The Historical Carbon Debt (aka Climate Debt) of the World has been estimated at 12 Gt CO2 (12 billion tonnes CO2) in 1751-1900 and 334 Gt CO2-e for 1901-2008, for a total of 346 Gt CO2 in the period 1751-2008 (see “Carbon dioxide in the atmosphere”). Most of this greenhouse gas (GHG) pollution has occurred in the last half century.

In a 2008 letter to Australian PM Kevin Rudd, NASA’s Dr James Hansen provided a breakdown of global responsibility for fossil fuel-derived CO2 pollution between 1751 and 2006 that is summarized below as a percentage (%) of the Historical Climate Debt (1751-2006) of 346 Gt CO2.

Ships/air (4%): 4% of 346 Gt CO2 = 13.84 Gt. This has been allocated proportionately to the other groups as shown below.

India (2.5%) = (0.025 x 346 = 8.65) + (2.5 x 13.84/96 = 0.36) = 9.01 Gt CO2.
Japan (3.9%) = 13.49 + 0.56 = 14.05 Gt CO2.
UK (6.0%) = 20.76 + 0.87 = 21.63 Gt CO2.
Germany (6.6%) = 22.84 + 0.95 = 23.79 Gt CO2.
Russia (7.4%) = 25.60 + 1.07 = 26.67 Gt CO2.
China (8.2%) = 28.37 + 1.18 = 29.55 Gt CO2.
USA (27.5%) = 95.15 + 3.97 = 99.12 Gt CO2.
Canada-Australia (3.1%) = 10.73 + 0.45 = 11.18 Gt CO2 -> Canada 5.59 Gt CO2 & Australia 5.59 Gt CO2.
Rest of Europe (18.0%) (population 451.2 million) = 62.28 + 2.60 = 64.88 Gt CO2.
Rest of World (12.8%) (population 3,197.1 million) = 44.29 + 1.85 = 46.14 Gt CO2.

Post-2010 Carbon Credits (aka Climate Credits) relate to the last amount of GHG pollution the World can sustain before zero emissions in 2050 if it is to avoid a disastrous 2 degree Centigrade temperature rise. In 2009 the WBGU which advises the German Government on climate change estimated that for a 75% chance of avoiding a disastrous 2C temperature rise (EU policy), the World must emit no more than 600 billion tones of CO2 between 2010 and zero emissions in 2050. From this information it was possible to use data for annual per capita GHG pollution (i.e. of CO2-e; see “List of countries by greenhouse gas emissions per capita”) to calculate years left to zero emissions for every country in the world (see “Shocking analysis by country of years left to zero emissions”). This analysis based on current per capita pollution of CO2-e (CO2-equivalent i.e. considering GHGs such as methane and nitrous oxide in addition to CO2) was used to estimate Carbon Debt (Climate Debt) in US dollars for most countries (see “Climate Debt, Climate Credit”).

However a simpler and much more comprehensive analysis of Carbon Debt (Climate Debt) for all countries of the World is presented below that reports Carbon Debt in millions of tonnes of CO2 from fossil fuel burning alone (and ignores GHG pollution deriving from land use (agriculture and forestry), methane, nitrous oxide (N2O) and other GHGs).

Net Carbon Debt (aka Net Climate Debt) and Net Carbon Credit (aka Net Climate Credit) can be estimated from the difference between Historical Carbon Debt and post-2010 Carbon Credits. Thus, by way of example, if one accepts that “all men are created equal”, the Carbon Credit for India (population 1,210.2 million out of a total global population of 6,983.2 million) is 600 billion tonnes CO2 x 1,210.2 million/6,983.2 million = 103.981 billion tones CO2. The Net Carbon Debt for India is therefore 9.010 billion tonnes CO2 (Historical Carbon Debt) – 103.981 billion tonnes CO2 (post-2010 Carbon Credit) = – 94.971 billion tonnes Net Carbon Debt or a Net Carbon Credit of + 94.971 billion tones CO2.

Conversely, the Carbon Credit for the US (population 312.8 million out of a total global population of 6,983.2 million) is 600 billion tonnes CO2 x 312.8 million/6,983.2 million = 26.876 billion tonnes. The Net Carbon Debt for the US is therefore 99.120 billion tonnes CO2 (Historical Carbon Debt) – 26.876 billion tonnes CO2 (post-2010 Carbon Credit) = 72,244 billion tonnes CO2 Net Carbon Debt.

For “Rest of Europe” countries the Net Carbon Debt is 64,880 million tonnes CO2 /451.2 million people = 143.79 million tonnes CO2/person (Historical Carbon Debt) – 600,000 million tonnes /6,983,2 persons = 85.92 tonnes per person (Carbon Credit) = 57.49 tonnes per person i.e. there is a positive Net Carbon Debt which is in magnitude 57.87 x100/85.92 = 67.4% of the 2010-2050 Carbon Credit.

For “Rest of World “ countries the Net Carbon Debt is 46,140 million tonnes CO2/3,197.1 million persons = 14.43 million tonnes CO2/person (Historical Carbon Debt) – 85.92 tonnes per person (Climate Credit) = -71.49 tonnes per person i.e. there is a positive Net Carbon Credit which is in magnitude 71.49 x100/85.92 = 83.2% of the 2010-2050 Carbon Credit.

Net Carbon Debt (millions of tonnes of CO2) of Climate Debtor countries (descending order).

United States (72,244), Germany (16,765), United Kingdom (16,277), Russia (14,392), France (3,763), Australia (3,631), Japan (3,069), Italy (3,515), Spain (2,671), Ukraine (2,643), Canada (2,617), Poland (2,204), Romania (1,241),

Saint Barthélemy (0.5), Saint Pierre et Miquelon (0.4), Falklands Islands (0.2), Vatican City (0.05).

Net Carbon Credit (millions of tonnes of CO2) of Climate Creditor countries (ascending order).

Tokelau (0.07), Niue (0.07), Saint Helena Ascension and Trista da Cunha (0.3), Montserrat (0.4), Tuvalu (0.7), Nauru (0.7), Cook Islands (0.8),

Bangladesh (10,173), Nigeria (11,617), Pakistan (12,737), Brazil (13,753), Indonesia (16,989), China (85,558), India (94,971).

Some major observations arise from this data set

1. Some will argue that it is “unfair” to the major polluters of the European countries to saddle them with the Carbon Debt of previous generations. However these same countries have no problem with continuing to run up huge national debts, with demanding debt repayment by vulnerable countries (as in the current Eurozone crisis) or with crippling Third World countries with massive debt (for a damning account read John Perkins’ “Confessions of an Economic Hit Man”). Indeed Germany finally paid its last reparations for World War 1 (1914-1918) in 2010 and 96.5% of the 1751-2008 Historical Carbon Debt considered in this analysis was generated between 1901 and 2008. It should be also noted that this analysis is actually rather unfair to India, China , the “Rest of World” and indeed much of the “Rest of Europe” because it ignores the reality that most of these countries were variously subject in this period of 1751-2006 to colonial subjugation or crippling hegemony by the major polluters, namely the UK, Germany, the USA, Russia and Japan.

2. This analysis is only concerned with available data on Carbon Debt arising from the burning of fossil fuels and ignores Carbon Debt from greenhouse gas (GHG) production from deforestation and methanogenic livestock production. Using the data that methane (CH4) is 72 times the global warming potential (GWP) of carbon dioxide (CO2) on a 20 year time frame (as compared to 25 times worse on a 100 year time frame) World Bank analysts have re-assessed annual global GHG pollution as 50% bigger than hitherto thought with methanogenic livestock production contributing over 51% of the bigger figure (see Robert Goodland and Jeff Anfang. “Livestock and climate change. What if the key actors in climate change are … cows, pigs and chickens?”, World Watch, November/December 2009). However this re-assessment in turn needs further re-assessment because Dr Drew Shindell and colleagues at NASA have shown that CH4 is actually 105 times worse than CO2 as a GHG on a 20 year time frame when aerosol impacts are taken into account (see Drew T. Shindell , Greg Faluvegi, Dorothy M. Koch , Gavin A. Schmidt , Nadine Unger and Susanne E. Bauer , “Improved Attribution of Climate Forcing to Emissions” and Shindell et al (2009), Fig.2).

3. The set of all the Carbon Debtor (Climate Debtor) countries include all the European countries and Japan. The set of all the Carbon Creditor (Climate Credit) countries includes all the non-European countries , excluding Japan, as well as the European colonies New Zealand and Israel (that could arguably be put in the “Rest of Europe” category).

4. One can convert the Carbon Debt or Carbon Credit from units of “million tonnes of CO2” simply by multiplying by whatever carbon price you desire in, say, US dollars. Thus a genuine Carbon Price of US$100 per tonne of CO2 would permit a transition from coal- and gas-burning for electric power. Using this value the Carbon Debt of the US would be 72, 244 million tonnes CO2 x $100/ tonne CO2 = $7,200, 244 million = $7.2 trillion. Likewise the Carbon Credit of China and India would be $8.6 trillion and $9.5 trillion, respectively.

5. The US is steadily increasing its current $15.3 trillion national debt and is devaluing this debt by printing money. Conversely, the US has a 72,244 million tonne CO2 ($7.2 trillion @ $100 per tonne CO2) Net Carbon Debt but is steadily increasing this debt at the rate of 6,946 million tonnes CO2-e per year (2008) i.e. the US Carbon Debt is increasing at about 10% per year. The US under Obama shows no indication of reducing its GHG pollution profligacy. Obama’s declining to approve the current Keystone XL pipeline proposal to carry oil from Canadian tar sands to Texas may only be a temporary reprieve to keep pro-environmentalists on side in a Presidential election year. According to leading US climate scientist Dr James Hansen, exploitation of the Canadian tar sands will mean “game over” for the Planet.

6. Australia is the worst annual per capita GHG polluter of the Carbon Debtor countries but shows no indication of changing its disproportionate GHG pollution. Australia’s Domestic plus exported GHG pollution was 1,077 million tonnes CO2-e in 2000 but under the Australian Labor Government’s dishonest “Carbon Tax-ETS Scheme” this is estimated to increase to 1,799 million tonnes by 2020 (a 1.7-fold increase) and to 4,490 million tonnes CO2-e by 2050 (a 4.2-fold increase). In vain top US, UK, German and Australian climate scientists and biologists demand that global GHG pollution must be rapidly reduced to zero emissions in about 2050 and that the atmospheric CO2 concentration must return to about 300 parts per million (ppm) from the current damaging 394 ppm (increasing at 2.4 ppm per year) (see “300,org – return atmosphere CO2 to 300 ppm”). Australia’s Net Carbon Debt (3,631 million tonnes CO2) is currently increasing at about 1,415 million tonnes CO2-e per year i.e. at 39% per year.

7. “Annual per capita greenhouse gas (GHG) pollution” in units of “tonnes CO2-equivalent per person per year” (2005-2008 data) is 0.9 (Bangladesh), 0.9 (Pakistan), 2.2 (India), less than 3 (many African and Island countries), 3.2 (the Developing World), 5.5 (China), 6.7 (the World), 11 (Europe), 16 (the Developed World), 27 (the US) and 30 (Australia; 54 if Australia’s huge Exported CO2 pollution is included, 64 being the 2010 figure). The major Climate Creditor countries are vastly lower in per capita GHG pollution than Australia (see “Climate Genocide”). Thus Australia’s current annual per capita of 64 tonnes CO2-e per person per year (with Exported GHG included) is 71 times that of Bangladesh.

8. The Carbon Debtors are stealing from the poor Carbon Creditors that are increasingly threatened by the worsening climate crisis. The Carbon Debtors (Climate Debtors) should be held to account through public advocacy, boycotts, sanctions, green tariffs, International Court of Justice (ICJ) litigations and International Criminal Court (ICC) prosecutions applied against Climate Debtor countries by Climate Creditor countries, notably the numerous Island States and major mega-delta countries such as Myanmar, Thailand, Cambodia, Vietnam, China, Egypt, Nigeria, India, Pakistan and Bangladesh. The climate criminals and Carbon Debtors (Climate Debtors) must be brought to account before it is too late.

The climate activist group Climate Justice Now! has stated that “Communities in the global south as well as low-income communities in the industrialised north have borne the toxic burden of this fossil fuel extraction, transportation and production. Now these communities are facing the worst impacts of climate change – from food shortages to the inundation of whole island nations” and demands “Huge financial transfers from north to south, based on the repayment of climate debts and subject to democratic control. The costs of adaptation and mitigation should be paid for by redirecting military budgets, innovative taxes and debt cancellation”. The present fossil fuel-based Carbon Debt analysis provides a quantitative basis for such transfers and should be used by Island States, mega-delta countries and other threatened Climate Creditor countries to force urgently needed climate change action.

“I’m sorry,” the text of the ad reads. “We could have stopped catastrophic climate change… We didn’t.”

Some of the so called world “leaders” depicted are Barack Obama, Angela Merkel, Nicolas Sarkozy, Gordon Brown, Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, Dmitry Medvedev and others.

“We’re hoping these ads predict the wrong future — the one where world leaders look back with a “coulda, shoulda, woulda” attitude at a Copenhagen climate summit which failed. There’s still time to change the future. Our recipe for world leader regret-avoidance is simple: agree a fair, ambitious, and legally binding deal to save the climate”, writes Brian from the Greenpeace Climate Rescue Webblog.

Nevertheless, environmentalists and environmentalist groups are being seduced into supporting the Carbon Trading ETS approach e.g. that of Obama that is now before the US Senate and the disastrous, proposed, pro-coal Australian ETS . The weak argument they offer is that “something is better than nothing”.

The pro-coal, pro-war Rudd Labor Government of Australia was elected in November 2007 with promises to the electorate that it would stop Australia’s involvement in Occupied Iraq (18 months since the election, two thirds of Australian troops are still there and there has a big boost to Australian forces in Occupied Afghanistan) and that it would take strong action on man-made climate change (but its post-election actions have been largely confined to rhetoric and propaganda while Australia’s world-leading per capita Domestic and Exported greenhouse gas pollution continues unabated).

The Rudd Labor Government did sign up Australia to the Kyoto Protocol in 2007 (a decade late) but balanced this by helping the US sabotage the Bali Climate Conference by refusing to agree to definite targets. As a ploy to avoid having to do anything concrete to decrease Australia’s world-leading Domestic and Exported greenhouse gas pollution (54 tonnes per person per year as compared to a world average per capita GHG pollution of 6.7 tonnes per person per year), the Australian Government appointed an economist Professor Ross Garnaut to research climate change for about a year and then proceeded to propose a softened version of Professor Garnaut’s final recommendations.

The Australian Government cap-and-trade Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS) proposal was called the “Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme” (CPRS) but the reality as estimated from US Energy Information Administration data is that the Australia ETS will INCREASE Australian Domestic and Exported GHG pollution by about 80% above the 2000 value by 2050 (see “Australia’s “5% off 2000 GHG pollution by 2020” endangers Australia, Humanity and the Biosphere”) whereas top climate scientists are demanding that atmospheric GHG needs to be urgently REDUCED (see “Experts: Carbon Tax needed and NOT Cap-and-Trade Emission Trading Scheme (ETS)”).

Further, top climate scientists and climate economists are increasingly blunt in their assessments that a straightforward Carbon Tax is the way to go and that the cap-and-trade Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS) approach in general is highly flawed; will reward major polluters; has not and most likely will not deliver timely reduction in GHG pollution; and will lead to a destructive market manipulation “bubble” that will make the recent market meltdown look like a picnic (see “Experts: Carbon Tax needed and NOT Cap-and-Trade Emission Trading Scheme (ETS)”).

The cap-and trade ETS of the pro-coal Australian Government is a dishonest scam that ignores top scientific and economic advice in proposing a rigged auction of GHG pollution licences in which only major polluters can participate (an auction that would be illegal in other contexts). Even worse, the receipts from the rigged auction are largely returned to the major polluters who can also keep polluting cheaply by purchasing very cheap carbon pollution offsets offshore from massively deforesting countries such as Malaysia, Indonesia and Papua New Guinea.

Politically, the Australian ETS has been a great success for spin-driven, pro-coal, pro-war, pro-US Rudd Labor because it has succeeded in fooling the public into believing that it is actually doing something against climate change – whereas the reverse is true i.e. it is doing nothing concrete to reduce GHG pollution and indeed is doing the reverse by permitting massive expansion of coal burning, gas burning and coal and LNG exports while damaging Australia’s remaining renewables industry.

While the Greens oppose the ETS as a scam and the conservative Liberal a party-National Party Coalition oppose the ETS because it is flawed and/or may harm particular business interests, an ignorant and media-brainwashed Australian electorate continues to put its faith in an ignorant, dishonest, and dangerously incompetent pro-coal Australian Labor Government.

A recent estimate was that about 25% of Australians opposed the Carbon Trading ETS, with half opposing because it won’t work and half opposing because they are climate sceptics or are otherwise pro-coal and think it may work.

The great political success of Rudd Labor has been to also split the environmentalist movement. While the over 140 Climate Action Groups who met at the Canberra Climate Action Summit in January 2009 oppose the Government’s ETS and want REDUCTION of atmospheric CO2 from the current 390 ppm to 300 ppm, other environmentalists have been persuaded to come out in support of the highly flawed Government ETS that will commit Australia to INCREASING its world-leading GHG pollution.

The pro-ETS environmental groups include the Australian Conservation Foundation (ACF), the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) and the Climate Institute have now, sadly, been joined by leading Australian environmentalist Professor Tim Flannery. The essential argument appears to be “something is better than nothing” or as stated by Professor Flannery “I personally think they [the Greens] should vote for the CPRS and get it through. Because a first step is better than nothing.”

