Before the global recession hit (and reduced the soaring price of fossil fuels), the “market cost” of the best renewables had become similar to that of coal burning-based power (see “Hope: best renewables cost same as coal power. “One Day Pathétique” Symphony painting”).

However an Ontario, Canada Government commissioned analysis has revealed that when you take environmental and human mortality impacts into account the “true cost” of coal burning-based power was 4-5 times greater than the “market cost” – this making the best renewables and geothermal much cheaper than the “true cost” of coal burning-based power (see “Ontario study identifies social costs of coal-fired power plants”).

Another way of seeing this is that it can be estimated (from arithmetic projection from the Canada study) that about 5,000 Australians die every year from the effects of deadly pollutants from coal burning (heavy metals, carbon monoxide, radioactivity, soot, nitrogen oxides, sulphur dioxide) i.e. Australia sacrifices 5,000 lives each year on the altar of heavily-subsidized coal burning-based power (see “How many people die from Carbon Burning and Climate Change each year?”).

For the Text and Power Point Slide Presentation of a superb recent public lecture by Dr Peter Seligman (Bionic Ear engineer, Cochlear and Monash University, Melbourne, Australia) entitled “The Bang for Buck Approach to CO2 Abatement” here is the link on the Yarra Valley Climate Action Group website. This link gives the Text of a public lecture by Dr Peter Seligman; for the extremely effective Power Point Presentation accompanying this lecture scroll down to see the Attachment at the end of the lecture text. Dr Seligman discussed where you can invest your money most effectively to reduce your Greenhouse Gas (GHG) emissions (e.g. roof top solar PV, solar/gas hot water, wind farms etc) – some of our favourite solutions do not bear up under his analysis. [In the following summary of his analysis, I have included but personally discounted nuclear power because, in addition to major security issues and costs, nuclear power introduction in a carbon-based economy carries a huge CO2 pollution component in the overall fuel cycle from the mining and processing to waste disposal and de-commissioning (see “The truth about greenhouse and nuclear power”)].

Thus, according to Dr Seligman the “cost of energy abatement including the cost of energy saved” in units of “A$/tonne CO2” ranged from a marvellous -$500 (Mornington, WA remote area solar PV), -$141 (Compact fluorescent lamp used 24 hrs/day continuously), -$139 (large geothermal), -$139 (IRIS sealed nuclear reactor), -$134 (Georgia USA nuclear power), -$130 (Portland wind farm), -$121 (Birdsville geothermal), -$118 (Hepburn Co-op wind farm), $111 (Cloncurry thermal solar), $93 (LED fluorescent tube replacement), $92 (Mildura power solar power) and -$90 (domestic gas/solar hot water service, HWS) to the very costly +$7 (Gorgon CO2 injection project), +$30 (Carbon Capture and Sequestration, CCS Otway basin trial), +$36 (More efficient fridge), + $269 (hybrid car extra cost), $417 (Fairview coal bed methane), +$458 (Rooftop grid connect solar PV system), +$682 (Solar/gas HWS holiday house, 10% occupation) and +$2,000 (shredding money). [I would discount the nuclear option for the reasons given above].

Not considered in Dr Seligman’s excellent analysis is conversion to biochar (charcoal) of waste biomass (from crop straw, grasslands and forest waste biomass), this product being useful in CO2 abatement through return of carbon to the soil and also through helping create “terra preta” soil with increased fertility (see “Biochar” and “Forest biomass-derived Biochar can profitably reduce global warming and bushfire risk”). [Other improved agricultural practices such as minimum tillage cropping are also significant ].

Biochar expert Professor Johannes Lehmann of Cornell University calculates that it is realistically possible to fix 9.5 billion tonnes of carbon per year using biochar, noting that global annual production of carbon from fossil fuels is 8.5 billion tonnes (see: Alok Jha, “Biochar’ goes industrial with giant microwaves to lock carbon in charcoal“, Guardian (13 March 2009) and Johannes Lehmann, Biochar for mitigating climate change: “carbon sequestration in the black”).

In an Australian context, Crucible Carbon is developing high efficiency, low O2 pyrolysis technology for the mass production of biochar. According to Inside Waste Weekly: “Managing director Matthew Warnken says … potential carbon abatement of 100-200 million tonnes annually is “extremely reasonable and would be very achievable”… first commercial demonstration plant, with construction to begin at a site in regional NSW early next year. That plant will process around 20,000-40,000 tonnes of feedstock annually, producing electricity and a biochar product that would be used to improve degraded soils … assuming realistic prices for the value of the biochar and energy outputs of the plant, a value of A$20-30 per tonne of carbon sequestered would allow commercial biochar plants to be built with a three-year payback period” (see Opposition throws support behind biochar, Inside Waste Weekly (27 January 2009)).

