citizen and citizen of the World by doing exactly that (see “Formal complaint to the Chief Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court re Australian Government involvement in Aboriginal Genocide, Iraqi Genocide, Afghan Genocide and Climate Genocide“).

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”) .

Leading world climate experts offer the expert diagnosis that the World faces a life-threatening Climate Emergency requiring urgent action to stop carbon pollution and indeed to reduce existing atmosphere greenhouse gas (GHG) pollution.

However such expert advice is countermanded by inexpert, non-scientist politicians and corporate spokespersons with vested interests in fossil fuel burning and their inexpert climate sceptic supporters. These climate sceptics and “business as usual” advocates are merely expressing inexpert partisan opinions that would be seen as dishonest and dangerously irresponsible in the context of expert medical specialist diagnosis of life threatening circumstances.

Below are about 2 dozen recent, Web-documented, expert statements from outstanding, world-leading climate change experts, other eminent scientific experts and top scientific organizations with expertise to make authoritative comments about the Climate Emergency and related matters.

These 2 dozen statements can be regarded as expert specialist diagnoses on the environmental health of the Planet’s biosphere. We can seek expert second opinions by all means but these statements represent dire warnings that cannot be ignored.

1.

Dr James Hansen (top US climate scientist; Director, NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies; member of the prestigious US National Academy of Sciences; 2007 Award for Scientific Freedom and Responsibility of the prestigious American Association for the Advancement of Science; see: for 1880-present NASA GISS Global Temperature graphed data see: http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/ and http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/graphs/):

(a) With 8 UK, French and US climate change scientist co-authors (2008):

“Paleoclimate data show that climate sensitivity is ~3 deg-C for doubled CO2 [carbon dioxide; atmospheric CO2 280 ppm pre-industrial], including only fast feedback processes. Equilibrium sensitivity, including slower surface albedo feedbacks, is ~6 deg-C for doubled CO2 for the range of climate states between glacial conditions and ice-free Antarctica. Decreasing CO2 was the main cause of a cooling trend that began 50 million years ago, large scale glaciation occurring when CO2 fell to 450 +/- 100 ppm [parts per million], a level that will be exceeded within decades, barring prompt policy changes. If humanity wishes to preserve a planet similar to that on which civilization developed and to which life on Earth is adapted, paleoclimate evidence and ongoing climate change suggest that CO2 will need to be reduced from its current 385 ppm to at most 350 ppm. The largest uncertainty in the target arises from possible changes of non-CO2 forcings. An initial 350 ppm CO2 target may be achievable by phasing out coal use except where CO2 is captured and adopting agricultural and forestry practices that sequester carbon. If the present overshoot of this target CO2 is not brief, there is a possibility of seeding irreversible catastrophic effects.”

See: http://arxiv.org/abs/0804.1126

(b) In relation to the recent book “Climate Code Red. The case for emergency action” by David Spratt and Philip Sutton: “A compelling case … we face a climate emergency.”

(c) 2007 (Hansen, J., Mki. Sato, P. Kharecha, G. Russell, D.W. Lea, and M. Siddall, 2007: Climate change and trace gases. Phil. Trans. Royal. Soc. A, 365, 1925-1954):

“Paleoclimate data show that the Earth’s climate is remarkably sensitive to global forcings. Positive feedbacks predominate. This allows the entire planet to be whipsawed between climate states. One feedback, the “albedo flip” property of water substance, provides a powerful trigger mechanism. A climate forcing that “flips” the albedo of a sufficient portion of an ice sheet can spark a cataclysm. Ice sheet and ocean inertia provides only moderate delay to ice sheet disintegration and a burst of added global warming. Recent greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions place the Earth perilously close to dramatic climate change that could run out of our control, with great dangers for humans and other creatures. Carbon dioxide (CO2) is the largest human-made climate forcing, but other trace constituents are important. Only intense simultaneous efforts to slow CO2 emissions and reduce non-CO2 forcings can keep climate within or near the range of the past million years. The most important of the non-CO2 forcings is methane (CH4), as it causes the 2nd largest human-made GHG climate forcing and is the principal cause of increased tropospheric ozone (O3), which is the 3rd largest GHG forcing. Nitrous oxide (N2O) should also be a focus of climate mitigation efforts. Black carbon (“black soot”) has a high global warming potential (~2000, 500, and 200 for 20, 100 and 500 years, respectively) and deserves greater attention. Some forcings are especially effective at high latitudes, so concerted efforts to reduce their emissions could still “save the Arctic”, while also having major benefits for human health, agricultural productivity, and the global environment.”

See: http://pubs.giss.nasa.gov/abstracts/2007/Hansen_etal_2.html).