Below is a critique of an interview by ABC Lateline presenter Tony Jones with well-known Australian environmentalist Professor Tim Flannery (see ABC TV Lateline 29 June 2009). I have treated this as a kind of “student’s oral examination” and have inserted below correcting comments with appropriate references as required in bold in square brackets. Flannery has failed the Examination in key technical areas (it is no excuse that he was originally a Humanities Bachelor of Arts graduate from Melbourne’s Humanities-eminent La Trobe University before embarking on an eminent scientific career) and has also failed the Environment by supporting the pro-coal Australian Government’s highly flawed, cap-and-trade emissions trading scheme (ETS) that is misleadingly and paradoxically called the Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme (CPRS).

In short, the Australian CPRS (that Professor Flannery now supports) involves rigged auctions of greenhouse gas (GHG) pollution licences for major GHG polluters with the receipts being largely returned to the major GHG polluters. It is estimated that this CPRS policy means that Australia, one of the World’s worst per capita GHG polluters, will INCREASE its Domestic and Exported GHG pollution to 80% above the 2000 level by 2050 (see “Australia’s “5% off 2000 GHG pollution by 2020” endangers Australia, Humanity and the Biosphere”).

Parts of the transcript of the ABC Lateline interview with Professor Flannery are given below  [my comments are in bold in square brackets].

QUOTE: “Tim Flannery, adjunct professor for Environmental and Life Sciences at Macquarie University and chairman of the Copenhagen Climate Council joins Lateline to discuss the latest summit.

TONY JONES, PRESENTER: Joining us now in the studio is Professor Tim Flannery, well-known environmental expert, a former Australian of the Year and also chairman of the Copenhagen Climate Council.

Thanks for being here, Tim Flannery.

TIM FLANNERY, CHAIRMAN, COPENHAGEN CLIMATE COUNCIL: It’s a pleasure, Tony.

TONY JONES: Let’s start with the US energy bill, and how much does this new bill Obama has pushed through his Lower House at the very least, how much has it changed the game globally on climate change?

TIM FLANNERY: Well, look, it’s a very significant development. You know, that bill seeks to reduce emissions [annual i.e. per annum?] beyond a 2005 baseline by about 17 per cent [by when?]. And what that means is that for the first time ever, really, US emissions of greenhouse gases will peak about five years from now, and that’s a fantastic achievement if we can do that and then have a slow reduction. Now, of course, we’d all like it to be more ambitious, but you’ve got to live with what’s actually achievable in a place like the US.

… [discussion about the US Obama Administration Waxman-Markey energy, climate change and Carbon Trading ETS bill that is now before the US Senate] …

TONY JONES: Well, no response yet from China or India on this [proposed US carbon-related tariffs] and I suspect partly because it seems to have slipped under the bar. It’s now only being reported in fact in the ‘New York Times’ and the ‘Washington Post’. So, it happened in the middle of the night. A lot of people didn’t notice for the whole weekend and now they …

TIM FLANNERY: Including me.

TONY JONES: Well, now they’ve noticed. And so what response do you expect there will be from China and India? Because it does look like a threat: get on board or we’ll put tariffs on your goods.

TIM FLANNERY: It does. I think it’s gonna be much, much tougher for India than China, this sorta stuff. And – which is a pity, because with the Congress win in the last election in India there’s been a softening of the Indian position, and with the right signals, I think India may come on board. This may make it more difficult for India to deal with … [In actuality, India’s annual per capita GHG pollution of 2.2 tonnes CO2-e per person per year is about one third of the world average and 25 times lower than Australia’s annual per capita Domestic and Exported GHG pollution of 54; Indian PM Manmohan Singh has actually PLEDGED that India’s annual per capita will never exceed the average for Developed countries, this already being much lower than the World average and vastly lower than that of the US, Europe and Australia: http://smh.com.au/environment/.../us-says-scientist-20090709-desd.html ].

China’s different. China’s been playing tough all along. They’ve been saying, you know, “Unless you guys reduce by between 25 and 40 per cent by 2020, we’re not gonna be part of the deal.” Now that’s probably a negotiating position; we’re yet to see. But this again will make it somewhat harder, but I don’t think it makes it impossible for China.

[Flannery ignores the reality that Australia is the world’s biggest coal exporter and a world leading greenhouse gas (GHG) polluter. Thus Australia’s domestic and exported “annual per capita GHG pollution” is 54 tonnes CO₂-equivalent per person per year –  2 times that of the US, 10 times that of China, 25 times that of India and 60 times that of Bangladesh; for details and documentation see “Australia’s “5% off 2000 GHG pollution by 2020” endangers Australia, Humanity and the Biosphere”].

TIM FLANNERY: Well, look, offsets will be allowed – industrial offsets, right? So, if you produce a given amount of pollution, you can offset some of it by sequestering carbon in soils on farmland, which can be done through better agricultural practices and so forth, through charcoal making, another interesting technology, through reforestation, better rangelands management, better management of cattle and so forth. So there’s a number of different ways of this occurring. It’s yet to be seen specifically how the offsets will be made, but it definitely represents a real advantage to rural America and a very genuine set of offsets too. This actually helps with the climate problem. We know that this is such an overwhelmingly large problem that about half of the avoided emissions that we’ve gotta make over the next decade will come from sequestration in agriculture and forests.

TONY JONES: It is extraordinary when you think about that level of potential sequestration, but how does it actually work? I mean, biochar, for example, will – which Malcolm Turnbull has talked about quite a bit; you haven’t heard much from the Government on this issue. Will biochar be available to US farmers to offset carbon emissions?

TIM FLANNERY: Look, the specific technologies, I think, are yet to be debated, but I would be surprised if biochar weren’t included in there. I mean, the precise nature of the offsets, I should say, are still being worked out, but I’m sure that charcoal is one of the obvious ones. And just to let you know how that works, you know, just imagine a coal-fired power plant burns a ton of coal, you get 3.7 tonnes of carbon dioxide because the little carbon atoms join with bigger oxygen atoms to make them a CO2 molecule [you actually get much LESS because not all coal is carbon and not all the carbon, C, gets burned or fully oxidized to CO2]. That floats around in the air, a plant gets hold of it, strips the oxygen off again [NO, just some of the oxygen O is stripped off] and just keeps the carbon in its own tissue, so you’ve got that 3.7 going back to a single ton again ’cause there’s carbon in the plant structure itself [NOT SO; the photosynthesis equation is actually : CO2 + H2O -> CH2O + O2 i.e. carbohydrate (CH2O)n is generated, not carbon, C]. You then combust that, make charcoal out of it and then store the charcoal, which is almost pure carbon, in the soil.

TONY JONES: So, how does this work for a farmer? I mean, you’re talking about part of their crop is used obviously for export; the rest of it, the waste then becomes turned into charcoal and therefore somehow holds the carbon that’s in that waste. Is that what you’re talking about?

TIM FLANNERY: That’s absolutely right. If you look at a tree, it’s basically just congealed carbon [NO,  it is actually carbohydrate, mainly cellulose, (CH2O)n], you know, that’s what it is, effectively. And there’s people overseas developing some very ingenious ways of permanently capturing that carbon as charcoal. One of the best plans I’ve seen is out of Sweden where an agronomist is developing a thing called a “charvestor”. And a charvestor would simply go along and harvest a crop, but also harvest a crop waste. It’ll put the crop waste into a charcoal making machine and it’ll bin the synthetic gas you get out of that machine, which is a valuable protect, and the crude oil substitute’ll go into another bin, and the charcoal’ll get spat out the back and be put back into the field and give you a better crop yield next year.

TONY JONES: But how do you do it? I mean, it seems to require some kind of furnace that burns without oxygen or without using very much oxygen. How does that work?

TIM FLANNERY: Well, charcoal making’s a really ancient technology. And all you do is basically heat up any biomass – wood or crop mass or whatever – in the absence of oxygen and that basically cooks it. And so you get a gas given off which you can capture, you get a gooey, oil-like substance given off, and that’s a crude oil substitute, and at the bottom of the machine is all of the charcoal which is the carbon-dense part, it’s almost all the carbon in the plant, which is then in a mineralised form so it won’t rot away [NO, it is simply in the form of carbon, C, which will not “rot away and escape back into the air” unless it catches fire and burns: C + O2 -> CO2], and that’s the key to it. Because crop waste, normally, if it’s just put back on a field, tends to rot away and escape back to the air as carbon dioxide [NO, much ends up as methane, CH4, depending upon the conditions and organisms involved, noting that CH4 has 21 times the greenhouse gas efficacy of CO2 on a 100 year time scale], whereas if it’s turned into charcoal it’ll stay in that field for many thousands of years. So it’s locked away permanently out of the system.

….

TONY JONES: You’ve been watching very closely the progress towards the negotiations, or the progress of the negotiations towards December where there’s hope for an agreement. Is there any chance at all that what many scientists want will happen, that is, an agreement to keep temperature rises globally to under two degrees Celsius?

TIM FLANNERY: Tony, we’ve gotta see this as a step in a process, right? And we’re starting very late. There is enough greenhouse gases in the atmosphere to push us perilously close to that two degrees of warming over time, right? We can’t see how this is gonna play out in the longer term because things like charcoal making may pull us back from the brink a bit faster than we previously thought. But I see this Copenhagen meeting as a very important step in the process. It may not of itself limit us – limit greenhouse gas emissions to the point where we’ll be under two degrees, but it is a very important step [not good enough; Europe has set a limit of 2 degrees C warming over 1900 temperature; 90% of respondents from participants at the March 2009 Copenhagen Climate Change Conference thought that we would exceed 2 degrees C: http://guardian.co.uk/environment/.../global-warming-target-2c ]. We’ve gotta get emissions to peak first before we can start that reduction [what reduction? We can start reducing net CO2 and net GHG pollution right now].

….
TONY JONES: It’s not only industry, it’s certain key politicians. Senator Steve Fielding had a very important potential vote in the Senate, is now being described by the ‘Wall Street Journal’ as something like a prophet, which is quite unusual to see, and beyond that, there’s a view that Australia is emerging as a sort of epicentre of the new scientific scepticism.

TIM FLANNERY: Australia’s climate dinosaurs are a lot bigger and uglier than the climate dinosaurs elsewhere, that’s for sure. And it is depressing, because it’s just so counter-productive. And, you know, the amount of time industry will waste disputing the science and not getting on with the job of adjusting to the future and a new energy economy in this country is just dismaying.

TONY JONES: What about the other side of the coin – the Greens in Australia? You referred earlier to the pragmatism of the American vote. The Greens, of course, have chosen not to be pragmatic at all, to vote against the carbon pollution reduction scheme [CPRS; Australia’s proposed cap-and-trade emission trading scheme (ETS)], and potentially vote it down, although there are other votes obviously. Do you admire their role, or should they have been, as the American Congressmen were, more pragmatic?

TIM FLANNERY: I think The Greens have been fairly pragmatic throughout the year. I personally think they should vote for the CPRS and get it through. Because a first step is better than nothing. We need to start this journey, you know? And, yes, it’s not entirely adequate for the task, it won’t limit emissions as much as we want, but we’ve gotta start somewhere. Unless we take the first step, we’re not going anywhere [NO; leading scientists and economists argue strongly for a Carbon Tax rather than market-manipulatable Carbon Trading and are saying that cap-and-trade emissions trading schemes (ETSs) are flawed, risky and unlikely to deliver the requisite decrease in GHG pollution; see “Experts: Carbon Tax needed and NOT Cap-and-Trade Emission trading Scheme (ETS)”] .

….” END QUOTE.

Overall  a very  poor performance by Professor Tim Flannery who has clearly FAILED the “examination” as well as the environment.

Contrast Professor Flannery’s weak pro-ETS  argument that “a first step is better than nothing” with the conclusions of the following top climate scientists and climate economists about Emission Trading Schemes (for references and expanded quotes see “Experts: Carbon Tax needed and NOT Cap-and-Trade Emission Trading Scheme (ETS)”).

Professor James Hansen (top US climate scientist; Columbia University; Head, NASA GISS): “The worst thing about cap-and-trade [ETS], from a climate standpoint, is that it will surely be inadequate to achieve the sharp reduction of emissions that is needed. Thus cap-and-trade would practically guarantee disastrous climate change for our children and grandchildren”.

Professor William Nordhaus (Sterling Professor of Economics, Yale University, USA): “To bet the world’s climate system and global environment on an untested [ETS] approach with such clear structural flaws would appear a reckless gamble …The international community should move quickly to replace the current cap-and-trade structure with one in which the central economic mechanism is a tax on greenhouse-gas emissions”.

Professor Jacqueline McGlade (Director of the European Environment Agency, Copenhagen, marine biologist and Professor of Environmental Informatics in the Department of Mathematics at University College London, UK): “His [Nordhaus’] idea is very sensible. We need to move the burden of taxation away from labour to resources — and tax not just on carbon but other resources such as water to tackle the far wider environmental and resource problems we face

Professor Daniel M. Kammen (Energy and Resources Group and Goldman School of Public Policy, University of California, Berkeley):  “a price on greenhouse gas emissions is essential”.

Professor Barry Brook (Sir Hubert Wilkins Chair of Climate Change, University of Adelaide, Adelaide, South Australia, Australia): “A cap and trade mechanism is by its nature, an all consuming policy instrument that extinguishes the effectiveness of voluntary actions, harming rather than enhancing the evolution of a low carbon economy …  the cap and trade mechanism is the wrong approach and we should instead focus on a carbon tax”.

Dr Robert J. Shapiro (Chair, U.S. Climate Task Force and finance consultancy firm Sonecon; undersecretary of commerce for economic affairs in the Clinton Administration): ”Despite its advocates’ good intentions, cap-and-trade could put America at risk of another meltdown — one originally created and financed by the government itself. None of these painful and difficult issues arise with a carbon tax-shift. Rather, it could enable us to effectively do our part in addressing climate change, while protecting or even enhancing our economic prospects. That’s a deal Congress cannot afford to pass up”.

Stephen Lendman (leading liberal US analyst and commentator): “Contributing $4,452,585 to Democrats in 2008 (around $1 million to Obama) was mere pocket change for what it can reap from scams like cap and trade disguised as an environmental plan. The scheme [the Obama ETS and energy bill] was devised. GS [Goldman Sachs] helped write it. The House passed it and sent it to the Senate. Unless stopped, it will transfer more of our wealth to corporate polluters and Wall Street on top of all they’ve stolen so far from derivatives fraud and the imploded housing and other bubbles”.

Kenneth Davidson (respected economics columnist for “The Age” newspaper, Melbourne; co-editor of “Dissent”):”There isn’t one cap-and-trade scheme in the world that has resulted in a reduction in carbon emissions. Instead, such schemes have made money for the biggest polluters and created a new branch of the derivatives industry that creates new wealth opportunities for brokers and financiers. Rudd’s cap and trade scheme benefits the worst polluters. But the Australian scheme is special. It has been rorted at the planning stage … The carbon scheme is not simply weak. It is fraudulent”.

Professor Joseph Stiglitz (Columbia University; 2001 Economics Nobel Laureate; former Senior Vice President and Chief Economist of the World Bank), December 2007: “The only principle that has some ethical basis is equal emission rights per capita (with some adjustments – for instance, the US has already used up its share of the global atmosphere, so it should have fewer emission allowances). But adopting this principle would entail such huge payments from developed countries to developing countries, that, regrettably, the former are unlikely to accept it … Of course, polluting industries like the cap-and-trade system. While it provides them an incentive not to pollute, emission allowances offset much of what they would have to pay under a [Carbon] tax system”.

Photo credit: Mark Coulson, 5th World Conference of Science Journalists

Photo credit: go_greener_oz

With Parliament in recession for Christmas and the Christmas-New Year holiday), the pro-Coal Australian Government that presides over the Developed World’s worst per capita greenhouse gas (GHG) polluter and the World’s biggest coal exporter – climate criminal Australia – has finally announced commitment to a derisory “5% reduction on 2000 GHG pollution by 2020”.

This appalling decision has drawn trenchant criticism from Australian scientists and environmentalists (indeed a courageous young woman protestor who shouted “NO!” was hauled from the Australian PM’s press conference. This appalling decision is in stark contrast to the Climate Emergency Facts (from top Australian and world climate scientists) and the Climate Emergency Actions required to deal with the Climate Emergency that are summarized at the end of this article (see “Climate Emergency Facts and Required Actions” on the Yarra Valley Climate Action Group’s website.).

I have presented below a very detailed critique of this appalling, irresponsible, selfish and incompetent decision by the extreme right wing, Bush-ite Rudd Labor Government – a decision which, if adopted globally, would be tantamount to Terracide (destruction of the Earth’s Bisophere) and global Climate Suicide. A top Australian climate scientist Professor Andy Pitman responded to the Australian Government’s “5% off by 2020” by saying that we need to keep atmospheric CO2 to below 450 ppm to avoid a catastrophic 2 degrees C temperature rise and that means global 25%-50% reduction on 2000 GHG pollution by 2020.

According to data from “Coal Facts Australia 2008” of the Australian Coal Association. Australia’s Domestic greenhouse gas emissions in 2008 totalled 559 million tonnes of CO2 equivalent (Mt CO2-e) or about 1.24% of estimated global emissions (45 Gt CO2-e = 45,000 Mt CO2-e).

Australia’s greenhouse gas production in CO2-e in 2000 was 535.3 million tonnes (Mt) according to “Greenhouse gas emissions in industrialized countries. Where does Australia stand?” by Hal Turton (Discussion Paper 66, The Australia Institute, June 2004). Based on an annual growth rate of 2% this indicates a 2008 value of 627 Mt.

