This was originally a mini-course on Climate Change for final year Animal Science students, La Trobe University, 2011, and given by Dr Gideon Polya (formerly an Associate Professor in Biochemistry). It has been progressively updated and was thence used as the documentary basis for an 8 session course entitled "Climate change, biochemistry and solutions" for the Yarra Valley University of the Third Age (U3A).
Humanity demands that we speak out, bear witness, and tell the truth for a better world (see “Gideon Polya Writing”: https://sites.google.com/site/gideonpolyawriting/ and “Gideon Polya”: https://sites.google.com/site/drgideonpolya/home ).
NEW BOOK: for a detailed account of the Climate Crisis, the worsening Climate Genocide en route to a sustainable human population in 2100 of only 1 billion, and how in 38 key ways Humanity can and must urgently address this existential threat see Gideon Polya, “Climate Crisis, Climate Genocide & Solutions”, 846 pages, Korsgaard Publishing, Germany , 2021: https://www.amazon.com.au/CLIMATE-CRISIS-GENOCIDE-SOLUTIONS/dp/8793987285 .
Some useful compendia about climate change information, requisite actions & expert opinions:
“1% ON 1%: one percent annual wealth tax on One Percenters”: https://sites.google.com/site/300orgsite/1-on-1 .
“2011 climate change course”: https://sites.google.com/site/300orgsite/2011-climate-change-course .
300.org: . https://sites.google.com/site/300orgsite/300-org .
“300.org – return atmosphere CO2 to 300 ppm CO2”: https://sites.google.com/site/300orgsite/300-org---return-atmosphere-co2-to-300-ppm .
“Carbon Debt Carbon Credit”: https://sites.google.com/site/carbondebtcarboncredit/ .
"Climate Revolution Now": https://sites.google.com/site/300orgsite/climate-revolution .
“Cut carbon emissions 80% by 2020”: https://sites.google.com/site/cutcarbonemissions80by2020/ .
“100% renewable energy by 2020”: https://sites.google.com/site/100renewableenergyby2020/ .
“Climate Genocide”: https://sites.google.com/site/climategenocide/ .
“Gas is not clean energy”: https://sites.google.com/site/gasisnotcleanenergy/ .
“Biofuel Genocide”: https://sites.google.com/site/biofuelgenocide/ .
“Divest from fossil fuels”: https://sites.google.com/site/300orgsite/divest-from-fossil-fuels .
“Climate Justice & Intergenerational Equity”: https://sites.google.com/site/300orgsite/climate-justice .
“Stop climate crime”: https://sites.google.com/site/300orgsite/stop-climate-crime .
“Stop air pollution deaths”: https://sites.google.com/site/300orgsite/stop-air-pollution-deaths
“Are we doomed?”: https://sites.google.com/site/300orgsite/are-we-doomed .
“Methane Bomb Threat”: https://sites.google.com/site/methanebombthreat/.
“Nuclear weapons ban , end poverty & reverse climate change”: https://sites.google.com/site/300orgsite/nuclear-weapons-ban .
"Too late to avoid global warming catastrophe": https://sites.google.com/site/300orgsite/too-late-to-avoid-global-warming .
“Stop state terrorism” : https://sites.google.com/site/stopstateterrorism/ [state and corporate complicity in worsening climate genocide and 7 million annual air pollution deaths from carbon fuel burning].
"State crime and non-state terrorism": https://sites.google.com/site/statecrimeandnonstateterrorism/ [state and corporate complicity in worsening climate genocide and 7 million annual air pollution deaths from carbon fuel burning].
Some key analyses by Dr Gideon Polya (Melbourne scientist):
Gideon Polya, “Expert Witness Testimony To Stop Gas-Fired Power Plant Installation”, Countercurrents, 14 June, 2013: http://www.countercurrents.org/polya140613.htm .
Gideon Polya, " Doha climate change inaction. Only 5 years left to act", MWC News, 9 December 2012: http://mwcnews.net/focus/analysis/23373-gideonpolya-climate-change.html .
Gideon Polya, “Australia 's Huge Coal, Gas & Iron Ore Exports Threaten Planet”, Countercurrents, 15 May 2012: http://www.countercurrents.org/polya150512.htm .
Gideon Polya, “Country By Country Analysis Of Years Left Until Science-demanded Zero Greenhouse Gas Emissions”, Countercurrents, 11 June 2011: http://www.countercurrents.org/polya110611.htm .