(d) 2008, in an address to the US National Press Club and a briefing to the US House Select Committee on Energy Independence & Global Warming Congressional Committee:

“CEOs of fossil energy companies know what they are doing and are aware of long-term consequences of business as usual. In my opinion, these CEOs should be tried for high crimes against humanity and nature.”

See: http://olumbia.edu/…/20080623.pdf

2.

Dr Rajendra Pachauri (2008) (economist and environmental scientist; chairman of the Nobel Prize-winning Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC)):

“[The UN negotiations] must progress rapidly, otherwise I am afraid that not only future generations but even this generation will treat us as having been irresponsible…The EU has to lead. If the EU does not lead, I am afraid that any attempt to bring about change and to manage the problem of climate change will collapse…Today there is a high level of expectation. If the EU does not lead, you will not be able to bring the US on board, North America, on board. You will not be able to bring on board other countries in the world as well…we would have to stabilise the greenhouse-gas concentration at more or less the level at which we are today. But in order to do that [to limit the overall warming since pre-industrial times to 2 C (3.6 F)], we have a window of opportunity of only seven years because emissions will have to peak by 2015 and reduce after that. We cannot permit a longer delay…The very wise target that the EU had set of 2.0 C (3.6 F) may need to be looked at once more, because the impacts are turning out to be more serious than we had estimated earlier.”

See: http://afp.google.com/…/

3.

Dr Graeme Pearman (2008) (top Australian climate scientist; Chief of CSIRO Atmospheric Research in Australia from 1992 to 2002; world expert on increasing levels of CO2 and global warming):

“This science tells us that the world’s climate is changing and that the change is primarily because of an increase of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere due to human activities. We are changing the climate. Very recent science suggests that climate change may be happening faster than we expected and that we and other species on the planet are more vulnerable to change than we thought. This is now forcing serious consideration of rapid responses by all nations as we work to tackle this shared problem. Challenges in this quest include a general community lack of appreciation of the significance of what appears to be small shifts in global average temperature, incompleteness of the knowledge-base and the need to respond using risk management.”

See: http://monash.edu.au/…/climate-change.html

4.

Professor David de Kretser, A.C., Governor of Victoria, Australia (2008) (eminent Australian medical scientist) in launching the book “Climate Code Red. The case for emergency action” by David Spratt and Philip Sutton (Scribe, Melbourne, 2008):

“The book draws on a vast array of information to build a cogent and compelling case that we do have a genuine emergency on our hands if we are to limit the rise of greenhouse gas emissions to a level at which we can limit the degradation of our planet to manageable levels … 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.”

See: http://scribepublications.com.au/…/climatecodered

5.

Dr James Lovelock (top UK climate scientist; Fellow of the Royal Society; proponent of the Gaia hypothesis):

(a) 2006:

“In Chapter 1 I describe a simple model where the sensitive part of the Earth system is the ocean; as it warms, so the area of the sea that can support the growth of algae grows smaller as it is driven ever closer to the poles, until algal growth ceases. The discontinuity comes because algae in the ocean both pump down carbon dioxide [by photosynthesis] and produce clouds [through cloud-seeding dimethyl sulphide production]. (Algae floating in the ocean actively remove carbon dioxide from the air and use it for growth; we call the process “pumping down” to distinguish it from the passive and reversible removal of carbon dioxide as it dissolves in rain or sea water). The threshold for the failure of the algae is about 500 parts per million (ppm) of carbon dioxide, about the same as it is for Greenland’s unstoppable melting.”

See: “The Revenge of Gaia”, Allen Lane, London; p51

(b) 2007:

“Most of the large climate models used to predict future climates still rely mainly on atmospheric physics, and this includes the models on which the IPCC report is based. The influence of the clouds and the ocean are incompletely included and that of the Earth’s natural ecosystems hardly at all. Present day climate models are good at explaining past climates but seem unable to agree on the course of global heating beyond about 2050, by the end of the century predictions vary over a wide range. This stark view was reinforced in May this year by the publication by Rahmstorf and his colleagues ["Recent Climate Observations Compared to Projections", Science 4 May 2007: Vol. 316. no. 5825, p. 709] of high quality measurements of the rise in global mean temperature, sea level and CO2. These showed that even the gloomiest predictions of the IPCC were underestimating the severity of climate change now.”

See: http://jameslovelock.org/page24.html

(c) 2006:

“When Malthus first warned of the overpopulation of the Earth in 1800, there were only one billion of us. He has been derided ever since, yet I think he was right. One billion is about the right number and I fear that we will reach it not by our own choice but by attrition.”