However Australia is the world’s biggest coal exporter and is also a major exporter of liquefied natural gas (LNG) that is Exported and thence burned to produce CO2 . Using a 2008 greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions estimate of 627 Mt (derived from the 2000 value and assuming an annual growth rate of 2%) plus CO2 emissions estimates from exported coal and LNG in 2008 of 474.3 Mt and 28.4 Mt, respectively (see US Energy Information Administration data), one can estimate that Australia’s 2008 Domestic and Exported greenhouse gas emissions totalled 1130 Mt CO2-e or 2.5% of estimated global emissions.

Extrapolating from US Energy Information Administration data on Australian coal and liquid natural gas exports in the last decade (beautifully LINEAR and UPWARDS when plotted versus time and hence permitting qualified extrapolation), this decision of “5% decrease on the Domestic 2000 GHG pollution value by 2020″ and official Labor policy of “60% decrease on the Domestic 2000 GHG pollution value by 2050” means that Australia’s annual Domestic plus Exported greenhouse gas pollution (in Mt CO2-e = million tonnes of CO2-e) will INCREASE from 885 Mt (2000) and 1130 Mt (2008) to 1245 Mt (2020; an INCREASE of 41% over the 2000 value) to 1586 Mt (2050; an INCREASE of 79% over the 2000 value).

If one supposed that sanity broke out globally and that the rest of the world, except for Australia, immediately stopped any increase in greenhouse gas emissions, then it is estimated that Australia’s share of annual global GHG pollution would increase from 2.5% (2008) to 1245 x100 /44,115 = 2.8% (2020) and to 1586 x 100/44,456 = 3.6% (2050).

2000 per capita greenhouse gas production with land use change considered (or without land use change) was 25.9 (25.6) for Australia versus 3.9 (3.9) for China (see “List of countries by greenhouse gas emissions per capita”).

However Australia is the world’s biggest coal exporter, the worst per capita greenhouse gas polluter in the developed world, and one of the worst annual per capita greenhouse polluters in the world as a whole – and it accordingly would be disingenuous and indeed dishonest to IGNORE Australia’s huge Exported CO2 pollution in calculating Australia’s annual per capita GHG pollution. Thus if Australia didn’t extract fossil fuel and sell it then it this fuel wouldn’t get burned – we are responsible for our actions and the only way Australia would be innocent of the GHG pollution consequences of coal and LNG burning would be if it sold the coal and LNG overseas on the strict condition that it would NOT be burned).

Accordingly, in 2000 Australia’s Domestic plus Exported GHG pollution (tonnes CO2-e per person per year) was 44.2 versus 3.9 for the annual per capita GHG pollution by China. Based on US EIA data projections and Labor GHG pollution policy (and assuming population stasis at 21 million) Australia’s Domestic plus Exported CO2-e pollution will reach 59 in 2020 (15 times China’s 2000 annual per capita GHG pollution value) and 75.5 by 2050 (19 times China’s 2000 value of 3.9; 33 times Pakistan’s 2000 value of 2.3; 40 times India’s 2000 value of 1.9; and 84 times Bangladesh’s 2000 value of 0.9) (see Wikipedia).

The extraordinary international disparity and the extraordinary current Australian “exceptionalism” (it is operationally OK for Australia but not for others; Australia will reduce its per capita GHG pollution only if China reduces its too) brings to mind other extraordinary mathematical statements of White Australian “exceptionalism” in relation to Chinese from Australia’s non-politically correct (non-PC) past.

Thus in 1947 then Labor Immigration Minister (and later Labor leader) Arthur Calwell notoriously stated that “Two Wongs do not make a White” (for context and documentation see p183, “Jane Austen and the Black Hole of British History. Colonial rapacity, holocaust denial and the crisis in biological sustainability“:http://janeaustenand.blogspot.com/ )– however, as indicated above, current Australian Labor is evidently aiming for a circa twenty (20)-fold disparity.

Indeed way back in 1901, Edmund Barton (Australia’s first Prime Minister and Father of the notorious White Australia Policy aka the 1901 Immigration Restriction Act that was finally abolished by the 1975 Racial Discrimination Act) stated: “The doctrine of the equality of man was never intended to apply to the equality of an Englishman and a Chinaman” (for context and documentation see p179, “Jane Austen and the Black Hole of British History. Colonial rapacity, holocaust denial and the crisis in biological sustainability“. See: janeaustenand.blogspot.com).

The effectively “business as usual” “5% reduction on 2000 GHG pollution level by 2020” must be unequivocally seen in the context that 16 million people already die avoidably annually due to increasingly global warming-impacted deprivation (see “Body Count. Global avoidable mortality since 1950”: ) and that, according to top UK climate scientist Professor James Lovelock FRS (the Gaia hypothesis, “The Revenge of Gaia”), over 6 billion people will perish this century due to unaddressed man-made climate change.

Indeed the scale of the actual and potential lethality of First World tardiness in response to the Climate Emergency – exemplified by the appalling conduct of Australia, the worst First World per capita GHG polluter – and First World demands that they will reduce their extremely high per capita GHG pollution if Developing countries reduce their already very low per capita GHG pollution, demands a new Climate Lexicon e.g. Climate Racism, Climate Politically-correct Racism, Climate PC Racism, Climate Exceptionalism, Climate Terrorism, Climate Terrorists, Climate Terror, Climate Criminal, Climate Crime, Climate Criminality, Climate Injustice, Climate Justice and Climate Genocide.

Indeed in 2008 a formal complaint was sent to the International Criminal Court in relation to Australian involvement in Climate Genocide. Thus Article 2 of the UN Genocide Convention states that

“In the present Convention, genocide means any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnic, racial or religious group, as such: (a) Killing members of the group; (b) Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group; (c) Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part; (d) Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group; (e) Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.”

This formal complaint pointed out that

“Australia is steadfast in its refusal to reduce its world leading annual per capita greenhouse gas pollution and has a major responsibility for the accelerating Climate Genocide that, as estimated by outstanding UK climate scientist Professor James Lovelock FRS, will affect billions; as reported by the Royal Society: “Even if we act now Professor Lovelock believes that six to eight billion humans will be faced with ever diminishing supplies of food and water in an increasingly intolerable climate and wildlife and whole ecosystems will become extinct” (see his recent lecture at the Royal Society)”

and that

“Countries at major risk from sea level rises due to climate change include island nations in the Caribbean, the Indian Ocean and the Pacific (some of which face total extinction) and countries with mega-deltas in Europe, Africa, the Americas and Asia (of which some face catastrophic loss of agriculture and massive population displacements). Such Nations will be receiving copies of this formal complaint and are urged to transmit formal complaints to the International Criminal Court”.

Australian “exceptionalism” is put into stark contrast by the following values of “annual per capita fossil fuel-derived CO2 pollution” (tonnes per person per year) estimated for 2004 using data from the US Energy Information Administration: 19.2 (for Australia; 40 if you include Australia’s coal exports), 19.7 (the US), 18.4 (Canada), 9.9 (Japan), 4.2 (the World), 3.6 (China), 1.0 ( India),Pakistan (0.7) 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.

To assist public understanding of the issue here are some key estimates relating to “annual per capita GHG pollution” and deriving from authoritative primary data provided by the US Energy Information Administration and the UN Population Division and taking into account the OFFICIAL Australian 2020 targets of “5% reduction on 2000 Domestic GHG pollution by 2020” and “60% reduction on 2000 Domestic GHG pollution by 2050”.

Australia’s “annual LNG exports” (Mt CO2 produced): 21.8 (2000), 28.4 (2008), 38.2 (2020), 62.8 (2050).

Australia’s “annual coal exports) (Mt CO2 produced): 327.6 (2000), 474.3 (2008), 609.7 (2020), 1255.4 (2050).

Australia’s “annual Domestic GHG pollution) (Mt CO2-e produced) : 535.3 (2000), 627.2 (2008), 508.5 (2020), 267.7 (2050).

Australia’s “annual Domestic & Exported GHG pollution” (Mt CO2-e produced): 884.7 (2000), 1129.9 (2008), 1245.4 (2020), 1585.9 (2050).

Australia’s population (Millions): 19.1 (2000), 21.0 (2008), 23.4 (2020), 28.0 (2050).

Australia’s “annual per capita Domestic & Exported GHG pollution” (tonnes CO2-e per person per year): 46.3 (2000), 53.8 (2008), 53.2 (2020), 56.6 (2050).

Australia’s “annual Domestic & Exported GHG pollution as % of 2000 value”: 100% (2000), 128% (2008), 141% (2020), 179% (2050).

As indicated above, Australia needs to REDUCE its “annual per capita Domestic & Exported” GHG pollution” by 90% to bring it back to the World average – but, in stark contrast, is set to INCREASE this under its quite FALSELY labelled “GHG pollution reduction” policies.

According to Professor Andy Pitman (University of New South Wales, a top Australian climate scientist and a lead author on the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change)

“The basic science says we need to try to keep CO2 and other greenhouse gases in the atmosphere below 450 parts per million equivalent, which is the bundle of all the greenhouse gases” (see ABC report).

In response to the Labor Government announcement of “5% reduction on 2000 GHG pollution by 2020” Professor Pitman has stated on Australia’s ABC Radio National that we need to keep atmospheric CO2 to below 450 ppm to avoid a catastrophic 2 degrees C temperature rise and that means global 25%-50% reduction on 2000 GHG pollution by 2020.

The Australian Government’s falsely named “Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme” has a highly flawed Emissions Trading System (ETS) as an INDIRECT mechanism of Government intervention in “the market” to supposedly get “the market” (the actual source of the Climate Emergency problem) to moved to a solution. The Australian ETS is highly flawed Cap and Trade system and, in short, is based on a Cap that will destroy the Great Barrier Reef , ignores 2/3 of Australian GHG sources and absurdly RETURNS a large part of the Government receipts for “licences to pollute” to the major polluters (for detailed critique see “Australian Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme will INCREASE Carbon Pollution”) .

The self-absorbed and “exceptionalist” Australian Government, media, politicians and people simply don’t understand the International Legal principle that just as we are held responsible for out actions that damage others at a national level, so this also applies at an International level (as exampled by huge compensation cases for disasters associated with pollution from mining). Thus a UK organization Bring Climate Criminals to Justice (BCCJ) has an aim “To establish a legal process in the UK and abroad to facilitate the criminal prosecution of Government Ministers and key business leaders whose policies and activities contribute to the mass loss of life which Climate Change is certain to now cause” and is particularly concerned with ALREADY HAPPENING damage to Bangladesh and “Working to ensure UK environmental campaign groups re-focus campaigning, uniting to call for the criminal prosecution and imprisonment of the worst offenders” (see: http://climate-criminals.co.uk). As outlined above, a formal complaint outlining Australian complicity in Climate Genocide was sent to the International Criminal Court in 2008 (see: http://climateemergency.blogspot.com).

Sanctions and Boycotts were successfully applied to the Apartheid régime of South Africa for denying equal rights and one-man-one-vite to Africans, Chinese and Indians in South Africa. Australia, accordingly, must be at serious risk of Sanctions, Boycotts, Green Tariff and Reparations Demands over the damage it is already causing and the huge threat it poses to billions of people and the very existence of some Island States through its remorseless, world leading per capita greenhouse gas pollution.

A fundamental key issue is Public Honesty in Word and Deed. Thus it is egregiously dishonest for the Australian Government to call a scheme that will INCREASE Australia’s GHG pollution as a “”Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme”. Further, the Rudd Labor Government was elected in 2007 with Climate Change as a major public concern – however, in 2008 Australia’s annual Domestic and Exported Greenhouse Gas (GHG) pollution INCREASED by 2.1% from that in 2007 under the Coalition Federal Government and , barring recession effects, is expected in 2009 to have increased by 6.5% over that in 2007 (see “Australia INCREASED Greenhouse Gas pollution in 2008 by 2% over 2007”).

Even if we set aside the argument about required GHG pollution reduction between expert scientists VERSUS industry, the coal industry and the Liberal-Labor (lib-Lab) political consensus, there is a fundamental issue of public honesty and zero tolerance for lying (by omission or commission) that is absolutely required for rational risk management in the interests of public safety and national security. Unfortunately a Letter recently sent to about 3,000 State and Federal MPs, many non-science academics, media and other influential Australians – a Letter that made this fundamental risk management point with numerous examples of huge realities (including Climate Emergency realities such as the likely destruction of the Great Barrier Reef) that are IGNORED by Mainstream media, politicians and academics and pleaded for them to inform others (see “Climate Emergency, Exceptionalism & Ignoring Downunder. Letter to eminent Australians over public honesty”) – resulted in a mere 0.2% of recipients responding by saying that they would inform others about the shocking but IGNORED facts I reported.

Finally, the sheer IRRESPONSIBILITY, GREED and policy FAILURE implicit in the Developed World’s worst per capita GHG polluter, Australia, committing to a derisory “5% reduction on 2000 GHG pollution by 2020” is in STARK CONTRAST to the Climate Emergency Facts (from top Australian and world climate scientists) and the Climate Emergency Actions required to deal with the Climate Emergency that are summarized below (see “Climate Emergency Facts and Required Actions” on the Yarra Valley Climate Action Group’s website: http://sites.google.com/site/yarravalleyclimateactiongroup/climate-emergency-facts-and-required-actions ; for other detailed, quantitative and well-referenced analyses relating to the Climate Emergency see the following articles and fact sheets placed on the Web by the Melbourne-based Yarra Valley Climate Action Group).

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 less than 350 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.

PLEASE TELL EVERYONE YOU KNOW.

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.

An extraordinary admission by the Australian Federal Government has passed unnoticed by the Mainstream media in the “look away” Land of Oz, the Antipodean Land of Flies, Lies and Slies (spin-based untruths), the Murdochracy called Australia.

However from the Green Senator Christine Milne’s blog of the June 4, 2008 entitled “Rudd Treasury not modelling real climate protection scenarios” we read that “Treasury is only modelling global emissions scenarios with a very high risk of triggering runaway climate change, Australian Greens climate change spokesperson, Senator Christine Milne, discovered today in Senate Estimates hearings … On questioning from Senator Milne in today’s [Senate] Estimates hearings, [public servant] Meghan Quinn revealed that her Department [Treasury] is only modelling scenarios leading to global atmospheric concentrations of greenhouse gases at 450 and 550 ppm of carbon dioxide equivalent. Treasury had not been asked to model lower concentrations, Ms Quinn said.”

Senator Milne has stated: “If Treasury has not been asked to model safe climate scenarios, I will fill that gap today by calling on the Prime Minister to direct Treasury to model at 350 and 400 ppm as well as 450 ppm and to drop the 550 ppm scenarios as too dangerous for the climate.

“450 ppm gives us a less than even chance of avoiding 2 degrees warming, leading most likely to the complete loss of Arctic summer ice, extinction of polar bears and so many other species in the wild, and potentially setting in train positive feedback loops that could send our climate into an uncontrollable heating cycle.

“550 ppm will send us toward 3 degrees warming, destroy the Great Barrier Reef and almost certainly trigger runaway climate change, leading some to say that there is no such thing as stabilisation at 550 ppm. It should not even be being modelled as it is beyond the point where a safe climate for all living creatures, including humanity, can be imagined.”

Senator Milne is CORRECT – 450 ppm and 550 ppm could be disastrous according to climate SCIENTISTS as set out below.

1. World coral reefs start dying off because of ocean acidification above 450 ppm CO2. Thus coral expert Professor Mumby, University of Exeter, UK: “If we can reduce local stresses and simultaneously curb CO2 emissions to within 450 ppm as argued by the 2007 Bali Declaration by Scientists, then coral reefs and the food and housing security of millions of people could yet be saved”(see: http://www.exeter.ac.uk/…/).

2. Top coral scientists say the “tipping point for world coral death is in the 450-500 ppm atmospheric CO2 zone. Thus in a paper published in the top scientific journal Science, 14 December 2007: Vol. 318. no. 5857, pp. 1737 – 1742, “Coral Reefs Under Rapid Climate Change and Ocean Acidification (see: http://www.sciencemag.org/…/),the authors O. Hoegh-Guldberg, P. J. Mumby and 15 other scientists: “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.”

Treasury economists should not be modelling these things with the exclusion of specialist scientists, no more than they should be modelling treatment of sick Indigenous Australians – but they DO and that is why about 9,000 Indigenous Australians die avoidably every year in Australia – see an
article by me entitled “The Awful Truth” in the National Indigenous Times, June 2007.

3. As reported on the prestigious ABC Radio National Science Show, the 10-year study on coral reefs referred to above has concluded and been published as a cover-story in the latest edition of the top US and World scientific journal Science. It demonstrates that global warming and ocean acidification are acutely threatening world coral reefs that have been around for tens of millions of years.

Coral reefs require carbonate ions present in the water at the right concentrations and this only happens with carbon dioxide (CO2) in the atmosphere at levels under 450 parts per million. As atmospheric CO2 rises, more CO2 dissolves in the ocean and causes the ocean to become more ACIDIC (higher concentrations of protons, H+).

Other organisms will be affected as carbon dioxide increases in the atmosphere. Crustaceans such as crabs and lobsters are already developing diseases as the result of poor calcification of their shells (see: http://abc.net.au/…/).

At about 450 ppm atmospheric CO2 corals become sick but survive. Between 450-500 ppm corals become very sick. Above 500 ppm the world corals are heading for extinction.

In addition to the ocean acidification due to increasing atmospheric CO2 there is a direct bleaching effect of increased temperature as corals “spit out” the symbiotic zooxanthellae algae (see: http://science.org.au/…/).