Gideon Polya , “2015 A-to-Z Alphabetical List Of Actions And Advocacies For Climate Change Activists”, Countercurrents, 14 January, 2015: http://www.countercurrents.org/polya140115.htm
Gideon Polya, “100 Ideas For Climate Change Activists Trying To Save The Biosphere And Humanity”, Countercurrents, 10 August, 2013: http://www.countercurrents.org/polya100813.htm .
Gideon Polya, “Biochemical Targets Of Plant Bioactive Compounds”: moral & utilitarian reasons to stop ecocide, speciescide, omnicide & terracide”, Countercurrents, 22 February, 2015: http://www.countercurrents.org/polya220215.htm .
Gideon Polya. “Polya's 3 Laws Of Economics Expose Deadly, Dishonest And Terminal Neoliberal Capitalism”, Countercurrents, 17 October, 2015: http://www.countercurrents.org/polya171015.htm . Polya's 3 Laws of Economics mirror the 3 Laws of Thermodynamics of science and are (1) Price minus COP (Cost of Production) equals profit; (2) Deception about COP strives to a maximum; and (3) No work, price or profit on a dead planet. These fundamental laws help expose the failure of neoliberal capitalism in relation to wealth inequality, massive tax evasion by multinational corporations, and horrendous avoidable deaths from poverty and pollution culminating in general ecocide, speciescide, climate genocide, omnicide and terracide.
“Climate change articles by Dr Gideon Polya”: https://sites.google.com/site/drgideonpolya/climate-change-articles .
“Climate change websites created by Dr Gideon Polya”: https://sites.google.com/site/drgideonpolya/climate-change-websites .
“Gideon Polya”: https://sites.google.com/site/drgideonpolya/home .
“Gideon Polya Writing”: https://sites.google.com/site/gideonpolyawriting/ .
Gideon Polya, “Revised Annual Per Capita Greenhouse Gas Pollution For All Countries – What Is Your Country Doing?”, Countercurrents, 6 January, 2016: http://www.countercurrents.org/polya060116.htm
Open Letter to Australian Federal MPs: young betrayed & climate revolution now: https://sites.google.com/site/gideonpolyawriting/2015-9-6 .
“Free university education”: https://sites.google.com/site/freeuniversityeducation/ .
Carbon Debt:
Carbon Debt reflects the inescapable future cost in today's dollars of fixing the remorselessly increasing climate damage. Carbon Debt is the historical contribution of countries to the carbon pollution of the atmosphere and can be variously expressed as Gt CO2-e (gigatonnes or billions of tonnes of CO2-equivalent) or in dollar terms by applying a Carbon Price. Thus leading climate economist Dr Chris Hope from 90-Nobel-Laureate Cambridge University has estimated a damage-related Carbon Price in US dollars of $150 per tonne CO2-e (see Dr Chris Hope, “How high should climate change taxes be?”, Working Paper Series, Judge Business School, University of Cambridge, 9.2011: http://www.jbs.cam.ac.uk/fileadmin/user_upload/research/workingpapers/wp1109.pdf ).
The World added 350 Gt C (1285 Gt CO2) to the atmosphere in 1751-2006 (see James Hansen, “Letter to PM Kevin Rudd by Dr James Hansen”, 2008: http://www.aussmc.org.au/documents/Hansen2008LetterToKevinRudd_000.pdf ) and currently adds a further 64 Gt CO2-e annually (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: http://www.worldwatch.org/files/pdf/Livestock%20and%20Climate%20Change.pdf ).
The World has a 1751-2006 Carbon Debt of 350 Gt C x (3.67 Gt CO2/Gt C) x $150 per tonne CO2-e = $193 trillion plus a 2007-2015 Carbon Debt of (64 Gt CO2-e /year) x ($150 /t CO2-e) x 8 years = $76.8 trillion or a total 1751-2015 Carbon Debt of $270 trillion (about 3 times the annual world GDP of $85 trillion) that is increasing by about 64 Gt CO2-e/year x ($150 /t CO2-e) = $9.6 trillion/year or about $10 trillion each year.