See: http://independent.co.uk/…/

(d) 2008:

“I hate academia. Most of the scientists who work there are not free men any more and they can’t speak out. That’s no way to do science.”

See: http://guardian.co.uk/…/desertification.ethicalliving

6.

Professor David Pimentel (1998) (Professor of Ecology and Agricultural Science at the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences, Cornell University, Ithaca, NY, USA):

“At present, humans face serious malnutrition, land degradation, water pollution and shortages, and declining fossil energy resources. In addition, with related changes in the natural environment, many thousands of species are being lost forever. If the human population increases dramatically over the next several decades, as it is projected to do, the strains on these limited resources will grow as well. Some people are starting to ask just how many people the Earth can support if we want to cease degrading the environment and move to a sustainable solar energy system? There is no solid answer yet, but the best estimate is that Earth can support about 1 to 2 billion people with an American Standard of living, good health, nutrition, prosperity, personal dignity and freedom. This estimate suggests an optimal U.S. population of 100 to 200 million. To achieve this goal, humans must first stabilize their population and then gradually reduce their numbers to achieve a sustainable society in terms of both economics and environmental resources. With fair policies and realistic incentives, such a reduction in the human population can be achieved over the next century.”

See: http://populationpress.org/essays/essay-pimentel.html

7.

Dr Timothy Searchinger and colleagues (“Use of U.S. Croplands for Biofuels Increases Greenhouse Gases Through Emissions from Land-Use Change”, Science 29 February 2008, Vol. 319. no. 5867, pp. 1238 – 1240):

“Most prior studies have found that substituting biofuels for gasoline will reduce greenhouse gases because biofuels sequester carbon through the growth of the feedstock. These analyses have failed to count the carbon emissions that occur as farmers worldwide respond to higher prices and convert forest and grassland to new cropland to replace the grain (or cropland) diverted to biofuels. By using a worldwide agricultural model to estimate emissions from land-use change, we found that corn-based ethanol, instead of producing a 20% savings, nearly doubles greenhouse emissions over 30 years and increases greenhouse gases for 167 years. Biofuels from switchgrass, if grown on U.S. corn lands, increase emissions by 50%. This result raises concerns about large biofuel mandates and highlights the value of using waste products.”

8.

Dr Joseph Fargione and colleagues (“Land Clearing and the Biofuel Carbon Debt”, Science 29 February 2008, Vol. 319. no. 5867, pp. 1235 – 1238):

“Increasing energy use, climate change, and carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions from fossil fuels make switching to low-carbon fuels a high priority. Biofuels are a potential low-carbon energy source, but whether biofuels offer carbon savings depends on how they are produced. Converting rainforests, peatlands, savannas, or grasslands to produce food crop–based biofuels in Brazil, Southeast Asia, and the United States creates a “biofuel carbon debt” by releasing 17 to 420 times more CO2 than the annual greenhouse gas (GHG) reductions that these biofuels would provide by displacing fossil fuels. In contrast, biofuels made from waste biomass or from biomass grown on degraded and abandoned agricultural lands planted with perennials incur little or no carbon debt and can offer immediate and sustained GHG advantages.”

9.

Professors O. Hoegh-Guldberg, P. J. Mumby and colleagues (Coral Reefs Under Rapid Climate Change and Ocean Acidification, Science 14 December 2007: Vol. 318. no. 5857, pp. 1737 – 1742:

“Atmospheric carbon dioxide concentration is expected to exceed 500 parts per million and global temperatures to rise by at least 2°C by 2050 to 2100, values that significantly exceed those of at least the past 420,000 years during which most extant marine organisms evolved. Under conditions expected in the 21st century, global warming and ocean acidification will compromise carbonate accretion, with corals becoming increasingly rare on reef systems. The result will be less diverse reef communities and carbonate reef structures that fail to be maintained. Climate change also exacerbates local stresses from declining water quality and overexploitation of key species, driving reefs increasingly toward the tipping point for functional collapse.”

10.

Dr Chris Thomas and numerous colleagues (Extinction risk from climate change, Nature 427, 145-148, 2004):

“Climate change over the past approx30 years has produced numerous shifts in the distributions and abundances of species and has been implicated in one species-level extinction. Using projections of species’ distributions for future climate scenarios, we assess extinction risks for sample regions that cover some 20% of the Earth’s terrestrial surface. Exploring three approaches in which the estimated probability of extinction shows a power-law relationship with geographical range size, we predict, on the basis of mid-range climate-warming scenarios for 2050, that 15–37% of species in our sample of regions and taxa will be ‘committed to extinction’. When the average of the three methods and two dispersal scenarios is taken, minimal climate-warming scenarios produce lower projections of species committed to extinction (approx18%) than mid-range (approx24%) and maximum-change (approx35%) scenarios. These estimates show the importance of rapid implementation of technologies to decrease greenhouse gas emissions and strategies for carbon sequestration.”