4. Top UK climate scientist Professor James Lovelock FRS in his recent book “The Revenge of Gaia” says that at at an atmospheric carbon dioxide concentration of 500 ppm CO2 (perhaps the lowest some economists say we can hope to stabilize at given the extraordinary global inaction) there is a crash in the ocean phytoplankton system (that crucially sequesters CO2 , feeds ocean life and promotes cloud formation through dimethyl sulphide production), Greenland ice melts and there is a positive feedback to exacerbate global warming through the “albedo flip” – decreased light-reflecting clouds and ice and increased light-absorbing “black” water (see: http://green-blog.org/…/).

5. The threat to coral refs around the world, including Australia’s Great Barrier Reef, from global warming is spelled out in the latest 2007 IPCC Synthesis Report – this is of course a major tourist asset in an economic sense. As explained above, the recent paper in the prestigious journal Science reveals that at 450 ppm CO2 world coral reefs will start dying from ocean acidification (see: http://abc.net.au/…/). The coal industry (that is helping to destroy world coral reefs) is worth about A$25 billion pa to Australia (A$2 billion to 25,000 workers and at 30% company tax, about A$8 billion to the taxpayer) – as compared to A$7 billion pa from tourism and 63,000 jobs associated with the Great Barrier Reef (Access Economics: http://www.gbrmpa.gov.au/…a/ PDF).

6. It has been estimated by Balmford et al in the prestigious scientific journal Science (see “Economic reasons for preserving wild nature”) that for a variety of “biomes” (ecological systems) the total economic value (TEV) is about 50% greater when the resource is used sustainably as opposed to destructive conversion. Further, these scientists have found that the economic benefit from preserving what is left of wild nature is OVER 100 TIMES greater than the cost of preservation.

Is Rudd Labor hell bent on destroying not just the Queensland Great Barrier Reef ($7 billion per annum and 63,000 Australian jobs) but the whole planet biosphere?

I have written of these acute concerns and posing this question to Australian mainstream media and politicians but – apart from the Greens – the silence is deafening in climate criminal, Murdochracy Australia, the Land of Flies, Lies and Slies (spin based untruths). Unfortunately Coal is King in Australia, the world’s leading coal exporter.

Earlier this year I sent a 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 (see: http://climateemergency.blogspot.com). In relation to Australia’s involvement in Climate Genocide I documented that Australia is the World’s worst Developed nation CO2 polluter and quoted eminent atmosphere scientist Professor James Lovelock FRS who estimates that over 6 billion will die this century due to unaddressed global warming (see: http://businessandmedia.org/…/).

I concluded my Formal Complaint thus: “I understand that the International Criminal Court may be prepared to make initial investigations of formal complaints by individuals (such as this complaint) but will only act to the fullest extent of its remit in response to formal complaints by National Governments. Countries at major risk from sea level rises due to climate change include island nations in the Caribbean, the Indian Ocean and the Pacific (some of which face total extinction) and countries with mega-deltas in Europe, Africa, the Americas and Asia (of which some face catastrophic loss of agriculture and massive population displacements). Such Nations will be receiving copies of this formal complaint and are urged to transmit formal complaints to the International Criminal Court.”

I would reiterate these observations here – all countries with coral reefs threatened by climate criminal, grossly CO2-polluting nations like Australia should take urgent action via the International Criminal Court and by imposing Sanctions, Boycotts, Green Tariffs and Reparations Demands (see “Climate Emergency, Sustainability Emergency”). It is notable that this week Australian doctors, lawyers and politicians are charging the former Australian Government with war crimes in relation to the invasion of Iraq ALONE via a 52 page legal brief sent to the International Criminal Court.(see: http://theage.com.au/…/ and http://abc.net.au/…/).

Sanctions and Boycotts were successful against the racist Apartheid régime in South Africa for denying one-man-one-vote to its disenfranchised non-European African and Indian citizens. Sanctions and Boycotts are surely justified against climate criminal countries like Australia that are hell bent on destroying the biosphere for short-term profit of greedy vested interests. Maybe Sanctions and Boycotts are all that these environmental vandals will understand.

Please inform 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).

A few days ago at a social function I was asked by a top US atmosphere scientist – in Australia to work with top Australian atmospheric scientists – what would I do NOW. My answer in short was as follows: Australia has 50 Gigawatt (50 billion watt) electricity generating capacity (85% fossil fuel-driven at present); it currently spends about A$10 billion pa on fossil fuel subsidies; the installation cost for large-scale wind farms is about A$2 per watt of installed capacity; simply diverting this unconscionable fossil fuel subsidy to wind farm installation would yield A$10 billion pa /A$2 per watt = 5 billion watt capacity pa = 50 billion watt (50 Gigawatt) wind power electricity capacity in a mere 10 years, i.e. by 2017.

As detailed below, stated and committed Rudd Government policy means that it will INCREASE Australia’s fossil annual fuel-derived per capita CO2 pollution (already over 10 times higher than the world average if you include our fossil fuel exports) by about 50% by 2050. Every year is important. We must act urgently NOW. “Waiting for Godot” or, with the utmost respect, “waiting for Garnaut” is not an option.

1. Committed Rudd Labor Policy is effective Climate Racism from a per capita CO2 pollution standpoint

In the recent election campaign Rudd committed to “20% renewables by 2020”, “”60% reduction on 2000 greenhouse gas pollution by 2050” and no constraint on fossil fuel extraction for export. What this ACTUALLY means (based on US Energy Information Administration data, assuming current constant coal, gas and CO2 pollution growth rates, constant population and INCLUDING Australia’s fossil fuel EXPORTS) is the following pattern of “total annual per capita fossil fuel-derived CO2 emission in tonnes per person per year” (i.e. “Total Annual Per Capita Pollution” or TAPCP) of 43 (2007), 56 (2020) and 65 (2050).

If Australia agrees to “25% reduction on 1990 domestic levels by 2020” this will mean a TAPCP of 44 (2020); a 40% reduction would mean 42. These values are still about 10 times greater than the “Annual Per Capita Pollution” (APCP) value (2004) for the World (4.2) and China (3.6), about 40 times greater than for India (1) and 160 times greater than for Bangladesh (0.25).

Australia’s TAPCP is already 10 times that of China’s 2004 value and Rudd Labor’s “do nothing, set up a committee” approach means a startling continuation in 2008 of Labor’s 2007 5-fold greater version of the racist Labor Immigration Minister Arthur Calwell’s notorious 1947 declaration: “Two Wongs do not make a White” (see: http://mwcnews.net/content/view/17999/42/ and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arthur_Calwell ) – indeed on the above figures, assuming that China keeps its 2050 APCP to something like 2004 figure, Rudd Labor, for all its ostensible Philosinensis (indeed Arthur Calwell had Chinese friends and spoke Mandarin) is heading for a 2050 TAPCP (65.2) 18 times that of China’s 2004 APCP value (3.6).

2. Professor Garnaut’s “all men are created equal” position (December 2007)

Professor Garnaut (ABC, Lateline, 10 December 2007) stated: (from my notes): “Australia will be pulling its full weight”. “Pulling its full weight” means (if one accepts “all men are created equal” ) that Australia achieves APCP parity (including our fossil fuel exports) with the rest of the world – something that Rudd Labor absolutely refuses to do (see #1). One hopes that the finalized Garnaut Report in late 2008 is able to convince Rudd Labor to eschew the Climate Racism of APCP non-parity.

3. Australian Greens policy consonant with non-Bush-ite “Rest of the World” consensus

The Australian Greens policy is to rapidly phase out fossil fuel extraction and to have an “80% reduction of greenhouse gas pollution by 2050”. This yields an APCP of 2.4 in 2050 and consonant both with the IPCC and Stern 2007 demands for “80% reduction on 1990 levels by 2050”, “Pulling its full weight” (Professor Garnaut, 2007) and “all men are created equal” (Thomas Jefferson, American Declaration of Independence, 1776).

4. US Energy Information Administration data and the climate criminal Bush-ite Coalition legacy

The US Energy Information Administration (EIA; see: http://tonto.eia.doe.gov/country/index.cfm ) provides very detailed information about energy usage by all countries of the world for the last 10 years. Back in 1997 the decent world was so concerned about mounting evidence for anthropogenic, greenhouse gas-driven, climate change that it signed on to the Kyoto Protocol. Not only did climate criminal Australia (together with climate criminal US) not sign the Kyoto Protocol, but Australia’s “annual coal exports”, “annual natural gas extraction”, “annual domestic fossil fuel-derived CO2 production” and “annual total fossil fuel-derived CO2 production” plotted versus time yield beautiful straight lines UPWARDS.

Indeed this beautiful linearity gives greater confidence for extrapolation at either end of these graphs. For the convenience of the reader with some graph paper the estimates of “DOMESTIC annual fossil fuel-derived CO2 production” (millions of tonnes) versus time (with per capita estimates of tonnes per person per year in parenthesis, assuming post-2007 population stasis at 21 million) are: 256 (12.2, 1990), 348 (18.2, 2000), 424 (20.2, 2007), 554 (26.3, 2020) and 853 (40.6, 2050); using the same assumptions the “TOTAL annual fossil fuel-derived CO2 production, TAPCP” (with per capita estimates of tonnes per person per year and year in parentheses) is 435 (25.7, 1990), 698 (36.5, 2000), 910 (43.3, 2007), 1,277 (60.8, 2020) and 2,122 (101.0, 2050).

In relation to the above estimates, the Bush-ite Coalition policy of BAU (business as usual) and no constraint on fossil fuel exports would, on the above assumptions, lead to a “total annual per capita fossil fuel-derived CO2 pollution, TAPCP” of 101 tonnes per person per year in 2050, 27 times China’s 2004 APCP value and 2.5 times Australia’s present TAPCP value.

5. Major international comparisons – Australia is the world’s worst developed country per capita greenhouse polluter

Despite the rhetoric, rational approaches to save the Planet are being resolutely opposed by racist, greedy Bush America (the world’s worst greenhouse gas polluter and stand-out Kyoto non-signatory) and previously Bush-ite and presently neo-Bush-ite Australia (the world’s developed country with the worst annual per capita greenhouse gas pollution and the world’s biggest coal exporter).

Thus 2004 data from the US Energy Information Administration (EIA; see: http://tonto.eia.doe.gov/country/index.cfm ) reveal that “annual per capita fossil fuel-derived CO2 pollution, APCP” in tonnes CO2/person is 19.2 (for Australia; 40 if you include Australia’s 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). Neither Bush America nor Bush-ite Australia will sign Kyoto nor cut greenhouse gas pollution – the countries facing devastation from global warming are the mega-delta, below-World-average polluting countries of China, India and Bangladesh.

Australia is the world’s big country with the highest annual per capita greenhouse polluter and is currently playing “dog in the manger” (together with the US, Canada and Japan) in opposing short-term greenhouse gas pollution reduction targets at the December 2007 Bali Conference.

6. Germanwatch index places Australia #54 in the list of the worst CO2 polluters (#56 being worst)

Of course “annual per capita fossil fuel-derived CO2 pollution” is but one – albeit a very important – indicator of climate criminality. The Germanwatch Climate Change Index 2008, a comparison of the 56 top CO2 emitting nations (see: http://www.germanwatch.org/ccpi.htm ), 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 satrap), coal-rich Australia (a US satrap), the USA and oil-rich Saudi Arabia (a puppet of anti-Arab anti-Semitic, Islamophobic Bush US ) rank #53, #54, #55 and #56, respectively (see: http://www.germanwatch.org/ccpi.htm ) .

7. Annual per capita greenhouse gas pollution for the world and Australia with and without land use change (2000)

The US Energy Information Administration gives a year-by-year summary of fossil fuel-derived CO2 pollution for every country in the world (see: http://www.eia.doe.gov/emeu/iea/carbon.html ). However greenhouse gas pollution (methane, CH4, nitrous oxide, N2O, and carbon dioxide, CO2) comes not just from burning hydrocarbons and coal but also from land use – specifically, agriculture, vegetative decomposition and animal husbandry. A 2000 list of countries by greenhouse gas emissions per capita provides data with and without this land use component (see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_greenhouse_gas_emissions_per_capita ). Land use contributes about 20% of global anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions. Out of 185 countries Australia ranked 9th worst (with land use change) and 5th (without land use change). The tonnes of “CO2 equivalent” per person per year were 25.9 (with) and 25.6 (without land use change) for Australia, indicating the preponderant importance of fossil fuel burning to Australia’s “score”.

8. Annual per capita GDP is directly proportional to annual per capita CO2 emission

If you plot “annual per capita fossil fuel-derived CO2” (2004) versus “annual per capita GDP” (2003) the data from most countries fall on a straight line (not quite going through zero on the “annual per capita GDP” axis) and with a slope of about 0.3 kilograms/US dollar of GDP or 300 grams per US dollar (300 g/US$). However many countries fall ABOVE this line, most notably the oil-rich Gulf States (2.5 kg/US$), world’s #1 coal exporter Australia (1.9 kg/US$), Kyoto-violator Canada (0.8 kg/US$) and Kyoto non-signatory US (0.5 kg/US$).

This analysis shows that GDP is currently directly proportional to CO2 emission and the consequence is that to cut emissions it is necessary to (a) cut GDP and/or (b) cut CO2-polluting energy generation for GDP generation i.e. urgently promote renewables or suffer a declining GDP.

9. IPCC summary

The Inter-governmental Panel on Climate Change has delivered 4 Assessment reports since 1990, the latest being the 2007 Fourth Assessment Report. The prognosis of the latest IPCC Report is very bleak but the situation is actually even worse than they state because of (a) the cut off in scientific papers considered and (b) obfuscatory inputs by climate criminal countries such as the US. For a Summary of the Summary of the 2007 IPCC Synthesis Report of the Fourth Assessment Report see: http://green-blog.org/2007/11/21/summary-of-the-summary-of-the-2007-ipcc-ar4-synthesis-report/ .

The IPCC (2000) has defined various possible scenarios which are summarised in New Scientist, with the worst case scenario being the fast economic growth and globalization, fossil fuel-intensive A1F1 scenario in which global population peaks in mid-century and declines thereafter, and involving the rapid introduction of new and more efficient technologies (see: http://environment.newscientist.com/channel/earth/dn11090). Of various scenarios discussed in the latest IPCC Synthesis Report (see: http://www.ipcc.ch/ ) “Category IV” seems the most favoured in public discussion (e.g. in report by Sir Nicholas Stern) and involves stabilization at 485-570 ppm CO2 , 3.2-4.0 degrees centigrade temperature rise above pre-industrial temperature (2-3 degrees above today’s) and 0.6-2.4 metres sea level above the pre-industrial sea level or 0.4 – 2.2 metres above today’s). However Professor Lovelock (“The Revenge of Gaia”) thinks that 500ppm CO2 would cause disastrous phytoplankton and Greenland ice losses with irreversible loss of major global temperature controls.

Recent data from 2 independent sources (see: “Recent CO2 rises exceed worst case scenarios”, New Scientist) reveal that ACTUAL rates of CO2 emission are the same or worse than in the worst case scenario A1F1 that, according to the 2007 IPCC Summary, will lead to catastrophic, long-term stabilization at (upper estimates) 790 ppm CO2, and a 6 degree centigrade higher temperature and 3.7 meter sea level rise relative to pre-industrial levels i.e. CO2 catastrophically at twice today’s level of 379 ppm , temperatures 4-5 degree centigrade above today’s and sea level 0.8-3.5 metres above today’s.

Thanks to climate criminal, climate genocidal countries, notably Bush America (the world’s #1 GHG polluter) and Bush-ite Australia (the world’s #1 coal exporter) – noting that neither of these will constrain GHG (greenhouse gas) pollution – the world is on track to deliver this predicted catastrophe or even WORSE to our children and grandchildren.

10. The Rudd Labor “Garnaut Report excuse”, “waiting for Garnaut” gambit contradicts the expert, IPCC-endorsed Stern injunction to “Act Now”

Both the IPCC Fourth Assessment report and the Stern Report say “act NOW”. However, stripped of mellifluous rhetoric (e.g. “there is no plan B”) the Rudd Labor position involves a roughly 1 year delay (ONE YEAR DELAY) on any concrete action to constrain greenhouse gas (GHG) pollution. After nearly 12 years of sustained upward growth of CO2 pollution under the climate criminal Bush-ite Coalition this is simply not good enough. If indeed “there is no plan B” why won’t Rudd Australia sign up to the “Plan A” endorsed by every country in the world except for the US and its satraps Australia, Canada and Japan i.e. “25-40% reduction by 2020”?

According to Stern as quoted by the Guardian (2007): “The average emissions a head must fall from seven tonnes to two to three tonnes of carbon dioxide a year by 2050, he says. US emissions a head are more than 20 tonnes each year, with European citizens producing 10-15 tonnes each. In China it is about five tonnes, in India about one, and in Africa less than one tonne each” (see: http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2007/nov/30/climatechange.carbonemissions ).

Australia is currently producing 43 tonnes each per annum (including fossil fuel exports) and according to the public committed Rudd Labor scenario projects 65 tonnes each per annum by 2050 i.e a 50% INCREASE.

11. Rudd Australia greenhouse pollution scenarios

As indicated above (#1) the “solid”, “committed” Rudd Labor Policy indicates “total annual fossil fuel-derived CO2 pollution (million tonnes per year )” of 910 (2007), 1,277 (2020) and 2,122 (2050).

However it is salutary to consider the scenario if Rudd Labor accepted ”25% reduction on 1990 levels by 2050 – “total annual fossil fuel-derived CO2 pollution (million tonnes per year )” would be 910 (2007), 915 (2020) and 1,371 (2050).

If Rudd Labor accepted”40% reduction on 1990 levels by 2050 – “total annual fossil fuel-derived CO2 pollution (million tonnes per year )” would be 910 (2007), 877 (2020) and 1,371 (2050).

