The BAD NEWS is that top UK climate scientists, Professor Kevin Anderson and Dr Alice Bows of the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research, University of Manchester, made the following shocking conclusions in a 2008 paper in the prestigious Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society: “According to the analysis conducted in this paper, stabilizing at 450 ppmv [carbon dioxide equivalent = CO2-e, atmospheric concentration measured in parts per million by volume] requires, at least, global energy related emissions to peak by 2015, rapidly decline at 6-8% per year between 2020 and 2040, and for full decarbonization sometime soon after 2050 …Unless economic growth can be reconciled with unprecedented rates of decarbonization (in excess of 6% per year), it is difficult to envisage anything other than a planned economic recession being compatible with stabilization at or below 650 ppmv CO2-e … Ultimately, the latest scientific understanding of climate change allied with current emissions trends and a commitment to “limiting average global temperature increases to below 4oC above pre-industrial levels”, demands a radical reframing of both the climate change agenda, and the economic characterization of contemporary society.” [1]

Yet, for example, Australia remains the world’s biggest coal exporter, the OECD’s worst annual per capita greenhouse gas (GHG) polluter and a world leader in per capita GHG pollution. Extrapolating from US Energy Information Administration data on Australian coal and liquid natural gas exports in the last decade, the recent decisions of the Australian Federal Government mean that Australia’s annual Domestic plus Exported GHG pollution will actually INCREASE by 40% over the 2000 value by 2020 and by 80% by 2050. [2]

The Australian Great Barrier Reef will die above 450 ppm CO2 due to ocean acidification and warming. Professor James Hansen (top US climate scientist, head, NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies): “We face a climate emergency”. Australian 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, Canberra): “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.” Top UK climate scientist Professor James Lovelock FRS predicts that only 500 million people will survive this century as a result of unaddressed, man-made climate change – Climate Genocide. [3]

And yet the GOOD NEWS is that the best non-carbon and renewable energy options (solar, wind, geothermal, wave, tide and hydro-electric) currently yield power at roughly the same market price as coal burning-based power. [4]

It is NOT necessarily too late to urgently cease carbon pollution and apply existing non-carbon energy technologies, re-afforestation and returning carbon to soil as biochar in order to necessarily REDUCE atmospheric CO2 to below 350 ppm as urgently advocated by leading climate scientists. Please send this message and the One-page summary “Climate Emergency Facts and Required Actions” of the Melbourne-based Yarra Valley Climate Action Group to everyone you can. [5]

References

[1] Kevin Anderson & Alice Bows, Proc. Trans. Roy. Soc, A, 2008

[2] “Australia’s 5% off 2000 GHG pollution by 2020” endangers Australia, Humanity and Biosphere”

[3] Climate Emergency Facts Sheets of the Yarra Valley Climate Action Group

[4] “Hope – best renewables now cost same as coal power. “One Day Pathétique” Symphony painting”

[5] One-page “Climate Emergency Facts and Required Actions”

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

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

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

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

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

Climate Emergency Facts

1. Expert opinion on Climate Emergency. We must take very seriously the views of top climate scientists and top scientists in relation to the Climate Emergency – just as we would the views of top medical specialists in relation to a serious medical problem – and many are stating that the World is facing a Climate Emergency and Sustainability Emergency e.g. Dr James Hansen (Head, NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies): “we face a climate emergency” ; Nobel Laureate Professor Peter Doherty “we are in real danger” ; Professor David de Kretser AC: “There is no doubt in my mind that this is the greatest problem confronting mankind at this time and that it has reached the level of a state of emergency”.

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

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

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

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

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

Climate Emergency Actions

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Letter

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Responses

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

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

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

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).