11.

Dr Cynthia Rosenzweig, Professor David D. Karoly and numerous other colleagues (2008) (Attributing physical and biological impacts to anthropogenic climate change. Nature, 453, 353-357, 2008):

“Significant changes in physical and biological systems are occurring on all continents and in most oceans, with a concentration of available data in Europe and North America. Most of these changes are in the direction expected with warming temperature. Here we show that these changes in natural systems since at least 1970 are occurring in regions of observed temperature increases, and that these temperature increases at continental scales cannot be explained by natural climate variations alone. Given the conclusions from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Fourth Assessment Report that most of the observed increase in global average temperatures since the mid-twentieth century is very likely to be due to the observed increase in anthropogenic greenhouse gas concentrations, and furthermore that it is likely that there has been significant anthropogenic warming over the past 50 years averaged over each continent except Antarctica, we conclude that anthropogenic climate change is having a significant impact on physical and biological systems globally and in some continents.”

See: http://pubs.giss.nasa.gov/…/Rosenzweig_etal_1.html

12.

Dr Andrew Balmford and numerous colleagues (Science 9 August 2002, Economic Reasons for Conserving Wild Nature, Science Vol. 297, pp. 950 – 953): “On the eve of the World Summit on Sustainable Development, it is timely to assess progress over the 10 years since its predecessor in Rio de Janeiro. Loss and degradation of remaining natural habitats has continued largely unabated. However, evidence has been accumulating that such systems generate marked economic benefits, which the available data suggest exceed those obtained from continued habitat conversion. We estimate that the overall benefit:cost ratio of an effective global program for the conservation of remaining wild nature is at least 100:1.”

See: http://www.sciencemag.org/…/950

13.

Dr Phillip S. Levin and Dr Donald A. Levin (2002) (Dr Donald A. Levin is Professor of Biology, University of Texas, Austin; his son Dr Phillip Levin is a biologist with the National Marine Fisheries Service):

“The numbers are grim: Some 2,000 species of Pacific Island birds (about 15 percent of the world total) have gone extinct since human colonization. Roughly 20 of the 297 known mussel and clam species and 40 of about 950 fishes have perished in North America in the past century. On average, one extinction happens somewhere on earth every 20 minutes. Ecologists estimate that half of all living bird and mammal species will be gone within 200 or 300 years. Although crude and occasionally controversial, such statistics illustrate the extent of the current upheaval, which spans the globe and affects a broad array of plants and animals…The current losses are, however, exceptional. Rates of extinction appear now to be 100 to 1,000 times greater than background levels, qualifying the present as an era of “mass extinction”. The globe has experienced similar waves of destruction just five times in the past.”

See: http://soc.duke.edu/…/the_real_biodiversity_crisis.html

14.

Dr John Holdren (2008) (Professor of Environmental Policy at the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University; Director of the Woods Hole Research Center; recent Chairman of the American Association for the Advancement of Science):

“I don’t like the term “global warming,” because it’s misleading. It implies something that’s mainly about temperature, that’s gradual, and that’s uniform across the planet. And in fact, temperature is only one of the things that’s changing. It’s a sort of an index of the state of climate. The whole climate is changing: the winds, the ocean currents, the storm patterns, snow packs, snowmelt, flooding, droughts. Temperature is just a bit of it. It’s also highly non-uniform. The largest changes are occurring in the far north in the Arctic, in the Antarctic Peninsula in the far south. It is certainly not gradual, in the sense that it is rapid compared to the capacity of ecosystems to adjust. It’s rapid compared to the capacity of human systems to adjust… I think that most people, even most scientists, continue to underestimate how far down the path to climate catastrophe we’ve already traveled. We are committed, the United States and 190 other countries are committed, under the Framework Convention on Climate Change to avoid dangerous human interference in the climate system. And the fact is, it’s already too late to do that. We’re already experiencing dangerous interference. Floods, major floods, are up all over the world. Wildfires are up in almost every region of the world where wildfires have been a problem. Wildfires erupt fourfold in the last thirty years in the western United States.”

See: http://www.democracynow.org/…/

15.