By way of a national example, Australia is a world-leading annual per capita GHG polluter with a 1751-2006 Carbon Debt of 5.9 Gt C x (3.67 Gt CO2-e/Gt C) x ($150 /t CO2-e) = $3.2 trillion plus a 2007-2015 Carbon Debt of 2 Gt CO2-e/year x ($150 /t CO2-e) x 8 years = $2.4 trillion i.e. a total 1751-2015 Carbon Debt of $5.6 trillion (A$7.2 trillion) that is increasing at 2 Gt CO2-e /year x ($150 /t CO2-e) = $300 billion (A$385 billion) per year. Thus Australia (population 24 million) with 0.34% of the world's population has 2.1% of the world's Carbon Debt. The Australian Carbon Debt will have to be paid by the young and future generations and for under-30 year old Australians is increasing at about $30,000 (A$38,500) per person per year, noting that the annual Australian per capita income is about $65,000 (A$83,000) (see Gideon Polya, “2015 A-to-Z alphabetical list of actions and advocacies for climate change activists”, Countercurrents, 14 January, 2015: http://www.countercurrents.org/polya140115.htm ).
A. Man-made global warming and GHGs.
1. Earth’s atmosphere: troposphere (surface to 9 km at poles, 17 km at equator); stratosphere (from tropopause boundary to 50 km; UV-absorbing O3 layer); mesosphere (from stratopause boundary out to 80-85 km; where most meteors burn up); ionosphere (from 50 km out to 1,000 km; solar radiation ionizes molecules).
2. Dry air composition: 78% nitrogen (N2), 21% oxygen (O2), 0.9% argon (Ar), 0.04% CO2 . Air typically has about 1% water (H2O) and increases with temperature in the range 0.01% (dry, polar) to 20% (humid tropical).
3. Greenhouse effect: thermal radiation from sun absorbed by surface and air; re-emitted and reflected light absorbed & re-radiated by air molecules, notably carbon dioxide (CO2), nitrous oxide (N2O), methane (CH4), H2O, man-made greenhouse gases (GHGs). Greenhouse effect (John Tyndall, 1858, UK) keeps planet warm. CO2-equivalent (CO2-e): total GHGs including CO2 and other GHGs.
4. Radiative forcing and Global Warming Potential (GWP) of GHGs. Radiative forcing measures warming (positive) effects of e.g. GHGs and carbon particles and cooling (negative ) effects of e.g. sulphate aerosols and reflectivity (albedo) of ice, snow and clouds. Relative GWP based on infra-red (IR) absorbance properties and half-life in atmosphere is directly proportional to radiative forcing and inversely proportional to half-life in the atmosphere.
GWP relative to same mass of CO2 on a 20 year time frame: CO2 (1.0), CH4 (79; 105 if aerosol impacts are considered), N2O (289), chlorofluorohydrocarbon CFC-12, CCl2F2 (11,000), hydrochlorofluorohydrocarbon HFC-22, CHClF2 (5,160), hydrofluorohydrocarbon HFC-23, CHF3 (12,000), sulphur hexafluoride SF6 (16,300), nitrogen trifluoride NF3 (12,300).
GWP relative to same mass of CO2 (1.0) on a 100 year time frame: CO2 (1.0), CH4 (21), N2O (298), chlorofluorohydrocarbon CFC-12, CCl2F2 (10,900), hydrochlorofluorohydrocarbon HFC-22, CHClF2 (1,810), hydrofluorohydrocarbon HFC-23, CHF3 (14,800), sulphur hexafluoride SF6 (22,800), nitrogen trifluoride NF3 (17,200).
5. O3-destroying chlorofluorohydrocarbons (CFCs) such as chlorofluorohydrocarbon CFC-12, CCl2F2 were replaced under the Montreal Convention (1987) by hydrofluorohydrocarbon refrigerants and propellants such as hydrofluorohydrocarbon HFC-23 (CHF3) but the HFCs are now posing an increasing threat because of their increasing use and high GWP.
6. CO2 is the major contributor to anthropogenic global warming (AGW), deriving from aerobic respiration involving oxidation of carbohydrate ( (CH2O)n + O2 -> n CO2 + nH2O), lime (CaO) in cement production (CaCO3 -> CaO + CO2), and the combustion of fossil fuels such as coal ( C + O2 -> CO2) , oil (CH3(CH2)nH + (n + 1)O2 + (n + 2)/2 O2 -> (n+1)CO2 + (n+2)H2O) and natural gas, mainly methane (CH4 + 2O2 -> CO2 + 2 H2O).
