Photo credit: Amir Farshad Ebrahimi

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

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

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

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

(more…)

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

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

(more…)