Professor Tim Flannery (2008) (eminent Australian mammalogist, palaeontologist and climate change activist):

“[inserting global dimming sulphur into the stratosphere] would change the colour of the sky. It’s the last resort that we have, it’s the last barrier to a climate collapse. We need to be ready to start doing it in perhaps five years time if we fail to achieve what we’re trying to achieve…The consequences of doing that are unknown …The current burden of greenhouse gas in the atmosphere is in fact more than sufficient to cause catastrophic climate change… Everything’s going in the wrong direction at the moment, timelines are getting shorter, the amount of pollution in the atmosphere is growing…It’s extremely urgent.”

See: http://news.com.au/…/

16.

The UK Royal Society (founded in 1660; “the Royal Society, the national academy of science of the UK and the Commonwealth, is at the cutting edge of scientific progress”; the Royal Society is one of the world’s most prestigious scientific bodies and its members include the most outstanding British and Commonwealth scientists):

“Climate change controversies: a simple guide. The Royal Society has produced this overview of the current state of scientific understanding of climate change to help non-experts better understand some of the debates in this complex area of science. This is not intended to provide exhaustive answers to every contentious argument that has been put forward by those who seek to distort and undermine the science of climate change and deny the seriousness of the potential consequences of global warming. Instead, the Society – as the UK’s national academy of science – responds here to eight key arguments that are currently in circulation by setting out, in simple terms, where the weight of scientific evidence lies.”

See: http://royalsociety.org/page.asp?id=6229

17.

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), 2007 (the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) and the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) established the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) in 1988; it has produced 4 successive Assessment Reports, the last being the Fourth in 2007):

“Warming of the climate system is unequivocal, as is now evident from observations of increases in global average air and ocean temperatures, widespread melting of snow and ice, and rising global average sea level … Most of the observed increase in global average temperatures since the mid-20th century is very likely due to the observed increase in anthropogenic greenhouse gas concentrations.”

See IPCC, 2007 Summary for Policymakers.

18.

American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), 2006 (founded in 1848, AAAS serves some 262 affiliated societies and academies of science, serving 10 million individuals; the AAAS journal Science has the largest paid circulation of any peer-reviewed general science journal in the world, with an estimated total readership of 1 million):

“The scientific evidence is clear: global climate change caused by human activities is occurring now, and it is a growing threat to society. Accumulating data from across the globe reveal a wide array of effects: rapidly melting glaciers, destabilization of major ice sheets, increases in extreme weather, rising sea level, shifts in species ranges, and more. The pace of change and the evidence of harm have increased markedly over the last five years. The time to control greenhouse gas emissions is now.”

See: http://www.aaas.org/news/releases/2007/0218am_statement.shtml

19.

US National Academy of Sciences (US PNAS) and 10 other national science academies, 2005 (the US PNAS is one of the world’s most prestigious scientific bodies and its members include the most outstanding US scientists):

“The US National Academy of Sciences joined 10 other national science academies today in calling on world leaders, particularly those of the G-8 countries meeting next month in Scotland, to acknowledge that the threat of climate change is clear and increasing, to address its causes, and to prepare for its consequences. Sufficient scientific understanding of climate change exists for all nations to identify cost-effective steps that can be taken now to contribute to substantial and long-term reductions in net global greenhouse gas emissions that cause global warming. The statement echoes the findings and recommendations of several previous reports by the US National Academies.”

See: http://nationalacademies.org/onpi/06072005.pdf

20.

Australian Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization (CSIRO) (Australia’s premier scientific research organization), Climate Change in Australia Technical Report 2007:

“The key findings of this report includes that by 2030, temperatures will rise by about 1 ºC over Australia – a little less in coastal areas, and a little more inland – later in the century, warming depends on the extent of greenhouse gas emissions. If emissions are low, warming of between 1 ºC and 2.5 ºC is likely by around 2070, with a best estimate of 1.8 ºC. Under a high emission scenario, the best estimate warming is 3.4 ºC, with a range of 2.2 ºC to 5 ºC.”

See: http://www.csiro.au/resources/ps3j6.html#2

This collection of key quotes from top world scientific experts was put together for the Melbourne-based Yarra Valley Climate Action Group (YVCAG) which is associated with the new Australian climate action umbrella organization the Climate Emergency Network (CEN).

Hopefully these quotes and links will be useful in YOUR advocacy on behalf of the Planet and also help you convince your climate sceptic friends. Please tell everyone you 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 just published “Body Count. Global avoidable mortality since 1950” (G.M. Polya, Melbourne, 2007: http://mwcnews.net and http://globalbodycount.blogspot.com);
see also his contribution “Australian complicity in Iraq mass mortality” in “Lies, Deep Fries & Statistics” (edited by Robyn Williams, ABC Books, Sydney, 2007). He is currently preparing a revised and updated 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 possibly 100-fold 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).