Major CO2 sinks include photosynthetic bacterial photosynthesis and plant photosynthesis yielding cellulose and related carbohydrates of wood and thence of soil carbonaceous compounds of humus. Photosynthesis yields carbohydrate: nCO2 + nH20 + solar energy -> (CH2O)n + nO2. Most of photosynthesis is reversed by carbohydrate oxidation by fires or aerobic organisms: (CH2O)n + nO2 -> nCO2 + nH2O. Some CO2 dissolves in ocean water, this resulting in biologically deleterious acidification: CO2 + H2O -> H2CO3 -> HCO3- + H+; HCO3- -> CO32- + H+ (see later: threat to coral from ocean acidification as well as warming).
Coal derives from anaerobic geologic conversion of cellulosic carbohydrates to carbon ((CH2O)n + heat, pressure -> nC + n H2O). Subterranean oil derives from anaerobic decarboxylation of biologically-derived fatty acids (CH3(CH2)n-COOH + heat, pressure -> CH3(CH2)nH + CO2. Subterranean methane derives from anaerobic reduction of carbohydrates by anaerobic bacteria (reduction being addition of electrons (e-), addition of hydrogen atoms (H) or removal of oxygen (O)): (CH2O)n + 4nH (derived from catabolism and reduced coenzymes) -> nCH4 + nH2O.
Biochar. Atmospheric CO2 can be reduced from the current 415 ppm CO2 [2020] back to a safe and sustainable 300 ppm CO2 by fixing CO2 as cellulose via solar-energy-driven photosynthesis (nCO2 + nH2O -> (CH2O)n + nO2 ) with subsequent anaerobic pyrolysis of cellulosic material (e.g. waste wood and straw) at 500-700C to yield carbon (C, charcoal) ((CH2O)n -> nC + n H2O) which can then be added to soil or buried in holes in the ground (e.g. used coal mines). Thus p224, Progress in Thermochemical Biomass Conversion, volume 1, IAE Bioenergy, ed. A,V, Bridgewater (Blackwell Science) informs us that we could obtain 1.7 GtC/yr (straw from agriculture) + 4.2 GtC/yr (total grass upgrowth from grasslands upgrowth) + 6 GtC/yr (possible sustainable wood harvest) = 11.9 GtC/yr. From this one can see why biochar expert Professor Johannes Lehmann of Cornell University is correct calculating that it is realistically possible to fix 9.5bn tonnes of carbon per year using biochar, noting that global annual production of carbon from fossil fuels is about 9 bn tonnes.Unfortunately biochar is expensive to produce and thus for every $1 derived from coal burning, $1-$2 will have to be spent converting the consequent CO2 back to carbon (biochar) (based on US mid-West corn stalk-derived biochar; multiply this by by 4 for the cost in the UK).
7. Methane derives from anaerobic degradation of biological material e.g. in swamps, waste dumps, livestock digestion: (CH2O)n + 4H (derived from reduced coenzymes) -> nCH4 + nH2O or, overall: 2(CH2O)n -> nCH4 + nCO2. Global warming is already releasing CH4 from H2O-CH4 clathrates in tundra and in shallow parts of the Arctic Ocean. Fugitive CH4 emissions occur from coal mines, coal seam gas (CSG) extraction, conventional natural gas extraction, from coal seam and shale fracking (hydrological fractruing), and from systemic gas reticulation leakage. It is estimated that 50 Gt CH4 will be released from the Arctic Ocean sea bed in coming decades.
8. Nitrous oxide (N2O) derives from agricultural use of nitrogenous fertilizers and from fossil fuel (coal, gas and oil) combustion.
9. CO2 concentration. As determined from ice cores the atmospheric CO2 concentration has been 180-280 parts per million (ppm) for the last 800,000 years (excluding the last century), during which time Homo sapiens finally evolved (glaciation at low CO2 and inter-glacial at high CO2). Indeed these circa 100,000 year cycle oscillations (determined by the earth’s orientation towards the sun and the ellipticity of its orbit) crucially contributed to the final evolution of man (repeated severe selection pressures). Atmospheric CO2, now 400 ppm and increasing at over 2.4 ppm per year (3.05 ppm per year in February 2016; seasonally oscillating, Mauna Loa Observatory, Hawaii), is reported as a dry air mole fraction defined as the number of molecules of CO2 divided by the number of all molecules in air, including CO2 itself, after water vapor has been removed. Man-made from burning fossil fuels (decreasing 14C; fossil CO2 deficient in 14C) and deforestation (initially non-tropical, now mostly tropical). Atmospheric CO2 reached 400 ppm in 2013 and the peak in 2015 was 400 ppm CO2. In February 2016 it reached 404 ppm CO2 [415 ppm CO2 in 2020].