Professor Lovelock FRS has given a recent assessment in which he discards nuclear (“It is a way for the UK to solve its energy problems, but it is not a global cure for climate change. It is too late for emissions reduction measures”) and plumps for biochar, stating: ““There is one way we could save ourselves and that is through the massive burial of charcoal. It would mean farmers turning all their agricultural waste – which contains carbon that the plants have spent the summer sequestering – into non-biodegradable charcoal, and burying it in the soil. Then you can start shifting really hefty quantities of carbon out of the system and pull the CO2 down quite fast … The biosphere pumps out 550 gigatonnes [550 billion tonnes] of carbon [carbon dioxide, CO2] yearly; we put in only 30 gigatonnes [CO2]. Ninety-nine per cent of the carbon that is fixed by plants is released back into the atmosphere within a year or so by consumers like bacteria, nematodes and worms. What we can do is cheat those consumers by getting farmers to burn their crop waste at very low oxygen levels to turn it into charcoal, which the farmer then ploughs into the field. A little CO2 is released but the bulk of it gets converted to carbon. You get a few per cent of biofuel as a by-product of the combustion process, which the farmer can sell. This scheme would need no subsidy: the farmer would make a profit. This is the one thing we can do that will make a difference, but I bet they won’t do it” (see Gaia Vince (2009), “One last chance to save mankind“, New Scientist, 23 January 2009: and http://biocharfund.com/…/20c02.pdf).

The World is running out of time but there is still hope that reason, science and rational risk management will prevail.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Another comparison reveals that in terms of “annual per capita fossil fuel-derived carbon dioxide (CO2) pollution” Australia is the world’s #1 Developed Nation CO2 polluter. Consulting the US Energy Information Administration database we obtain the following information on “annual per capita fossil fuel-derived carbon dioxide (CO2) pollution” in “tonnes (t) per person per year” for Australia and other major polluters (2004 data): 19.2 (for Australia; 40 if you include Australia’s world-leading coal exports), 19.7 (the US), 18.4 (Canada), 9.9 (Japan), 4.2 (the World), 3.6 (China), 1.0 ( India) and 0.25 (for Bangladesh).

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

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

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

On July 5, 2008 about 5,000 citizens of Melbourne gathered in the City Square to protest man-made Climate Change and then marched through the City Centre to make a HUMAN SIGN saying “CLIMATE EMERGENCY!” in the nearby Alexandra Gardens. An aeroplane was hired to take photos for the media – for an aerial photo of the “CLIMATE EMERGENCY!” Human Sign and other photos of this great event see: Climate emergency rally Melbourne July 5 2008 over at GreenLivingPedia.org.

The Climate Emergency Rally involved more than 50 community groups concerned about lack of Australian State and Federal Government action on climate change and variously linked to an Australian Climate Emergency Network.

Reports, photos and video of the “CLIMATE EMERGENCY!” Human Sign and Rally were transmitted around Australia by the various TV and newspaper networks.

I was there with members of my own local Yarra Valley Climate Action Group (our beautiful Yarra River Valley is the heart of the 15,000 square kilometre City of Melbourne region in Victoria). For pictures of the Banner of the Yarra Valley Climate Action Group see: Climate emergency rally Melbourne July 5 2008 over at GreenLivingPedia.org.

Like the other Climate Emergency Network groups, the Yarra Valley Climate Action Group (YVCAG) seeks to INFORM others in various ways about the Climate Emergency and Sustainability Emergency and has placed a series of well-referenced and succinct “10-point Climate Emergency Fact Sheets” on its website. SOME of the more serious of these key Climate Emergency Facts are summarized briefly below for these various Facts Sheets by way of background to this Climate Emergency Rally report.

MAN-MADE, CO2-DRIVEN GLOBAL WARMING SCIENCE INFORMATION. Top US climate scientist Dr James Hansen (Head, NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies, GISS, New York) says that we have gone too far: “The evidence indicates we’ve aimed too high – that the safe upper limit for atmospheric CO2 is no more than 350 ppm“, and wants a “negative CO2 emissions” policy of cessation of CO2 pollution and reducing atmospheric CO2 pollution (e.g. by use of renewable and geothermal energy, re-afforestation, returning carbon as biochar to soils).

GLOBAL WARMING DANGERS AND SOLUTIONS FOR OLDER PEOPLE. Heat waves will differentially kill elderly people. In 2003 there was a heatwave in Europe that killed 35,000-50,000 in Europe and nearly 15,000 in France. Older people were differentially affected, the problems being that older people are frailer, more prone to heat stress and have diminished brain signalling of dehydration stress. Retirement benefits require GDP growth, carbon-based growth is no longer possible but cheap, non-carbon energy alternatives are already developed. For people who are self-funded retirees on superannuation schemes or government pensions it is necessary for GDP growth to compensate for outlays and inflation.

“COAL IS KING” AUSTRALIA CO2 POLLUTION FACT SHEET. Australia is the world’s #1 Developed Nation CO2 polluter. Consulting the US Energy Information Administration database we obtain the following information on “annual per capita fossil fuel-derived carbon dioxide (CO2) pollution” in “tonnes (t) per person per year” for Australia and other major polluters (2004 data): 19.2 (for Australia; 40 if you include Australia’s 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).