Prominent Australian academic Economist Professor Ross Garnaut was commissioned by the right-wing, pro-Coal, State and Federal Governments of Australia to review the economic impacts on Australia of climate change; to also examine this in an international context; and to recommend policy options.

The Garnaut Review Draft Report was published recently and has made headlines in Australia ever since. This pro-Coal Australian Climate Change Report is of major importance because Australia is the world’s biggest coal exporter and if you include the CO2 from these exports, Australia’s annual per capita greenhouse gas pollution (47 tonnes CO2-equivalent per person per year) is about 10 times that of China (5) and over 40 times that of India (1).

The Garnaut Report is GOOD in that it indicates (albeit inexplicitly) a serious climate change situation; the need to act now; and a “Cap and Trade” Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS) to encourage uptake of clean energy options.

However the Garnaut Review is fatally BAD in that it IGNORES crucial major considerations e.g. the need to cease coal mining and export; the human cost of coal burning (coal burning pollutants kill nearly 5,000 Australians annually); the “true cost” of coal-based power that is 4-5 times the “market cost”; the latest advances in low cost solar technologies; the urgent need to IMPLEMENT clean technologies; the massive ecosystem and economic damage NOW (notably to the Arctic, Antarctic, tropical forests, ocean fisheries, tropical agriculture and the ALREADY DYING coral reefs; and the urgent need to REDUCE atmospheric CO2 from the current 387 ppm to a safe and sustainable level of no more than 350 ppm as advocated by top US climate scientist Dr James Hansen and colleagues.

Unfortunately the right-wing, pro-Coal Australian Government Terms of Reference for the Garnaut Review included the following disastrous position, quote:

“The weight of scientific opinion that developed countries need to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions by 60 percent by 2050 against 2000 emission levels, if global greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere are to be stabilised to between 450 and 550 ppm [effectively carbon dioxide, CO2] by mid-century”.

However the literature cut-off for the latest (2007) IPCC Fourth Assessment Report (on which Professor Garnaut heavily relies) was 2005 and climate science is moving rapidly. Thus it has been recently reported by top coral experts in the top scientific journal Science that above about 450 ppm CO2 (26 years’ time at current rates) the world’s coral reefs – including Australia’s Great Barrier Reef – will start dying because of ocean acidification as well as from bleaching due to photosynthetic symbiont expulsion from increased ocean temperature. Top coral scientists say the “tipping point” for world coral death is in the 450-500 ppm atmospheric CO2 zone (Sources: Coral Reefs Under Rapid Climate Change and Ocean Acidification, Corals and crustaceans in distress, Exeter scientist warns: the carbon crisis is lethal for coral reefs and Australian Rudd Labor Government plans to kill Great Barrier Reef? ; see: also the latest 2007 IPCC Synthesis Report) .

The world temperature increase is discontinuous and so is the increase in ocean acidity. World coral species are ALREADY DYING at the world’s current atmospheric CO2 concentration of 387 ppm. A 270-contributor Report on the world’s coral from the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s National Ocean Service (NOAA) says that nearly half of the coral reefs in areas from the Caribbean to the Pacific “are not in good condition and are continuing steadily on a long-term decline … even remote reefs are showing signs of decline” ; a major bleaching and disease event in 2005 devastated coral reefs across the Caribbean. In the U.S. Caribbean, scientists say an average of 50 percent of the coral was lost. Some areas lost 90 percent of their coral; a 1997 report in Nature estimated that the resources and economic benefits derived from coral reefs are worth $375 billion a year; and scientists who study the medical benefits of coral reefs say there are about 20 compounds in clinical trials derived from the corals themselves or the many organisms that depend on them.

Further, atmospheric CO2 concentration will reach 500 ppm in. 46 years’ time at current rates assuming no acceleration of CO2 accretion in the atmosphere due to “positive feedback” effects (500-385 = 115 ppm; 115ppm/2.5ppm per year = 46 years). At 500 ppm there is huge damage to the ocean phytoplankton system (crucial for ocean food chains and for global temperature homeostasis (balance) by sequestering CO2 and for light-reflecting cloud formation through production of cloud-seeding dimethylsulphide) and the Greenland ice sheet melts with a huge attendant circa 7 meter sea level rise (see: James Lovelock “The Revenge of Gaia”, Penguin, London, 2006 and Reduced mixing generates oscillations and chaos in the oceanic deep chlorophyll maximum).