10. Atmospheric CH4 concentration 1774 parts per billion (ppb) (2011) versus 700 ppb in 1750 (i.e. pre-industrial). Atmospheric CH4 increased to 1843 ppb CH4 by December 2015 as compared to a pre-Industrial Revolution level of 700 ppb CH4 [1,880 ppb in 2020]. Atmospheric N2O concentration is 334 ppb [2020] as compared to 270 ppb in 1750.
11. Temperature change correlates with GHG change. Modelled temperature change from GHG forcings fits observed pattern in nearly all zones (IPCC; key evidence for Anthropogenic Global Warming, AGW).
12. Forcing of man-made GHG and absorbing particles 30x that of change in solar input effect. 1750-2005 heating change in watts/m2: air CO2 (+1.7), CH4, N2O, CFCs (+1.0), net O3 (troposphere up, stratosphere down; +0.3), soot (+0.3), reflective particles e.g. sulphate aerosols (-0.7), indirect, cloud-forming particle effects (-0.7), human land-use increasing reflectivity (-0.2), solar input change (+ 0.1).
13. Photosynthesis and re-oxidation carbon cycle. Terrestrial carbon fixation of 121.3 GtC/y (x 44/12 = 3.67 -> 445 Gt CO2 = 449 billion tonnes of CO2) of which about half returns annually to the atmosphere through plant and animal respiration and most of the remaining half returns to the air through the action of soil fungi and bacteria. About 2 Gt C (7 Gt CO2) ends up stored as soil carbon or cellulosic biomass (wood). Net terrestrial biome production of fixed CO2 is 0.7 GtC/year (2.6 Gt CO2/year) . Ocean photosynthesis (prokaryotic cyanobacteria and eukaryotic algae) fixes 50 GtC /year (184Gt CO2/year) of all but circa 2 Gt C is thence re-oxidized back to CO2.
14. Biochar from anaerobic pyrolysis (at 400-700C) conversion of cellulosic material to carbon (C, charcoal, biochar, Amazonian Indian terra preta): (CH2O)n + heat -> nC + nH2O. Current potential: 1.7 GtC/yr (straw from agriculture) + 4.2 GtC/yr (total grass upgrowth from grasslands upgrowth) + 6 GtC/yr (possible sustainable wood harvest) = 11.9 GtC/yr. Professor Johannes Lehmann (Cornell University): could fix 9.5bn tonnes of carbon per year using biochar, noting global annual production of carbon from fossil fuels is 8.5bn tonnes C (= 31 Gt CO2) (see later: biochar is a major means of returning atmospheric CO2 to 300 ppm from current dangerous and damaging 400 ppm CO2. Alternative geoengineering abatement proposals of increasing albedo, fertilizing the oceans to increase ocean photosynthesis, sulphur in aviation fuel gas to increase global dimming atmospheric sulphur oxide particulates, shades in space...).
15. Carbon storage. 700- 750 GtC in atmosphere (mostly as 750 x 3.67 = circa 2,800 Gt CO2; half due to historical fossil fuel combustion); 700 GtC in biomass (mostly wood); 1,600 GtC in soil; 36,000 GtC in ocean as bicarbonate ion (HCO3-); no net CO2 from vulcanism and weathering (time scale < 100,000 years).
16. World Bank analysts have recently re-assessed annual man-made (anthropogenic) global greenhouse gas (GHG) pollution as 64 Gt CO2-e (17.4 GtC), about 50% bigger than the 42 Gt CO2-e (11.4 GtC) hitherto thought and that the livestock contribution is over 51% of the bigger figure (major element: 20 year time frame considered for CH4 GWP of 72, noting that the CH4 GWP on a 20 year time frame with aerosol impacts considered is 105 times greater than of CO2).