Even under Rudd Labor’s “20% renewable by 2020” and “”60% on 2000 levels by 2050”, the “domestic annual fossil fuel-derived CO2 pollution (million tonnes per year )” would be 345 (2000), 424 (2007), 443 (2020) and 138 (2050).

12. Rudd Australia greenhouse pollution scenarios – per capita projections

As indicated above (#1) the “solid” Rudd Labor Policy indicates “total annual per capita pollution (TAPCP, tonnes per person per year)” of 43 (2007), 56 (2020) and 65 (2050);

If Rudd Labor accepted ”25% reduction on 1990 levels by 2050” , “total annual per capita pollution (TAPCP, tonnes per person per year)” would be 43 (2007), 44 (2020) and 65 (2050).

If Rudd Labor accepted “40% on 1990 levels by 2020” the “total annual per capita pollution (TAPCP, tonnes per person per year)” would be 43 (2007), 42 (2020) and 65 (2050).

Even under Rudd Labor’s CURRENTLY PROPOSED “20% renewable by 2020” and “”60% reduction on 2000 levels by 2050” the “DOMESTIC annual per capita pollution (DAPCP, tonnes per person per year)” would be 18 (2000), 21 (2007) and 6.6 (2050) (still nearly twice that of China in 2004).

13. Who pays? Australia benefits from CO2 pollution, the World suffers

I repeat that one of the world’s leading bioethicists Professor Peter Singer (Princeton University and University of Melbourne) is unequivocal in his expert judgment that “We are responsible not only for what we do but also for what we could have prevented… We should consider the consequences both of what we do and what we decide not to do.”

(Singer, P. (2000), “Writings on an Ethical Life”, Ecco Press, New York; ppxv-xvi).

Unfortunately there is a major bipartisan agreement in Australia to ignore the global cost of Australia’s world #1 coal exports. The Australian Green proposal in the recent federal election campaign to rapidly phase out this highly irresponsible and planet-threatening industry was howled down by both the Bush-ite Coaltion and the neo-Bush-ite Labor Party.

At the next elections the Bush-ite Coalition will still have the support of about half the voters yet the former Coalition PM described as “crazy” the Rudd Labor proposal to cut emissions in 2050 to 60% of the 2000 value (a proposal that, as shown in #11 and #12 above, falls so far short of what is needed that Rudd Labor might just as well have not bothered except for the purpose of garnering the votes of the gullible).

According to the 2007 IPCC Synthesis report, unaddressed CO2 pollution and global warming will have a devastating effect on global malnutrition and poverty (see: http://green-blog.org/2007/11/21/summary-of-the-summary-of-the-2007-ipcc-ar4-synthesis-report/ ). According the Professor David Pimentel (2004), global malnutrition and poverty will be an “unimaginable” problem by 2054 (see: http://www.news.cornell.edu/releases/Feb04/AAAS.pimentel.hrs.html ), already pollution of the soil, water and air kills about 40% of the world’s population and 57% of the world’s population of 6.5 billion is already malnourished (see: http://www.news.cornell.edu/stories/Aug07/moreDiseases.sl.html ).

Already 16 million people due avoidably each year (9.6 million being under-5 year old infants) on a Spaceship Earth dominated by a profligate and unresponsive First World (see “Body Count. Global avoidable mortality since 1950”, G.M. Polya, Melbourne, 2007: http://globalbodycount.blogspot.com/ ) – and Australia is on a per capita basis is one of the world’s worst offenders. As indicated above, according to Professor James Lovelock FRS unaddressed global warming will kill 6 billion people this century – Climate Genocide (“intent to destroy in whole or in part” according to Article 2 of the UN Genocide Convention: http://www.edwebproject.org/sideshow/genocide/convention.html )

14. Who pays? The true environmental and human cost of coal-based electricity can be over 4 times the present market cost

According to a Ministry of Energy Report from Ontario, Canada, coal plants kill 668 people per year in Ontario (population 12.7 million), and cause 1,100 emergency room visits, and more than 300,000 minor illnesses per year. These and previous findings by the Ontario Medical Association were behind bi-partisan will to close Ontario’s coal-fired electricity plants. This Report estimated that a “market” cost of about 4 cents/kWh increases to a “true cost” of about 16 cents/kWh (see: http://www.evworld.com/news.cfm?newsid=8836 ): “The study estimated that the total net present value of coal-fired generation is costing Ontario $0.164 CAD/kWh. Environmental and health costs accounted for 77% to total generation costs”.

15. “True cost” of fossil fuels versus bearable cost, corporate/government-determined cost and A$10 billion pa subsidies for Australian fossil fuel burning

While the “true cost” of coal-based electricity can be over 4 times the “market” cost, this will be ignored in corporate, government and diplomatic “horse-trading” to set carbon price – just as society in practice ignores the “annual death rate” due to cigarette smoking (about 1,000 per million) or due to cars (about 100 per million) in assessing the “true cost” of tobacco or cars. Extrapolating from Ontario, the annual death rate from coal-fired power generation is about 50 per million.

If the true environmental and human cost of fossil fuel-derived power were taken into account then (a) economics would dictate “keep fossil fuels in the ground” (as advocated by the Australian Greens and by George Monbiot: http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/story/0,,2225387,00.html ), (b) subsidies would be immediately removed and (c) compensation ordered by the courts for the victims of this technological perversion (as has happened already in relation to victims of industrial use of asbestos).

16. Renewables are the way – keep fossil fuels in the ground

Here are some estimates of the cost in Australian cents per kilowatt-hour (Ac/kWh) of various sources of electricity (for a detailed discussion see “Renewables: how the numbers stack up” in New Matilda: http://www.newmatilda.com/home/articledetailmagazine.asp?ArticleID=2398&CategoryID=213 ):

3-4 — coal, Australia;
18 — the real cost of coal, taking into account the environmental and health impact; according to a conservative Canadian Ontario Ministry of Energy Report (CAN$0.164);
15 — nuclear via the UK’s newest Sizewell B plant;
7.5-8.5 — wind power, Australia;
15 — concentrated solar power or CSP;
25-45 — standard silicon-based photovoltaics (PVs).

However recent advances means we must add the following to the list:

4 – the price of solar PV is set to fall dramatically to compete directly with the current “market price” of coal due to balloon, sliver and non-silicon PV technology advances. The non-silicon organic thin film technology developed by US Nobel Laureate Alan Heeger and his South Korean colleagues will reduce the cost of installing photovoltaic (PV) capacity by a factor of 20; the Swiss ETH CIGS non-silicon thin film system may be competitive with coal within 5 years (a related US Nanosolar technology is in mass production: http://www.investorideas.com/Articles/050707a_page1.asp ); Australian sliver silicon PV technology will drop silicon solar panel costs threefold. In particular, the Californian balloon solar capture technology is predicted to make PV solar competitive with “market price” coal by 2010 (see “Solar energy & the end of war. US balloon technology to slash solar energy cost 90% by 2010”: http://mwcnews.net/content/view/18667/42/ ).

4 – Australian geothermal. According to Professor John Veevers (“The Innamincka hot fractured rock project” in “Lies, Deep Fries & Statistics”, editor Robyn Williams, ABC Books, Sydney, 2007; also see energy cost-related related chapters by Dr Gideon Polya “Australian complicity in Iraq mass mortality”, Dr Mark Diesendorf “A sustainable energy future for Australia”, and Martin Mahy “Hydrogen Minibuses”): “Modelled costs are 4 cents per kilowatt hour, plus half to 1 cent for transmission to grid. This compares with 3.5 cents for black coal, 4 cents for brown coal, 4.2 cents for gas, but all with uncosted emissions. Clean coal, the futuristic technology of coal gasification combined with CO2 sequestration or burial, yet to be demonstrated, comes in at 6.5 cents, and solar and wind power at 8 cents.”

Further, wave, tidal, biomass and biofuel energy technologies are renewable technologies competitive with the “true cost” of fossil fuels. Australia’s huge reserves of economic geothermal power are expertly assessed to have the capacity to provide most of Australia’s energy needs for the best part of a millennium and Australia is blessed with huge solar, tidal, wave and wind resources.

17. Nuclear is not an option

The Bush-ite Coalition had an unerring knack of being resolutely incorrect or in denial about so many crucial matters – anthropogenic climate change, the reasons for war in Iraq and Afghanistan, the terrorist threat to Australia, and the cost of meeting the climate change crisis. They are also incorrect in relation to the nuclear option. As summarized in #16 above the nuclear option is more expensive than current renewable wind and geothermal technologies and as expensive as current concentrated solar technology. Further, the FULL nuclear cycle (from uranium mining and processing to waste disposal and plant de-commissioning) can be as expensive in terms of CO2 emissions as a gas-fired power station – and we still have the intractable security and waste disposal problems.

18. Mandated efficient energy PROVISION as well as USAGE

Australia has mandated replacement of incandescent globes with high efficiency electric lights over the next year or so. If Australia can legislatively mandate efficient energy USAGE it should also mandate the highest efficiency, lowest REAL cost energy PROVISION – currently geothermal, followed by wind with both of these set to be shortly supplanted by exciting low-cost solar technologies.

Failure of Australia to mandate minimum price energy provision simply reflects entrenched dishonesty and corruption in our society. This is briefly discussed further below in relation to the Australian and global impact of fossil fuel burning.

19. Oil, strategic hegemony and 5-8 million post-invasion excess deaths in the Bush Wars in the Occupied Iraqi and Afghan Territories

The strategic importance of the Middle East in terms of oil and global hegemony is the core reason for the Bush Asian Wars that have so far been associated with 5-8 million post-invasion excess deaths in the Occupied Iraqi and Afghan Territories. This explanation has been argued cogently by outstanding anti-war humanitarian Professor Noam Chomsky (from 63-Nobel- Laureate Massachusetts Institute of Technology, MIT) in an article entitled “Imminent Crises: Threats and Opportunities ” in which he says of the Middle East : “the huge energy resources of the region were recognized by Washington sixty years ago as a “stupendous source of strategic power,” the “strategically most important area of the world,” and “one of the greatest material prizes in world history.”[reference] 1 Control over this stupendous prize has been a primary goal of U.S. policy ever since, and threats to it have naturally aroused enormous concern.”

Total post-invasion excess deaths in the Occupied Iraqi and Afghan Territories now stand at about 5-8 million. There has been a horrendous human cost of the ongoing Palestinian Genocide, Iraqi Genocide and Afghan Genocide (post-invasion excess deaths 0.3 million, 1.5-2 million and 3-6 million, respectively; post-invasion under-5 infant deaths total 0.2 million, 0.6 million and 2.2 million, respectively; and refugees total 7 million, 4.5 million and 4 million, respectively) (updated figures from MWC News).

However there is a further huge cost in the US$2.5 trillion accrual cost of the Bush wars (according to 2001 Economics Nobel Laureate Professor Joseph Stiglitz) that has recently been updated to $3.5 trillion by a Congressional Report (see: http://mwcnews.net/content/view/13099/26/ ) ; the $2.6 trillion post-1956 accrual cost of US aid for Zionist colonization of Palestine, Lebanon and Syria (see: http://mwcnews.net/content/view/533/26/ ); the huge human cost of the US-expanded opiate trade – 0.6 million post-2001 global opiate drug-related deaths (about 2,000 in Australia) due to US Alliance restoration of the Taliban-destroyed Afghan opium industry from about 5% of world market share in 2001 to 93% in 2007; and huge diversion of financial support from alleviation of global warming-exacerbated poverty (the “War on Terror” has cost Australia alone about $20 billion in corporate and government domestic security measures and billions more in overseas military deployments).

20. Huge environmental cost and environmental economic cost of fossil fuel burning and deforestation for Australia and the World

It has been estimated by Balmford et al in the prestigious scientific journal Science (see “Economic reasons for preserving wild nature”: http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/abstract/297/5583/950 ) that for a variety of “biomes” (ecological systems) the total economic value (TEV) is about 50% greater when the resource is used sustainably as opposed to destructive conversion. Further, these scientists have found that the economic benefit from preserving what is left of wild nature is OVER 100 TIMES greater than the cost of preservation.

However these estimates are IGNORED by Lib-Lab Australian Governments in the interests of “current jobs” and corporations as we see in the ongoing deforestation of Victoria and Tasmania. The true economic value of State-owned assets are not being considered – these citizen-owned public resources are effectively being given away to private corporations.

These ugly realities of dishonesty and environmental vandalism reach a pinnacle in relation to greenhouse gas pollution. The polluters are not being charged the full cost of what they are destroying. Indeed quite the reverse is happening – fossil fuel burning is actually SUBSIDIZED to the tune of about $10 billion annually in Australia (see: http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,22873649-12377,00.html ).

A further concrete Australian example is the threat to the Great Barrier Reef from global warming as spelled out in the latest 2007 IPCC Synthesis Report (see: http://www.ipcc.ch/ ) – this is of course a major tourist asset in an economic sense.

21. Biofuels represent a perversion with 57% malnourished, grain production peaking and grain price rising due to Biofuels and Meat

As outlined in #13, According to the 2007 IPCC Synthesis report, unaddressed CO2 pollution and global warming will have a devastating effect on global malnutrition and poverty (see: http://www.ipcc.ch/). According the Professor David Pimentel (2004) of Cornell University, New York, global malnutrition and poverty will be an “unimaginable” problem by 2054 (see: http://www.news.cornell.edu/releases/Feb04/AAAS.pimentel.hrs.html ), already pollution of the soil, water and air kills about 40% of the world’s population and 57% of the world’s population of 6.5 billion is already malnourished (see: http://www.news.cornell.edu/stories/Aug07/moreDiseases.sl.html ).

Already 16 million people due avoidably each year (9.6 million being under-5 year old infants) on a Spaceship Earth dominated by a profligate and unresponsive First World (see “Body Count. Global avoidable mortality since 1950”, G.M. Polya, Melbourne, 2007: http://janeaustenand.blogspot.com/ ) – and Australia on a per capita basis is one of the world’s worst offenders.

Biofuels are formally CO2 neutral and renewable – however in the context of horrendous global poverty, a major decline in grain production, huge increases in grain price and increasing diversion of grain for biofuel generation (see: http://www.fas.usda.gov/grain/circular/2006/05-06/graintoc.htm ) this is a perversion and a crime against humanity, the more so when alternative cheap, efficient renewable energy options are technically already available (see #16).

22. Oil is the feedstock for sophisticated organic chemical industry – it should NOT be burned

Forty years ago my organic chemistry lecturer told us that we are actually BURNING the feedstock for sophisticated chemical industry, the material used to make pharmaceuticals and plastics that dominate modern life. Today this wanton destruction of an immensely valuable resource is continuing. The “real cost” and the “real value” are ignored because of the political might of fossil fuel burning corporations.

I am acutely aware of this travesty as the author of a huge pharmacological reference text (Gideon Polya, “Biochemical Targets of Plant Bioactive Compounds. A pharmacological reference guide to sites of action and biological effects” CRC Press, Taylor & Francis, New York & London, 2003:

http://www.amazon.com/Biochemical-Targets-Plant-Bioactive-Compounds/dp/0415308291 ).

23. Deforestation can be halved by investing US$15 billion per annum

Further to the points made in relation to environmental impacts of global warming, deforestation contributes about 15-20% to increased net global greenhouse gas production annually. Yet according to Sir Nicholas Stern: “For $10-15bn (£4.8-7.2bn) per year, a programme could be constructed that could stop up to half the deforestation” (see: http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2007/nov/30/climatechange.carbonemissions ).

In addition to playing a vital role in global temperature homeostasis, forest ecosystems are sources for invaluable pharmaceutical resources (see my recent huge reference book: Gideon Polya, “Biochemical Targets of Plant Bioactive Compounds. A pharmacological reference guide to sites of action and biological effects”, CRC Press, Taylor & Francis, New York & London, 2003: http://www.amazon.com/Biochemical-Targets-Plant-Bioactive-Compounds/dp/0415308291 ).

24. Climate criminal countries such as Australia face Sanctions, Boycotts, Green Tariffs and Reparations Demands

The science and technology has been well reviewed internationally (see the 2007 IPCC Reports: http://www.ipcc.ch/ and a recent review of renewable scenarios: http://www.martinot.info/Martinot_et_al_AR32_prepub.pdf ) as indeed has the economic of climate change via the Stern Report (see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stern_Review ).

The Rudd Government intransigence in not supporting the draft Bali proposal of “25-40% reduction by 2020” is ostensibly because of the economic review by Professor Garnaut due in first draft in mid-2008 and presumably finalized by late 2008.

Yet one boundary condition of Professor Garnaut’s report is already clear – in his own words (December 2007) “Australia will be pulling its full weight” which means (if one accepts “all men are created equal” ) that Australia achieves “annual per capita greenhouse gas pollution” parity with the rest of the world. However the other boundary condition (perceived “affordability” in the light of Australia-specific economic analysis) is completely uncertain for the simple reason that the World may decide to take action against climate criminal countries such as Australia and the US through imposition of Sanctions, Boycotts, Green Tariffs and Reparations Demands.

Indeed a SOLUTION to greedy, climate criminal US, Canada, Japan and Australian intransigence at Bali would be international Sanctions and Boycotts or, more precisely, “Green Tariffs” and Reparations Demands that recognize the REAL environmental and human cost of goods produced by these irresponsible and intrinsically RACIST climate criminal countries.

It is notable that these 4 countries have ANOTHER intrinsically racist and genocidal activity in common – various participation in the genocidal Bush Asian Wars – post-invasion excess deaths in the Iraqi Genocide and Afghan Genocide now total 1.5-2 million and 3-6 million, respectively; post-invasion under-5 infant deaths total 0.6 million and 2.2 million, respectively; and refugees total 4.5 million and about 4 million, respectively) (see: “Solar energy & the end of war”: http://mwcnews.net/content/view/18667/42/ ).