According to top US climate scientist Dr James Hansen (Head, NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies, member of the prestigious US National Academy of Science) and 8 UK, French and US colleagues:

“Paleoclimate data show that climate sensitivity is ~3 deg-C for doubled CO2, including only fast feedback processes. Equilibrium sensitivity, including slower surface albedo feedbacks, is ~6 deg-C for doubled CO2 for the range of climate states between glacial conditions and ice-free Antarctica. Decreasing CO2 was the main cause of a cooling trend that began 50 million years ago, large scale glaciation occurring when CO2 fell to 450 +/- 100 ppm, a level that will be exceeded within decades, barring prompt policy changes. If humanity wishes to preserve a planet similar to that on which civilization developed and to which life on Earth is adapted, paleoclimate evidence and ongoing climate change suggest that CO2 will need to be reduced from its current 385 ppm to at most 350 ppm. The largest uncertainty in the target arises from possible changes of non-CO2 forcings. An initial 350 ppm CO2 target may be achievable by phasing out coal use except where CO2 is captured and adopting agricultural and forestry practices that sequester carbon. If the present overshoot of this target CO2 is not brief, there is a possibility of seeding irreversible catastrophic effects.”

The Garnaut Review recognized “risks” to economies and to peoples and biodiversity:

“The weight of scientific evidence tells us that Australians are facing risks of damaging climate change. The risks can be substantially reduced by strong and early action by all major economies … We will delude ourselves if we think that scientific uncertainties are cause for delay. Delaying now will eliminate attractive lower-cost options. Delaying now is not postponing a decision. To delay is to deliberately choose to avoid effective steps to reduce the risks of climate change to acceptable levels.”

Professor Garnaut reviewed the science, the economics and then came up with a “Cap and Trade” Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS) to commence in an initial form in 2010. The ETS involves selling CO2 polluters tradeable licences, thus making pollution more expensive and favouring non-polluting alternatives (geothermal and ultimately solar-dependent renewables such as solar, wind, wave and tide power). However his scheme (Cap uncertain) involves returning 50% of the licence fees to domestic consumers and 30% to business in an extraordinary subsidy of “dirty” power. The remaining 20% will be spent on Research and Development for “new” alternative technologies, notably the “coal-burning with carbon capture and storage (CCS)” favoured by Professor Garnaut.

The Garnaut Review leaves one with a series of paradoxes. The “Cap” is set at a CO2 level that will kill off the Great Barrier Reef at best (at 450 ppm CO2), devastate the planet at worst (550 ppm CO2) and, in between these posited extremes, kill off the phytoplankton system and hence ocean life as well as irreversibly melting the Greenland ice sheet with huge attendant sea level rise (500 ppm CO2). While Professor Garnaut follows Sir Nicholas Stern in decrying climate change as “the greatest market failure ever seen”, he insists on an Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS) “market mechanism” (albeit subverted with gigantic State subsidies) to fix the problem and rejects any State implementation or State subsidy of renewable energy.

The Garnaut Review also FAILS to take seriously the impact of factors such as from human values (altruism, responsibility, respect for the irreplaceable ecosystems and species, respect for human life) to purely selfish considerations of peak oil. Thus a 2008 CSIRO report “Fuel for Thought” says that supply/demand problems due to “peak oil” may see petrol prices increase in 10 years to $8/L from the present $1.70/L whereas even an ETS carbon price of $40-$100/tonne would only add 10-25 cents/L to the price of petrol.

The Garnaut Climate Change Review is a highly flawed Report that IGNORES major realities – it does not merely ignore an Elephant in the Room, it IGNORES a HERD of Elephants in the Room. The most important reality it completely IGNORES in its prescription of CONTINUED fossil fuel-based pollution of the atmosphere is that at 387 ppm atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2) the Earth has ALREADY passed “tipping points” for major ecosystem devastation, notably the complete loss of Arctic sea ice and the death of the world coral reefs that support 25% of ocean organisms and are economically worth $375 billion annually.

If the world were to follow this course then the Planet biosphere is doomed.

Well, you might say, it is all very well to criticize but would the reviewer of the Garnaut Review do?

Here is a succinct science- and needs-based Alternative Plan. The Garnaut Review (514 pages) indicates that a favoured (but long-term, expensive, undeveloped, only partially effective at best and uncertain) Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS) technology yields power at about the same price (6 c/kWh) as EXISTING wind power technology. To replace Australia’s 92% fossil fuel-based, 50GW (50 billion Watt) electricity-generating capacity with wind power at $2 per Watt would cost 50 billion W x $2/W = $100 billion. However the existing “capacity factor” (reflecting ACTUAL electricity generation in practice) is about 50% (50 W capacity generating only about 250 TWH/year rather than the 500 TWh expected if there was 100% capacity) and if we assume a much lower 20% “capacity factor” for wind power then the realistic actual replacement cost would be $100 billion x 50/20 = $250 billion.