POLLUTION DEATHS FROM FOSSIL FUEL-BASED POWER PLANTS. “Annual coal-based electricity deaths” [and "total annual fossil fuel-based electricity deaths"] are 170,000 [283,000] (the World), 11,000 [13,000] (India), 47,000 [47,500] (China), 49,000 [72,000] (the US), 3,400 [6,900] (the UK), 4,900 [5,400] (Australia) and 2,700 [3,800](Canada) as compared to 110 [360] (heavily renewable-based New Zealand).

Individuals and organizations linked to the Australian Climate Emergency Network (CEN) have a common set of values and objectives, specifically a goal of a safe climate future for all people, all species, and all generations that can be achieved by the Global Community concurrently halting man-made greenhouse gas emissions, removal of excess carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, and actively cooling the Earth. The core values of the Climate Emergency Network (CEN) are as follows: “We have no right to bargain away the lives of others. Our goal is a safe climate future for all people, all species, and all generations”. The Australian CEN asserts that “The Global Community must concurrently halt man-made greenhouse gas emissions, remove excess carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, and actively cool the Earth” and has listed the following as its key Objectives:

1. All levels of all governments across the globe must recognise and work together to fulfil their responsibility to secure a safe climate; it is their moral and legal duty-of-care to their citizens.

2. Underpinned by legislation, governments must lead a large scale transformation of the economy to a post-carbon society.

3. Given the extreme urgency and enormous scale of transformation required, governments must recognise and declare a Climate and Sustainability State of Emergency, whilst respecting basic human rights and freedoms.

4. The community must be engaged in recognising and supporting the Climate Emergency. Therefore, we will work to engage citizens in taking responsibility for recognising and responding to the emergency.

Unfortunately “Coal is King” in climate criminal Australia, the World’s #1 coal exporter and the Developed World’s #1 annual per capita CO2 polluter. The irresponsible and myopic State and Federal Governments of Murdochracy Australia – concerned more about VOTES than about the welfare of the Planet – are simply refusing to act in a timely fashion, while paying spin-based lip-service to the seriousness of man-made Climate Change.

The Melbourne Climate Emergency Rally came at the end of a disastrous fortnight in which 2 (TWO) new, huge fossil fuel-based power plants were announced for the State of Victoria (of which Melbourne is the capital); the State Government of Victoria stated it intended to bill responsible community groups for the legal costs associated with their ethical opposition to the enormously CO2-polluting Victorian desalination plant project; and the release of economist Professor Ross Garnaut’s Draft Report on Climate Change warning that Australia risked losing natural wonders like the Great Barrier Reef and Kakadu if it didn’t act now to combat global warning – but which, in addition to many other major flaws, paradoxically supported continued but “cleaner” coal burning-based electricity in Australia.

Below are some quotations from the speakers at the Climate Emergency Rally in the heart of Melbourne.

Andrea Bolch (president of the organization “Your Water Your Say”):

“The proposed water factory [one of the world's biggest desalination plants] will emit up to 1.5 million tonnes of CO2 per year; a new power station is being built to power it. It can never be carbon neutral. There are alternatives to securing our water future with a fraction the emissions and a fraction the cost. Three times the capacity of the proposed factory falls on our city and runs into our bays every year. Collect that, and recycle our 2 billion litres of sewerage effluent; that is responsible, sustainable, climate safe water policy.”

Emeretta Cross (a Tuvaluan mother who left the Pacific Island nation of Tuvalu that is slowly being submerged through man-made global warming and consequent sea level rise):

“With the rising sea levels we’ve got salt water seeping through and it’s actually killing off the natural agriculture. We need to import produce so then it becomes a problem with pollution. It also becomes a health crisis for our people, let alone the possibilities of migrating around the world. [it was a] mother’s responsibility to teach the children about what they stand to lose. It is today that we have to do something for our families and our friends both here and abroad.”

Dr Bob Brown (Senator, Leader of the Australian Greens Party and great advocate for the environment and human rights):

“We are one of the most vulnerable nations in the world. Climate change is a disaster which is on our doorstep. We, in this wealthy lucky nation, must take a lead for the rest of the world to follow. By 2050 we need a reduction in greenhouse gases by 90 per cent if not a totally carbon-neutral economy.”

David Spratt (author, together with Philip Sutton, author of Climate Code Red: The case for emergency action (Scribe, Melbourne, 2008), an extremely important book endorsed by NASA’s Dr James Hansen as “a compelling case … we face a climate emergency”):

“Today, we actually have the economic and technical capacity to make this change if we have the so-called political will. The idea of emergency action with as many resources as is necessary is no longer a radical idea, it’s simply a necessary idea.”

Hopefully the Melbourne “CLIMATE EMERGENCY!” Human Sign will inspire other Climate Action Groups around the world to do likewise. The time for ACTION is NOW.