What Australia and the US are doing is far more serious and intrinsically racist than the crimes of Apartheid South Africa, a system that was eventually disposed of through international Sanctions and Boycotts. Sanctions, Boycotts, Green Tariffs and Reparations Demands may well be applied to Australia, the US and like climate criminal countries that are threatening the Planet with climate genocide. Indeed a model for this comes from outstanding American academic, writer, editor and economist, Father of Reaganomics Dr Paul Craig Roberts who explicitly demands that the world should stop the “Iraqi genocide” by “dumping the dollar” (see: http://www.counterpunch.org/roberts02122007.html ). The World is evidently doing just that – and may well act similarly towards an intransigent Australia, on a per capita basis the world’s worst developed country greenhouse gas polluter.

Summary

On a per capita basis and including our fossil fuel exports, Australia is the developed country with the highest greenhouse gas pollution. Thus 2004 data from the US Energy Information Administration reveal that “annual per capita fossil fuel-derived CO2 pollution” in tonnes CO2/person is 19.2 (for Australia; 40 if you include Australia’s 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).

The Rudd Labor commitment to “20% renewables by 2020”, “”60% reduction on 2000 greenhouse gas pollution by 2050” and no constraint on fossil fuel extraction for export ACTUALLY means (based on US Energy Information Administration data, assuming current constant coal, gas and CO2 pollution growth rates, constant population and including Australia’s fossil fuel EXPORTS) “annual per capita fossil fuel-derived CO2 emission in tonnes per person per year” of 43 (2007), 56 (2020) and 65 (2050).

If Australia continues to refuse to act on both domestic and exported greenhouse gas pollution it will very likely face international action through Sanctions, Boycotts, Green Tariffs and Reparations Demands. The Rudd “Garnaut Report” excuse for inaction at Bali is contradicted by Professor Garnaut’s recent very clear and highly ethical declaration that ““Australia will be pulling its full weight” which, given the equality of all Men, surely means massive reduction of CO2 pollution to per capita parity with countries such as India and China.

Simple notional calculations tell us that Australia could completely replace its current 50 Gigawatt electricity generating capacity with wind power within 10 years by simply investing its current $10 billion annual fossil fuel subsidies into wind farms (noting of course, that other renewable options are now ALREADY much cheaper than the “true cost” of fossil-fuel-based electricity).

In short, the world is facing a Climate Emergency and a Sustainability Emergency that requires urgent action NOW to REDUCE atmospheric CO2 from a current 383 ppm to a level of 300-350 ppm required for biosphere sustainability. The science, technology and economics all instruct (subject to transition and related qualifications) that we should keep the fossil fuels in the ground – indeed we need to have a NEGATIVE atmospheric CO2 growth.

This has been written in the public interest.

This was part two of two. You can find part one here.

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/content/view/1375/247/ 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): http://www.abc.net.au/rn/science/ockham/stories/s1445960.htm ).

Truth, Reason and Words having failed in the Western Murdochracies, as an artist as well as a scientist he has painted several huge paintings relating to the Climate Emergency, namely “Terra”: http://mwcnews.net/content/view/15671/42/ and “Apocalypse Now”: http://mwcnews.net/content/view/17652/42/ .

This submission by a senior scientist is in response to a general invitation for submissions made on the Garnaut Climate Change Review Website.

This is part one of two parts. You can find part two here.

Background

The Garnaut Climate Change Review is an independent study by Professor Ross Garnaut, commissioned by Australia’s State and Territory Governments on 30 April 2007. A new Australian Government under Labor Party Prime Minister Kevin Rudd was sworn in on Monday 3 December, 2007 and the newly-elected PM Rudd has confirmed the participation of the Commonwealth Government in the Review.

The Review will examine the impacts of climate change on the Australian economy, and recommend medium to long-term policies and policy frameworks to improve the prospects for sustainable prosperity. The Review’s final report is due on 30 September 2008, with a draft by 30 June 2008. A number of forums will also be held around Australia to engage the public on various issues relating to the Review.

This submission to the Garnaut Change Review is by a senior scientist committed to Rational Risk Management that successively involves (a) accurate data, (b) scientific analysis and (c) systemic change to minimize risk (for a detailed, expert exposition see Professor James Reason, “Human error: models and management”, British Medical Journal, vol. 320, 768-770, 2000: http://www.bmj.com/cgi/content/full/320/7237/768 ).

Indeed as a responsible pubIic service I have committed a lot of time and effort to informing governments, media and fellow citizens about important matters, of which the most critically important are Australia’s involvement in the ongoing Aboriginal Genocide (90,000 excess Indigenous deaths under 11 years of Coalition rule) , the Iraqi Genocide (1.5-2 million post-invasion excess deaths, 4.5 million refugees), the Afghan Genocide (3-6 million post-invasion excess deaths, 4 million refugees) and prospective Climate Genocide through Global Warming that threatens 6 billion avoidable deaths this century (see: The Prophet of Climate Change: James Lovelock; for detailed and documented analyses see Rudd Australia Report Cards #1, #2 and #3:; Iraqi Genocide; Climate Genocide; Afghan Genocide).

16 million people die avoidably in the world each year (see “Body Count. Global avoidable mortality since 1950” (G.M. Polya, Melbourne, 2007: http://mwcnews.net/content/view/1375/247/ and http://globalbodycount.blogspot.com) but global warming is already impacting human excess mortality and eminent atmosphere scientist Professor James Lovelock FRS estimates that 6 billion will die this century due to unaddressed global warming (see: http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/story/16956300/the_prophet_of_climate_change_james_lovelock ).

The world is facing a potential catastrophe due successively to industrial profligacy, greenhouse gas pollution, global warming and declining per capita sustainable resources. This potential problem of environmental pollution and impacts on biological sustainability has been familiar to scientists since the 19 th century research of John Tyndall; was addressed by the Club of Rome in circa 1970; and which was further addressed by successive Assessment Reports of the Inter-governmental Panel on Climate Change since 1990 (see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intergovernmental_Panel_on_Climate_Change ).

As a chemistry-based scientist for 4 decades, I was aware of the finiteness of the atmosphere, the oceans, arable land and fossil fuel reserves from the start of my career. I was made aware of the mounting atmospheric problems back in 1972 as a Queen Elizabeth II Fellow in the department of one of Australia’s top hydrologists and biophysicists who later went on to be Chief Scientist of Australia.

In 1998 I published a book entitled “Jane Austen and the Black Hole of British History. Colonial rapacity, holocaust denial and the crisis in biological sustainability” (see: http://janeaustenand.blogspot.com/ ). In short, I argued that history ignored yields history repeated, holocaust ignored yields holocaust repeated and that the ignoring of successive Bengali Holocausts under the British – the 1769-1770 Bengal Famine (10 million deaths) and the 1943-1944 Bengal Famine (4 million deaths) – will permit a horrendous disaster in the 21st century due to industrial profligacy, man-made global warming and destructive inundation of mega-deltaic Bengal. My predictions of holocaust ignoring and irresponsible industrial profligacy are already being realized – recently formerly densely populated Bengali islands permanently disappeared under the waves, and the last major Bay of Bengal hurricane was the worst for several decades.

Indeed at the height of the “forgotten” 4 million excess death WW2 Bengal Famine (experienced and studied by 1998 Economics Nobel Laureate Professor Amartya Sen of Cambridge and thence Harvard universities) millions of tons of wheat were used to run the railways in Argentina due to the WW2 shortage a coal (see: http://janeaustenand.blogspot.com/ ) – an obscenity now mirrored in the current huge diversion of US grain production to biofuel production with (together with other factors) a consequent steep increase in food prices, the lowest number of food supply days for decades and looming famine for the 2 billion people ALREADY suffering food deprivation.

Climate change is already contributing to the 16 million avoidable deaths (including 9.6 million of under-5 year old infants) that occur each year on Spaceship Earth with the profligate First World in charge of the flight deck (2003 figures; see “Body Count. Global avoidable mortality since 1950”, G.M. Polya, Melbourne, 2007: http://janeaustenand.blogspot.com/ ). Worse is yet to come due to DECLINE in agricultural sustainability, potable water, fisheries, tropical and sub-tropical agricultural productivity, drought, developing world nutrition and even safe living space for mega-delta communities subject to sea level rise, storm surges and salinization.

A must-read document for policy makers is the 2007 “Summary for Policymakers of the Synthesis Report of the IPCC Fourth Assessment Report (AR4)” (for a Summary of the Summary see: http://green-blog.org/ and http://green-blog.org/2007/11/21/summary-of-the-summary-of-the-2007-ipcc-ar4-synthesis-report/ .

Sir Nicholas Stern his authoritative Stern report on the economics of climate change states that it will be cheaper to act now rather than later. For example, in a recent lecture Sir Nicholas Stern states: “For $10-15bn (£4.8-7.2bn) per year, a programme could be constructed that could stop up to half the deforestation” (which contributes 10-15% of greenhouse pollution) and after describing climate change as the “world’s worst market failure”, he says that there must be an 80% reduction in rich nations’ greenhouse gas pollution by 2050 if the world is to avoid “destructive” consequences of global warming (see: http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2007/nov/30/climatechange.carbonemissions ).

Indeed the draft recommendation at the December 2007 Bali Conference was for a developed country 25-40% reduction on 1990 levels of greenhouse gas pollution by 2020 – a position opposed by climate criminal countries the US, Canada, Japan and Rudd Australia (see:

http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,22910382-5013871,00.html ).

Unfortunately Rudd Labor, while having secured an urgently needed victory in the elections over the greenhouse sceptic and greenhouse unresponsive Bush-ite Coalition, is simply not green enough (see: link ). While Rudd Labor has ratified Kyoto, it is using the otherwise sensible need for “evidence before policy change” as an EXCUSE not to commit to short-term greenhouse reduction targets until the final form of the Garnaut Report in late 2008. With due respect to the eminent and respected Professor Garnaut and his Report-in-Progress we ALREADY have the Stern Report (see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stern_Review ) from a former Chief Economist of the World Bank (endorsed and indeed criticized as too conservative by former World Bank Chief Economist and 2001 Economics Nobel Laureate Professor Joseph Stiglitz of Columbia University) and the 2007 IPCC Fourth Assessment Report (see: http://www.ipcc.ch/ ) endorsed by leading climate change scientists from essentially all countries.

Indeed the likely target of Stern (500-550 ppm atmospheric CO2 ) is a catastrophe for the planet – according to Professor James Lovelock FRS at 500 ppm atmospheric CO2 the Greenland Ice Sheet goes and so does the ocean phytoplankton system that is crucial for cloud formation (through dimethyl sulphide production), planetary temperature homeostasis (through CO2 sequestration) and oceanic food chains (J. Lovelock, The Revenge of Gaia”, Penguin, London, 2006).

PM Rudd has stated that before making a decision on short term targets his Government needs to have the “facts”. Well, the World has had the “facts” for a dozen years and what follows is a scientist’s assessment of the “facts” drawn from authoritative American and European technical sources. Unfortunately in the Australian Murdochracy, the politically correct racist (PC racist) Land of Lies and Flies, Australia’s world #1 coal exports that contribute over 50% of Australia’s total annual greenhouse gas pollution are not even a matter for public discussion (except for the ethical and responsible Australian Greens) (for how a mature society regards the matter see George Monbiot’s “The real answer to climate change is to leave fossil fuels in the ground”: http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/story/0,,2225387,00.html ).

Indeed any specifically “economic impact” research in 2007-2008 by the eminent Professor Ross Garnaut Climate Change Review will be instantly trashed if the Rest of the World (i.e. other than the US-Australia-Canada-Japan quartet opposing 25-40% reduction in CO2 pollution by 2020) decides officially or unofficially to impose Sanctions, Boycotts or Green Tariffs on the goods and services of climate criminal countries.

Further, what we are facing is a Climate Emergency and a Sustainability Emergency as revealed by the eminent American atmosphere scientist Dr James Hansen who has recently stated that 300-350 ppm atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2) is the safe, sustainable level for the biosphere and human survival – whereas it is actually 383 ppm now and increasing by 2.5 ppm every year. Dr Hansen is effectively calling not for ZERO EMISSIONS but NEGATIVE CO2 EMISSIONS (see the Friends of the Earth’s ”Climate Code Red – the case for a sustainability emergency”: http://www.climatecodered.net/ and http://climatecodered.blogspot.com/ ).

Australia and the World are already experiencing mass flora and fauna extinctions. Qualitatively, this huge destruction of what we can never replace is utterly unacceptable. This economic barbarism is dramatically illustrated by the Great Barrier Reef of Australia.

A recent paper in the prestigious journal Science reveals that at 450 ppm CO2 world coral reefs will start dying from ocean acidification (see: http://www.abc.net.au/rn/scienceshow/stories/2007/2115399.htm ). The coal industry (that is helping to destroy world coral reefs) is worth about A$25 billion pa to Australia (A$2 billion to 25,000 workers and at 30% company tax, about A$8 billion to the taxpayer) – as compared to A$7 billion pa from tourism and 63,000 jobs associated with the Great Barrier Reef (Access Economics: http://www.gbrmpa.gov.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0017/22661/rp_87-GBRCA-economic-contribution-2005-06-final-report.pdf ).

However what is INESTIMABLY more important than a mere circa 1% of Australia’s annual GDP is the prospective destruction of organisms that have been around for half a billion years, the destruction of complex coral ecosystems that have been around for tens of millions of years and the attendant devastation of the ecosystems crucially required for numerous other marine organisms and crucial, humanity-sustaining fisheries.

A crucial paper in the top scientific journal Science of major importance for the Garnaut Review is the seminal, multi-author paper by Balmford et al entitled “Economic reasons for conserving wild nature” (Science, 9 August 2002, 950: http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/reprint/297/5583/950.pdf ; http://www.envirosecurity.org/conference/working/ReasonsConservWildNature.pdf ). These authors estimate that for a number of ecosystems (biomes) studied the total economic value (TEV) is about 50% greater if the natural resource is used sustainably as opposed to irreversibly and destructively. They have further found that the economic benefit from preserving what is left of wild nature exceeds the cost of doing so by a factor of over 100 (one hundred).

The outstanding Australian bioethicist Professor Peter Singer (Princeton University and University of Melbourne) has stated that: “We are responsible not only for what we do but also for what we could have prevented… We should consider the consequences both of what we do and what we decide not to do.”

(Singer, P. (2000), Writings on an Ethical Life (Ecco Press, New York; ppxv-xvi ). Accordingly we must act NOW in the face of what can be reasonably decribed by sober, informed, economically conservative scientists as a Climate Emergency and a Sustainability Emergency.

This was part one of two parts. You can find part two here.

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/content/view/1375/247/ 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): http://www.abc.net.au/rn/science/ockham/stories/s1445960.htm ).

Truth, Reason and Words having failed in the Western Murdochracies, as an artist as well as a scientist he has painted several huge paintings relating to the Climate Emergency, namely “Terra”: http://mwcnews.net/content/view/15671/42/ and “Apocalypse Now”: http://mwcnews.net/content/view/17652/42/ .

I applaud this approach as a senior scientist committed to rational risk management that successively involves (a) accurate data, (b) scientific analysis and (c) systemic change to minimize risk (for a detailed, expert exposition see Professor James Reason, “Human error: models and management”, British Medical Journal, vol. 320, 768-770, 2000: http://www.bmj.com/cgi/content/full/320/7237/768 ). Indeed as a responsible pubIic service I have committed a lot of time and effort to informing governments, media and fellow citizens about important matters, of which Australia’s involvement in the ongoing Aboriginal Genocide, Iraqi Genocide, Afghan Genocide and Climate Genocide are the most critically important.

Dated 4 December 2007, Day #2 and week #1 of the Rudd Government, Rudd Australia Report Card #1 is the first of a series of carefully researched and edited “Rudd Australia Report Cards” that I will be sending to the Rudd Government and to media and fellow citizens. “Rudd Australia Report Card #1. Continued Australian and US Coalition war crimes in Occupied Iraq” has been published on Crosswire: http://open.newmatilda.com/crosswire/?p=142 .

BELOW is “Rudd Australia Report Card #2. Climate Criminal Australia and Climate Genocide”

I am very happy for anyone to re-publish these “Rudd Australia Report Cards” with attribution in the interests of Australia and Humanity.

Rudd Australia Report Card #2. Climate Criminal Australia and Climate Genocide

Background

The world is facing a potential catastrophe due successively to industrial profligacy, greenhouse gas pollution, global warming and declining per capita sustainable resources. This potential problem of environmental pollution and impacts on biological sustainability has been familiar to scientists since the 19 th century research of John Tyndall; was addressed by the Club of Rome in circa 1970; and which was further addressed by successive Assessment Reports of the Inter-governmental Panel on Climate Change since 1990 (see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intergovernmental_Panel_on_Climate_Change ).

As a chemistry-based scientist for 4 decades, I was aware of the finiteness of the atmosphere, the oceans, arable land and fossil fuel reserves from the start of my career. I was made aware of the mounting atmospheric problems back in 1972 as a Queen Elizabeth II Fellow in the department of one of Australia’s top hydrologists and biophysicists who later went on to be Chief Scientist of Australia.

In 1998 I published a book entitled “Jane Austen and the Black Hole of British History. Colonial rapacity, holocaust denial and the crisis in biological sustainability” (see: http://janeaustenand.blogspot.com/ ). In short, I argued that history ignored yields history repeated, holocaust ignored yields holocaust repeated and that the ignoring of successive Bengali Holocausts under the British – the 1769-1770 Bengal Famine (10 million deaths) and the 1943-1944 Bengal Famine (4 million deaths) – will permit a horrendous disaster in the 21st century due to industrial profligacy, man-made global warming and destructive inundation of mega-deltaic Bengal. My predictions of holocaust ignoring and irresponsible industrial profligacy are already being realized – recently formerly densely populated Bengali islands permanently disappeared under the waves, and the last major Bay of Bengal hurricane was the worst for several decades.