Of course that scenario is merely one “boundary condition” (one extreme in the range of the possible) and the actual “mix” and rapid uptake path could involve a combination of the following (Garnaut Review 2006 estimates of cents/kWh in parentheses): geothermal (9), wind (6) and concentrated solar (20) as alternatives to brown or black coal (3) or the uncertain, HYPOTHETICAL proposition of brown or black coal with combined Integrated Gasification Combined Cycle (IGCC) and Carbon Capture and Storage CCS (6-7) PLUS the latest, very low cost Solar Thermal and Photovoltaic technologies already being implemented around the world.

Crucial matters (not considered in the Garnaut Review) are the human cost of fossil fuel- or coal-based power generation (5,400 and 4,900 annual deaths, respectively, at a cost at $5 million person i.e. of $27 billion and $25 billion, respectively, per annum); the morbidity costs (6 times greater); and the “true cost” of coal-based electricity (estimated to be 4-5 times the “market cost”) (see: Yarra Valley Climate Action Group, Ontario Study Identifies Social Costs of Coal-Fired Power Plants and Pollutants from coal-based electricity generation kill 170,000 people annually). Further, major reductions in costs of Concentrated Solar (Solar Thermal) Compact Linear Fresnel (CLFR) technology developed by Ausra mean that this could supply 90% of the US grid and auto fleet energy needs with cost estimates competitive with the “market price” gas-fired power plants and as low as 8c/kWh (see: Ausra study: Solar Thermal Can Give Us Energy Independence, Ausra moves to mass-produce solar thermal and First U.S. Solar Thermal Power Manufacturing Plant Lands in Nevada). Other current renewable technologies already approaching the “market price” of coal-based power include US balloon-based solar collector for PV cells and the latest dye-based and CIGS non-silicon thin films (See: Cheap solar power poised to undercut oil and gas by half, How the Numbers Stack Up and Ausra Building First U.S. Production Facility for Thermal Solar).

The only “non-market support” that pro-renewable energy “PURE free marketeers” need from Government is (a) legal and legislative action over fossil fuel-burners who are killing an estimated 5,400 Australians annually from the effects of fossil fuel burning pollutants i.e. recognition of the 4-5 times greater “true cost” of coal-based power generation and (b) gross production feed-in tariffs for renewable producers as in Germany and Spain and recommended as “more accurate” by Professor Garnaut who concludes (p437) : “A feed-in tariff based on gross metering is thus a more accurate means of pricing these benefits [as compared to "net metering"].”

Of course those “NON-free-marketeers” who believe in use of taxes for the common good (as in hospitals, schools, emergency services etc) would like to see major Government intervention for urgent provision of low-cost, non-polluting, non-homicidal renewable energy options consonant with the prescription by top US climate scientist Dr Hansen and his colleagues of REDUCING atmospheric CO2 from a dangerous current concentration of 387 ppm to a safe level of no more than 350 ppm.

IN SUMMARY, the pro-Coal Garnaut Climate Change Review Draft Report is seriously flawed through grievous and extraordinary omissions. The Garnaut Review is fatally bad in that it IGNORES crucial major considerations e.g. the need to cease coal mining and export; the human cost of coal burning (coal burning pollutants kill nearly 5,000 Australians and 170,000 world-wide annually); the “true cost” of coal-based power that is 4-5 times the “market cost”; the latest advances in low cost solar technologies; the urgent need to IMPLEMENT clean technologies; the massive ecosystem and economic damage NOW (notably to the Arctic, Antarctic, tropical forests, ocean fisheries, tropical agriculture and the ALREADY DYING coral reefs and the urgent need to REDUCE atmospheric CO2 from the current 387 ppm to a safe and sustainable level of no more than 350 ppm as advocated by top US climate scientist Dr James Hansen and colleagues. Even the Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS) is seriously flawed by the absence of a non-biocidal “Cap” and the use of most of the licence fees to support business and domestic use of “dirty” energy.

The realistic and economic solutions to the Climate Emergency facing the world are urgent implementation of a NON-carbon energy economy using the cheap, advanced solar, wind and geothermal technologies already being implemented worldwide – and coupled with re-afforestation and biochar addition to the soil to return the atmospheric CO2 concentration to a safe and sustainable level of no more than 350 ppm.

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 just published “Body Count. Global avoidable mortality since 1950” (G.M. Polya, Melbourne, 2007: http://mwcnews.net and http://globalbodycount.blogspot.com);
see also his contribution “Australian complicity in Iraq mass mortality” in “Lies, Deep Fries & Statistics” (edited by Robyn Williams, ABC Books, Sydney, 2007). He is currently preparing a revised and updated 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 possibly 100-fold 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).