Climate change is already contributing to the 16 million avoidable deaths (about 9.6 million of under-5 year old infants) that occur each year on Spaceship Earth with the profligate First World in charge of the flight deck (see “Body Count. Global avoidable mortality since 1950”, G.M. Polya, Melbourne, 2007: http://janeaustenand.blogspot.com/ ). Worse is yet to come due to decline in agricultural sustainability, potable water, fisheries, and even safe living space for mega-delta communities subject to sea level rise, storm surges and salinization.

A must-read document for policy makers is the 2007 “Summary for Policymakers of the Synthesis Report of the IPCC Fourth Assessment Report (AR4)” (for a Summary of the Summary see:

Green-Blog.org/2007/11/21/summary-of-the/…/. Sir Nicholas Stern his authoritative Stern report on the economics of climate change states that it will be cheaper to act now rather than later. In a recent lecture Sir Nicholas Stern “For $10-15bn (£4.8-7.2bn) per year, a programme could be constructed that could stop up to half the deforestation” (which contributes 10-15% of greenhouse pollution) and after describing climate change as the world’s worst market failure, he says that there must be an 80% reduction in rich nations’ greenhouse gas pollution by 2050 if the world is to avoid “destructive” consequences of global warming (see: Guardian.co.uk/environment/2007/nov/30/…/ ).

Indeed the draft recommendation at the December 2007 Bali Conference is for a developed country 25-40% reduction on 1990 levels of greenhouse gas pollution by 2020 – a position opposed by climate criminal countries the US, Canada, Japan and Rudd Australia (see:
TheAustralian.news.com.au/story/…/ ).

Unfortunately Rudd Labor, while having secured an urgently needed victory in the elections over the greenhouse sceptic and greenhouse unresponsive Bush-ite Coalition, is simply not green enough (see: link ). While Rudd Labor has ratified Kyoto, it is using the sensible need for “evidence before policy change” as an EXCUSE not to commit to short-term greenhouse reduction targets until the final form of the Garnaut Report in late 2008. With due respect to Professor Garnaut and his Report-in-Progress we ALREADY have the Stern Report (see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stern_Review ) and the 2007 IPCC Fourth Assessment Report (see: http://www.ipcc.ch ).

PM Rudd has stated that before making a decision on short term targets his Government needs to have the “facts”. Well, the World has had the “facts” for a dozen years and what follows is a scientist’s assessment of the “facts” drawn from authoritative American and European technical sources. Unfortunately in the Australian Murdochracy, the politically correct racist (PC racist) Land of Lies and Flies, Australia’s world #1 coal exports that contribute over 50% of Australia’s total annual greenhouse gas pollution are not even a matter for public discussion (except for the ethical and responsible Australian Greens) (for how a mature society regards the matter see George Monbiot’s “The real answer to climate change is to leave fossil fuels in the ground”: http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/story/…/ ).

Indeed any specifically “economic impact” research by the Garnaut Report (aka “Rudd’s Excuse for Inaction”) will be instantly trashed if the Rest of the World (i.e. other than the US-Australia-Canada-Japan quartet opposing 25-40% reduction by 2020) decide officially or unofficially to impose Sanctions, Boycotts, Green Tariffs or Reparations Demands on the goods and services of climate criminal countries such as Australia.

Here are some “facts” from authoritative sources that are apparent NOW – they do not need a further year of “research” for discovery.

1. Committed Rudd Labor Policy is effective Climate Racism from a per capita CO2 pollution standpoint

In the recent election campaign Rudd Labor committed to “20% renewables by 2020”, “”60% reduction on 2000 greenhouse gas pollution by 2050” and no constraint on fossil fuel extraction for export. What this ACTUALLY means (based on US Energy Information Administration data, assuming current constant coal, gas and CO2 pollution growth rates, constant population and including Australia’s fossil fuel EXPORTS) is the following pattern of “total annual per capita fossil fuel-derived CO2 emission in tonnes per person per year” (i.e. “Total Annual Per Capita Pollution” or TAPCP) of 43 (2007), 56 (2020) and 65 (2050).

If Australia agrees to “25% reduction on 1990 domestic levels by 2020” this will mean a TAPCP of 44 (2020); a 40% reduction would mean 42. These values are about 10 times greater than the “Annual Per Capita Pollution” (APCP) value (2004) for the World (4.2) and China (3.6), about 40 times greater than for India (1) and 160 times greater than for Bangladesh (0.25).

Australia’s TAPCP is already 10 times that of China’s 2004 APCP value and Rudd Labor’s “do nothing, set up a committee” approach means a startling continuation in 2008 of Labor’s 2007 5-fold greater version of the racist Labor Immigration Minister Arthur Calwell’s notorious 1947 declaration: “Two Wongs do not make a White” (see: http://mwcnews.net/content/view/17999/42/ and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arthur_Calwell ) – indeed on the above figures, assuming that China keeps its 2050 APCP to something like 2004 figure, Rudd Labor, for all its ostensible Philosinensis (indeed Arthur Calwell had Chinese friends and spoke Mandarin) is heading for a 2050 TAPCP (65.2) 18 times that of China’s 2004 APCP value (3.6).

2. Professor Garnaut’s “all men are created equal” position (December 2007)

Professor Garnaut (ABC, Lateline, 10 December 2007) stated: (from my notes): “Australia will be pulling its full weight”. “Pulling its full weight” means (if one accepts “all men are created equal” ) that Australia achieves APCP parity with the rest of the world – something that Rudd Labor absolutely refuses to do (see #1). One hopes that the finalized Garnaut Report in late 2008 is able to convince Rudd Labor to eschew the Climate Racism of APCP non-parity.

3. Australian Greens policy consonant with non-Bush-ite “Rest of the World” consensus

The Australian Greens policy is to rapidly phase out fossil fuel extraction and to have an “80% reduction of greenhouse gas pollution by 2050”. This yields an APCP of 2.4 in 2050 and consonant both with the IPCC and Stern 2007 demands for “80% reduction on 1990 levels by 2050”, “Pulling its full weight” (Professor Garnaut, 2007) and “all men are created equal” (Thomas Jefferson, American Declaration of Independence, 1776).

4. US Energy Information Administration data and the climate criminal Bush-ite Coalition legacy

The US Energy Information Administration (EIA; see: http://tonto.eia.doe.gov/country/index.cfm ) provides very detailed information about energy usage by all countries of the world for the last 10 years. Back in 1997 the decent world was so concerned about mounting evidence for anthropogenic, greenhouse gas-driven, climate change that it signed on to the Kyoto Protocol. Not only did climate criminal Australia (together with climate criminal US) NOT sign the Kyoto Protocol, but Australia’s “annual coal exports”, “annual natural gas extraction”, “annual domestic fossil fuel-derived CO2 production” and “annual total fossil fuel-derived CO2 production” plotted versus time yield beautiful straight lines UPWARDS.

Indeed this beautiful linearity gives greater confidence for extrapolation at either end of these graphs. For the convenience of the reader with some graph paper the estimates of “DOMESTIC annual fossil fuel-derived CO2 production” (millions of tonnes) versus time (with per capita estimates of tonnes per person per year in parenthesis, assuming post-2007 population stasis at 21 million) are: 256 (12.2, 1990), 348 (18.2, 2000), 424 (20.2, 2007), 554 (26.3, 2020) and 853 (40.6, 2050); using the same assumptions the “TOTAL annual fossil fuel-derived CO2 production” (with per capita estimates of tonnes per person per year and year in parentheses) is 435 (25.7, 1990), 698 (36.5, 2000), 910 (43.3, 2007), 1,277 (60.8, 2020) and 2,122 (101.0, 2050).

In relation to the above estimates, the Bush-ite Coalition policy of BAU (business as usual) and no constraint on fossil fuel exports would, on the above assumptions, lead to a “total annual per capita fossil fuel-derived CO2 pollution, TAPCP” of 101 tonnes per person per year in 2050, 27 times China’s 2004 value and 2.5 times Australia’s present value.

5. Major international comparisons – Australia is the world’s worst big country per capita greenhouse polluter

Despite the rhetoric, rational approaches to save the Planet are being resolutely opposed by racist, greedy Bush America (the world’s worst greenhouse gas polluter and stand-out Kyoto non-signatory) and previously Bush-ite and presently neo-Bush-ite Australia (the world’s developed country with the worst annual per capita greenhouse gas pollution and the world’s biggest coal exporter).

Thus 2004 data from the US Energy Information Administration (EIA; see: http://tonto.eia.doe.gov/country/index.cfm ) reveal that “annual per capita fossil fuel-derived CO2 pollution, APCP” in tonnes CO2/person is 19.2 (for Australia; 40 if you include Australia’s 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). Neither Bush America nor Bush-ite Australia will sign Kyoto nor cut greenhouse gas pollution – the countries facing devastation from global warming are the mega-delta, below-World-average polluting countries of China, India and Bangladesh.

Australia is the world’s big country with the highest annual per capita greenhouse polluter and is currently playing “dog in the manger” (together with the US, Canada and Japan) in opposing short-term greenhouse gas pollution reduction targets at the December 2007 Bali Conference.

6. Germanwatch index places Australia #54 in the list of the worst CO2 polluters (#56 being worst)

Of course “annual per capita fossil fuel-derived CO2 pollution” is but one – albeit a very important – indicator of climate criminality. The Germanwatch Climate Change Index 2008, a comparison of the 56 top CO2 emitting nations (see: http://www.germanwatch.org/ccpi.htm ), 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 satrap), coal-rich Australia (a US satrap), the USA and oil-rich Saudi Arabia (a puppet of anti-Arab anti-Semitic, Islamophobic Bush US ) rank #53, #54, #55 and #56, respectively (see: http://www.germanwatch.org/ccpi.htm ) .

7. Annual per capita greenhouse gas pollution for the world and Australia with and without land use change (2000)

The US Energy Information Administration gives a year-by-year summary of fossil fuel-derived CO2 pollution for every country in the world (see: http://www.eia.doe.gov/emeu/iea/carbon.html ). However greenhouse gas pollution (methane, CH4, nitrous oxide, N2O, and carbon dioxide, CO2) comes not just from burning hydrocarbons and coal but also from land use – specifically, agriculture, vegetative decomposition and animal husbandry. A 2000 list of countries by greenhouse gas emissions per capita provides data with and without this land use component (see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/…/ ). Land use contributes about 20% of global anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions. Out of 185 countries Australia ranked 9th worst (with land use change) and 5th (without land use change). The tonnes of “CO2 equivalent” per person per year were 25.9 (with) and 25.6 (without land use change) for Australia, indicating the preponderant importance of fossil fuel burning to Australia’s “score”.

8. Annual per capita GDP is directly proportional to annual per capita CO2 emission

If you plot “annual per capita fossil fuel-derived CO2” (2004) versus “annual per capita GDP” (2003) the data from most countries fall on a straight line (not quite going through zero on the “CO2” axis) and with a slope of about 0.3 kilograms/US dollar of GDP or 300 grams per US dollar (300 g/US$). However many countries fall ABOVE this line, most notably the oil-rich Gulf States (2.5 kg/US$), world’s #1 coal exporter Australia (1.9 kg/US$), Kyoto-violator Canada (0.8 kg/US$) and Kyoto non-signatory US (0.5 kg/US$).

This analysis shows that GDP is currently directly proportional to CO2 emission and the consequence is that to cut emissions it is necessary to (a) cut GDP and/or (b) cut CO2-polluting energy generation for GDP generation i.e. urgently promote renewables or suffer a declining GDP.

9. IPCC summary

The Inter-governmental Panel on Climate Change has delivered 4 Assessment reports since 1990, the latest being the 2007 Fourth Assessment Report. The prognosis of the latest IPCC Report is very bleak but the situation is actually even worse than they state because of (a) the cut off in scientific papers considered and (b) obfuscatory inputs by climate criminal countries such as the US. For a Summary of the Summary of the 2007 IPCC Synthesis Report of the Fourth Assessment Report see: http://green-blog.org/2007/11/21/summary-of-the-summary-of/…/ .

The IPCC (2000) has defined various possible scenarios which are summarised in New Scientist, with the worst case scenario being the fast economic growth and globalization, fossil fuel-intensive A1F1 scenario in which global population peaks in mid-century and declines thereafter, and involving the rapid introduction of new and more efficient technologies (see: http://environment.newscientist.com/channel/earth/dn11090). Of various scenarios discussed in the latest IPCC Synthesis Report (see: http://www.ipcc.ch/ ) “Category IV” seems the most favoured in public discussion (e.g. in report by Sir Nicholas Stern) and involves stabilization at 485-570 ppm CO2 , 3.2-4.0 degrees centigrade temperature rise above pre-industrial temperature (2-3 degrees above today’s) and 0.6-2.4 metres sea level above the pre-industrial sea level or 0.4 – 2.2 metres above today’s). However Professor Lovelock (“The Revenge of Gaia”) thinks that 500ppm CO2 would cause disastrous phytoplankton and Greenland ice losses with irreversible loss of major global temperature controls.

Recent data from 2 independent sources (see: “Recent CO2 rises exceed worst case scenarios”, New Scientist) reveal that ACTUAL rates of CO2 emission are the same or worse than in the worst case scenario A1F1 that, according to the 2007 IPCC Summary, will lead to catastrophic, long-term stabilization at (upper estimates) 790 ppm CO2, and a 6 degree centigrade higher temperature and 3.7 meter sea level rise relative to pre-industrial levels i.e. CO2 catastrophically at twice today’s level of 379 ppm , temperatures 4-5 degree centigrade above today’s and sea level 0.8-3.5 metres above today’s.

Thanks to climate criminal, climate genocidal countries, notably Bush America (the world’s #1 GHG polluter) and Bush-ite Australia (the world’s #1 coal exporter) – noting that neither of these will constrain GHG (greenhouse gas) pollution – the world is on track to deliver this predicted catastrophe or even WORSE to our children and grand

10. The Rudd Labor “Garnaut Report excuse” gambit contradicts the expert, IPCC-endorsed Stern injunction to “Act Now”

Both the IPCC Fourth Assessment report and the Stern Report say “act NOW”. However, stripped of mellifluous rhetoric (e.g. “there is no plan B”) the Rudd Labor position involves a 1 year delay on any concrete action to constrain greenhouse gas (GHG) pollution. After nearly 12 years of sustained upward growth of CO2 pollution under the climate criminal Bush-ite Coalition this is simply not good enough. If indeed “there is no plan B” why won’t Rudd Australia sign up to the “Plan A” endorsed by every country in the world except for the US and its satraps Australia, Canada and Japan i.e. “25-40% reduction by 2020”?

According to Stern as quoted by the Guardian (2007): “The average emissions a head must fall from seven tonnes to two to three tonnes of carbon dioxide a year by 2050, he says. US emissions a head are more than 20 tonnes each year, with European citizens producing 10-15 tonnes each. In China it is about five tonnes, in India about one, and in Africa less than one tonne each” (see: Guardian.co.uk/environment/2007/nov/30/climatechange.carbonemissions).

Australia is currently producing 43 tonnes each per annum (including fossil fuel exports) and according to the public committed Rudd Labor scenario projects 65 tonnes each per annum by 2050.

11. Rudd Australia greenhouse pollution scenarios

As indicated above (#1) the “solid”, “committed” Rudd Labor Policy indicates “total annual fossil fuel-derived CO2 pollution (million tonnes per year )” of 910 (2007), 1,277 (2020) and 2,122 (2050).

However it is salutary to consider the scenario if Rudd Labor accepted ”25% reduction on 1990 levels by 2050 – “total annual fossil fuel-derived CO2 pollution (million tonnes per year )” would be 910 (2007), 915 (2020) and 1,371 (2050).

If Rudd Labor accepted”40% reduction on 1990 levels by 2050 – “total annual fossil fuel-derived CO2 pollution (million tonnes per year )” would be 910 (2007), 877 (2020) and 1,371 (2050).

Even under Rudd Labor’s “20% renewable by 2020” and “”60% on 2000 levels by 2050”, the “domestic annual fossil fuel-derived CO2 pollution (million tonnes per year )” would be 345 (2000), 424 (2007), 443 (2020) and 138 (2050).

12. Rudd Australia greenhouse pollution scenarios – per capita projections

As indicated above (#1) the “solid” Rudd Labor Policy indicates “total annual per capita pollution (TAPCP, tonnes per person per year)” of 43 (2007), 56 (2020) and 65 (2050);

If Rudd Labor accepted ”25% reduction on 1990 levels by 2050”, “total annual per capita pollution (TAPCP, tonnes per person per year)” would be 43 (2007), 44 (2020) and 65 (2050).

If Rudd Labor accepted “40% on 1990 levels by 2020” the “total annual per capita pollution (TAPCP, tonnes per person per year)” would be 43 (2007), 42 (2020) and 65 (2050).

Even under Rudd Labor’s CURRENTLY PROPOSED “20% renewable by 2020” and “60% reduction on 2000 levels by 2050″ the “DOMESTIC annual per capita pollution (DAPCP, tonnes per person per year)” would be 18 (2000), 21 (2007) and 6.6 (2050) (still nearly twice that of China in 2004).

13. Who pays? Australia benefits from CO2 pollution, the World suffers

One of the world’s leading bioethicists Professor Peter Singer (Princeton University and University of Melbourne) is unequivocal in his expert judgment that “We are responsible not only for what we do but also for what we could have prevented… We should consider the consequences both of what we do and what we decide not to do.” (Singer, P. (2000), “Writings on an Ethical Life”, Ecco Press, New York; ppxv-xvi).

Unfortunately there is a major bipartisan agreement in Australia to ignore the global cost of Australia’s world #1 coal exports. The Australian Green proposal in the recent federal election campaign to rapidly phase out this highly irresponsible and planet-threatening industry was howled down by both the Bush-ite Coalition and the neo-Bush-ite Labor Party.

At the next elections the Bush-ite Coalition will still have the support of about half the voters yet the former Coalition PM described as “crazy” the Rudd Labor proposal to cut emissions in 2050 to 60% of the 2000 value (a proposal that, as shown in #11 and #12 above, falls so far short of what is needed that Rudd Labor might just as well have not bothered except for the purpose of garnering the votes of the gullible).

According to the 2007 IPCC Synthesis report, unaddressed CO2 pollution and global warming will have a devastating effect on global malnutrition and poverty (see: http://green-blog.org/2007/11/21/summary-of-the-summary-of-the/…/ ). According the Professor David Pimentel (2004), global malnutrition and poverty will be an “unimaginable” problem by 2054 (see: http://www.news.cornell.edu/releases/Feb04/AAAS.pimentel.hrs.html ), already pollution of the soil, water and air kills about 40% of the world’s population and 57% of the world’s population of 6.5 billion is already malnourished (see: http://www.news.cornell.edu/stories/Aug07/moreDiseases.sl.html ).

Already 16 million people due avoidably each year (9.6 million being under-5 year old infants) on a Spaceship Earth dominated by a profligate and unresponsive First World (see “Body Count. Global avoidable mortality since 1950”, G.M. Polya, Melbourne, 2007: http://janeaustenand.blogspot.com/ ) – and Australia on a per capita basis is one of the world’s worst offenders.

14. Who pays? The true environmental and human cost of coal-based electricity can be over 4 times the present market cost

According to a Ministry of Energy Report from Ontario, Canada, coal plants kill 668 people per year in Ontario (population 12.7 million), and cause 1,100 emergency room visits, and more than 300,000 minor illnesses per year. These and previous findings by the Ontario Medical Association were behind bi-partisan will to close Ontario’s coal-fired electricity plants. This Report estimated that a “market” cost of about 4 cents/kWh increases to a “true cost” of about 16 cents/kWh (see: http://www.evworld.com/news.cfm?newsid=8836 ): “The study estimated that the total net present value of coal-fired generation is costing Ontario $0.164 CAD/kWh. Environmental and health costs accounted for 77% to total generation costs”.

15. “True cost” of fossil fuels versus bearable cost, corporate/government-determined cost and A$10 billion per annum subsidies for Australian fossil fuel burning

While the “true cost” of coal-based electricity can be over 4 times the “market” cost, this will be ignored in corporate, government and diplomatic “horse-trading” to set carbon price – just as society in practice ignores the “annual death rate” due to cigarette smoking (about 1,000 per million) or due to cars (about 100 per million) in assessing the “true cost” of tobacco or cars. Extrapolating from Ontario, the annual death rate from coal-fired power generation is about 50 per million.

If the true environmental and human cost of fossil fuel-derived power were taken into account then (a) economics would dictate “keep fossil fuels in the ground” (as advocated by the Australian Greens and by George Monbiot: http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/story/…/ ), (b) subsidies would be immediately removed and (c) compensation ordered by the courts for the victims of this technological perversion (as has happened already in relation to victims of industrial use of asbestos).

16. Renewables are the way – keep fossil fuels in the ground

Here are some estimates of the cost in Australian cents per kilowatt-hour (Ac/kWh) of various sources of electricity (for a detailed discussion see “Renewables: how the numbers stack up” in New Matilda: http://www.newmatilda.com/home/…/ ):

3-4 — coal, Australia;

18 — the real cost of coal, taking into account the environmental and health impact; according to a conservative Canadian Ontario Ministry of Energy Report (CAN$0.164);

15 — nuclear via the UK’s newest Sizewell B plant;

7.5-8.5 — wind power, Australia;

15 — concentrated solar power or CSP;

25-45 — standard silicon-based photovoltaics (PVs).

However recent advances means we must add the following to the list:

4 – the price of solar PV is set to fall dramatically to compete directly with the current “market price” of coal due to balloon, sliver and non-silicon PV technology advances. The non-silicon organic thin film technology developed by US Nobel Laureate Alan Heeger and his South Korean colleagues will reduce the cost of installing photovoltaic (PV) capacity by a factor of 20; the Swiss ETH CIGS non-silicon thin film system may be competitive with coal within 5 years; Australian sliver silicon PV technology will drop silicon solar panel costs threefold. In particular, the Californian balloon solar capture technology is predicted to make PV solar competitive with “market price” coal by 2010 (see “Solar energy & the end of war. US balloon technology to slash solar energy cost 90% by 2010”: http://mwcnews.net/content/view/18667/42/ ).

4 – Australian geothermal. According to Professor John Veevers (“The Innamincka hot fractured rock project” in “Lies, Deep Fries & Statistics”, editor Robyn Williams, ABC Books, Sydney, 2007; also see energy cost-related related chapters by Dr Gideon Polya “Australian complicity in Iraq mass mortality”, Dr Mark Diesendorf “A sustainable energy future for Australia”, and Martin Mahy “Hydrogen Minibuses”): “Modelled costs are 4 cents per kilowatt hour, plus half to 1 cent for transmission to grid. This compares with 3.5 cents for black coal, 4 cents for brown coal, 4.2 cents for gas, but all with uncosted emissions. Clean coal, the futuristic technology of coal gasification combined with CO2 sequestration or burial, yet to be demonstrated, comes in at 6.5 cents, and solar and wind power at 8 cents.”

Further, wave, tidal, biomass and biofuel energy technologies are renewable technologies competitive with the “true cost” of fossil fuels. Australia’s huge reserves of economic geothermal power are expertly assessed to have the capacity to provide most of Australia’s energy needs for the best part of a millennium and Australia is blessed with huge solar, tidal, wave and wind resources.

The UK Government has recently announced that all British homes will be energized from wind farms by 2020.

17. Nuclear is not an option

The Bush-ite Coalition had an unerring knack of being resolutely incorrect or in denial about so many crucial matters – anthropogenic climate change, the reasons for war in Iraq and Afghanistan, the terrorist threat to Australia, and the cost of meeting the climate change crisis. They are also incorrect in relation to the nuclear option. As summarized in #16 above the nuclear option is more expensive than current renewable wind and geothermal technologies and as expensive as current concentrated solar technology. Further, the FULL nuclear cycle (from uranium mining and processing to waste disposal and plant de-commissioning) can be as expensive in terms of CO2 emissions as a gas-fired power station – and we still have the intractable security and waste disposal problems.

18. Mandated efficient energy provision as well as usage

Australia has mandated replacement of incandescent globes with high efficiency electric lights over the next year or so. If Australia can legislatively mandate efficient energy USAGE it should also mandate the highest efficiency, lowest REAL cost energy PROVISION – currently geothermal, followed by wind with both of these set to be shortly supplanted by exciting low-cost solar technologies.

Failure of Australia to mandate minimum price energy provision simply reflects entrenched dishonesty and corruption in our society. This is briefly discussed further below in relation to the Australian and global impact of fossil fuel burning.

19. Oil, strategic hegemony and 5-8 million post-invasion excess deaths in the Bush Wars in the Occupied Iraqi and Afghan Territories

The strategic importance of the Middle East in terms of oil and global hegemony is the core reason for the Bush Asian Wars that have so far been associated with 5-8 million post-invasion excess deaths in the Occupied Iraqi and Afghan Territories. This explanation has been argued cogently by outstanding anti-war humanitarian Professor Noam Chomsky (from 63-Nobel- Laureate Massachusetts Institute of Technology, MIT) in an article entitled “Imminent Crises: Threats and Opportunities” in which he says of the Middle East : “the huge energy resources of the region were recognized by Washington sixty years ago as a “stupendous source of strategic power,” the “strategically most important area of the world,” and “one of the greatest material prizes in world history.”[reference] 1 Control over this stupendous prize has been a primary goal of U.S. policy ever since, and threats to it have naturally aroused enormous concern.”

Total post-invasion excess deaths in the Occupied Iraqi and Afghan Territories now stand at about 5-8 million. There has been a horrendous human cost of the ongoing Palestinian Genocide, Iraqi Genocide and Afghan Genocide (post-invasion excess deaths 0.3 million, 1.5-2 million and 3-6 million, respectively; post-invasion under-5 infant deaths total 0.2 million, 0.6 million and 2.2 million, respectively; and refugees total 7 million, 4.5 million and 4 million, respectively) (updated figures from MWC News).

However there is a further huge cost in the US$2.5 trillion accrual cost of the Bush wars (according to 2001 Economics Nobel Laureate Professor Joseph Stiglitz) that has recently been updated to $3.5 trillion by a Congressional Report (see: http://mwcnews.net/content/view/13099/26/) ; the $2.6 trillion post-1956 accrual cost of US aid for Zionist colonization of Palestine, Lebanon and Syria (see: http://mwcnews.net/content/…/); the huge human cost of the US-expanded opiate trade – 0.6 million post-2001 global opiate drug-related deaths (about 2,000 in Australia) due to US Alliance restoration of the Taliban-destroyed Afghan opium industry from about 5% of world market share in 2001 to 93% in 2007; and huge diversion of financial support from alleviation of global warming-exacerbated poverty (the “War on Terror” has cost Australia alone about $20 billion in corporate and government domestic security measures and billions more in overseas military deployments).

20. Huge environmental cost and environmental economic cost of fossil fuel burning and deforestation for Australia and the World

It has been estimated by Balmford et al in the prestigious scientific journal Science (see “Economic reasons for preserving wild nature”: http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/…/) that for a variety of “biomes” (ecological systems) the total economic value (TEV) is about 50% greater when the resource is used sustainably as opposed to destructive conversion. Further, these scientists have found that the economic benefit from preserving what is left of wild nature is OVER 100 TIMES greater than the cost of preservation.

However these estimates are IGNORED by Lib-Lab Australian Governments in the interests of “jobs” and corporations as we see in the ongoing deforestation of Victoria and Tasmania. The true economic value of State-owned assets are not being considered – these citizen-owned public resources are effectively being given away to private corporations.

These ugly realities of dishonesty and environmental vandalism reach a pinnacle in relation to greenhouse gas pollution. The polluters are not being charged the full cost of what they are destroying. Indeed quite the reverse is happening – fossil fuel burning is actually SUBSIDIZED to the tune of about $10 billion annually in Australia (see: http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/…/).

A further concrete Australian example is the threat to the Great Barrier Reef from global warming as spelled out in the latest 2007 IPCC Synthesis Report (see: http://www.ipcc.ch) – this is of course a major tourist asset in an economic sense as well as a national and global icon.

21. Biofuels represent a perversion with 57% malnourished, grain production falling and grain price rising

As outlined in #13, According to the 2007 IPCC Synthesis report, unaddressed CO2 pollution and global warming will have a devastating effect on global malnutrition and poverty (see: http://www.ipcc.ch). According the Professor David Pimentel (2004) of Cornell University, New York, global malnutrition and poverty will be an “unimaginable” problem by 2054 (see: http://www.news.cornell.edu/releases/Feb04/…/ ), already pollution of the soil, water and air kills about 40% of the world’s population and 57% of the world’s population of 6.5 billion is already malnourished (see: http://www.news.cornell.edu/stories/Aug07/…/ ).

Already 16 million people due avoidably each year (9.6 million being under-5 year old infants) on a Spaceship Earth dominated by a profligate and unresponsive First World (see “Body Count. Global avoidable mortality since 1950”, G.M. Polya, Melbourne, 2007: http://janeaustenand.blogspot.com/ ) – and Australia on a per capita basis is one of the world’s worst offenders.

Biofuels are formally CO2 neutral and renewable – however in the context of horrendous global poverty, a major decline in grain production, huge increases in grain price and increasing diversion of grain for biofuel generation (see: http://www.fas.usda.gov/grain/circular/2006/05-06/graintoc.htm ) this is a perversion and a crime against humanity, the more so when alternative cheap, efficient renewable energy options are technically already available (see #16).

22. Oil is the feedstock for sophisticated organic chemical industry – it should not be burned

Forty years ago my organic chemistry lecturer told us that we are actually BURNING the feedstock for sophisticated chemical industry, the material used to make pharmaceuticals and plastics that dominate modern life. Today this wanton destruction of an immensely valuable resource is continuing. The “real cost” and the “real value” are ignored because of the political might of fossil fuel burning corporations.

I am acutely aware of this travesty as the author of a huge pharmacological reference text (Gideon Polya, “Biochemical Targets of Plant Bioactive Compounds. A pharmacological reference guide to sites of action and biological effects” CRC Press, Taylor & Francis, New York & London, 2003:
http://www.amazon.com/Biochemical-Targets-Plant-Bioactive-Compounds/…/).

23. Deforestation can be halved by investing US$15 billion per annum

Further to the points made in relation to environmental impacts of global warming, deforestation contributes about 15-20% to increased net global greenhouse gas production annually. Yet according to Sir Nicholas Stern: “For $10-15bn (£4.8-7.2bn) per year, a programme could be constructed that could stop up to half the deforestation” (see: http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2007/nov/30/…/).

In addition to playing a vital role in global temperature homeostasis, forest ecosystems are sources for invaluable pharmaceutical resources (see my recent huge reference book: Gideon Polya, “Biochemical Targets of Plant Bioactive Compounds. A pharmacological reference guide to sites of action and biological effects”, CRC Press, Taylor & Francis, New York & London, 2003: http://www.amazon.com/Biochemical-Targets-Plant-Bioactive-Compounds/…/).

24. Climate criminal countries such as Australia face Sanctions, Boycotts, Green Tariffs and Reparations Demands

The science and technology has been well reviewed internationally (see the 2007 IPCC Reports: http://www.ipcc.ch and a recent review of renewable scenarios: http://www.martinot.info/Martinot_et_al_AR32_prepub.pdf) as indeed has the economic of climate change via the Stern Report (see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stern_Review).

The Rudd Government intransigence in not supporting the draft Bali proposal of “25-40% reduction by 2020” is ostensibly because of the economic review by Professor Garnaut due in first draft in mid-2008 and presumably finalized by late 2008.

Yet one boundary condition of Professor Garnaut’s report is already clear – in his own words (December 2007) “Australia will be pulling its full weight” which means (if one accepts “all men are created equal” ) that Australia achieves “annual per capita greenhouse gas pollution” parity with the rest of the world. However the other boundary condition (perceived “affordability” in the light of Australia-specific economic analysis) is completely UNCERTAIN for the simple reason that the World may decide to take action against climate criminal countries such as Australia and the US through imposition of Sanctions, Boycotts, Green Tariffs and Reparations Demands.

Indeed a SOLUTION to greedy, climate criminal US, Canada, Japan and Australian intransigence would be international Sanctions and Boycotts or, more precisely, “Green Tariffs” and Reparations Demands that recognize the REAL environmental and human cost of goods produced by these irresponsible and intrinsically RACIST climate criminal countries.

It is notable that these 4 countries have ANOTHER intrinsically racist and genocidal activity in common – various participation in the genocidal Bush Asian Wars – post-invasion excess deaths in the Iraqi Genocide and Afghan Genocide now total 1.5-2 million and 3-6 million, respectively; post-invasion under-5 infant deaths total 0.6 million and 2.2 million, respectively; and refugees total 4.5 million and about 4 million, respectively) (see: “Solar energy & the end of war”: http://mwcnews.net/content/view/18667/42/ ).

What Australia and the US are doing is far more serious and intrinsically racist than the crimes of Apartheid South Africa, a system that was eventually disposed of through international Sanctions and Boycotts. Sanctions, Boycotts, Green Tariffs and Reparations Deamnds may well be applied to Australia, the US and like climate criminal countries that are threatening the Planet with climate genocide. Indeed a model for this comes from outstanding American academic, writer, editor and economist, Father of Reaganomics Dr Paul Craig Roberts who explicitly demands that the world should stop the “Iraqi genocide” by “dumping the dollar” (see: http://www.counterpunch.org/roberts02122007.html ). The World is evidently doing just that – and may well act similarly towards an intransigent Australia, on a per capita basis the world’s worst developed country greenhouse gas polluter.

Summary

On a per capita basis and including our fossil fuel exports, Australia is the developed country with the highest greenhouse gas pollution. Thus 2004 data from the US Energy Information Administration reveal that “annual per capita fossil fuel-derived CO2 pollution” in tonnes CO2/person is 19.2 (for Australia; 40 if you include Australia’s 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).

The Rudd Labor commitment to “20% renewables by 2020”, “”60% reduction on 2000 greenhouse gas pollution by 2050” and no constraint on fossil fuel extraction for export ACTUALLY means (based on US Energy Information Administration data, assuming current constant coal, gas and CO2 pollution growth rates, constant population and including Australia’s fossil fuel EXPORTS) “annual per capita fossil fuel-derived CO2 emission in tonnes per person per year” of 43 (2007), 56 (2020) and 65 (2050).

If Australia continues to refuse to act on both domestic and exported greenhouse gas pollution it will very likely face international action through Sanctions, Boycotts, Green Tariffs and Reparations Demands. The Rudd “Garnaut Report” excuse for inaction at Bali is contradicted by Professor Garnaut’s recent clear declaration that ““Australia will be pulling its full weight” which, given the equality of all Men, surely means massive reduction of CO2 pollution to per capita parity with countries such as India and China.

This has been written in the public interest.