17. The Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum (PETM) 55 million years ago was associated with extremely rapid 5C warming and mass extinctions - following a doubling in carbon dioxide levels, the surface of the ocean turned acidic over a period of weeks or months and global temperatures rose by 5 degrees Centigrade – all in the space of about 13 years. Methane release may have been involved. The 50 Gt (billion tonnes) CH4 in the East Siberian Arctic Shelf and predicted to be released in coming decades is equivalent to 50 billion tonnes CH4 x 105 tonnes CO2-equivalent/tonne CH4 = 5,250 tonnes CO2-e or about NINE(9) times more than the world’s terminal greenhouse gas (GHG) pollution budget. We are doomed unless we can stop this Arctic CH4 release. We are evidently facing a PETM scenario in coming decades.
B. Already observed climatic disruption consequences of global warming.
1. Climate is the pattern of weather. Average surface temperature + 0.8C in 2010, +1.1C (2020); +1.5C by 2030 (IPCC); +2C already but for the cooling effects of sulphate aerosols; +2C inevitable on current trends; +3.2C (2015 Paris Climate Conference national promises); may reach +4C by 2100.
2. Non-uniform temperature increase e.g. +2C (Indian Ocean), +4C (Arctic), average +0.8C; thermal inertia, >90% extra heat in oceans.
3. Uneven heating changes wind patterns e.g. East Asia monsoon weakening.
4. Glaciers are shrinking word-wide. No net deposition of ice in Himalayas (no net deposition of atmospheric radioactivity from nuclear tests) – feeds mega-rivers from Pakistan to China.
5. Permafrost thawing (Fairbanks, Alaska: average circa 0C, +2C over last 50 years). Permafrost melts at T> 0C (noting CH4 release and positive feedback). It is estimated that 50 Gt CH4 will be released from the Arctic Ocean sea bed in coming decades.
6. Arctic summer sea ice disappearing (80% decrease of total mass; NIDC data: half surface area gone already, the rest may go by about 2015, NW Passage open in summer).
7. Surface melting in Greenland expanding (+ 7 metres sea level if it all goes).
8. China: increased floods (south), increased drought (north); same pattern in Australia of increased floods (closer to equator), increased drought (south).
9. A 4-10-fold increase in major flood events per decade around the world (1950-2000) (increased sea temperature means increased humidity, increased precipitation). Statistically proven AGW cause for recent Welsh floods but hard to prove in general because of weather variability (cf cannot prove an individual smoker’s lung cancer due to smoking).
10. Consensus prediction of an increased number of the more intense storms as AGW increases (arguable doubling of tropical hurricane intensity 1950-2000; tropical cyclone power increase parallels increased sea temperature).
11. Melting land ice and thermal expansion increasing sea level (3.0 mm/yr, 1993-2003; 1.5 mm/yr, 1910-1990; circa 20 cm). Major problem for India, Bangladesh, Myanmar, other tropical megadelta regions (storm surges).
12. Ocean acidification due to CO2 dissolution and ionization (0.1pH decrease; see below: coral threat; some CO2 dissolves in ocean water, this resulting in biologically deleterious acidification: CO2 + H2O -> H2CO3 -> HCO3- + H+; HCO3- -> CO32- + H+).
13. Loss of major CO2 uptake by Southern Ocean (increased storm intensity impact).
14. Over 90% of extra heat in oceans.
C. Already observed biological impacts related to AGW.
1. Ecosystem migration towards poles with AGW (e.g. ocean phytoplankton, deciduous trees in Canada).
2. Heat waves 2x more frequent in Europe (2003 heat wave killed 35,000-50,000 people). January 2009 heat wave prior to 7 February 2009 Victoria Black Saturday killed 500 in SE Australia (elderly more frail, decreased stress signaling).
3. Drought and heat causing increased forest fires (4-10-fold increase in forest area burned in W USA, 1970-2000). Amazon forests threatened by drought and burning positive feedback cycle. Threat to Australia.
4. Mountain pine beetle (MPB) Dendroctonus ponderosae blight (warmer winters, increased survival; larval feeding; fungus infection prevents tree resin defence; devastation of North American conifer forests, US, Canada).
5. Disease migration towards poles (e.g. dengue fever and malaria spread through mosquito vector migration).
6. Increased drought impact in Southern US, Central America, Brazil, Europe, Russia, Mediterranean, Sub-Saharan Africa, East Africa, Siberia, Central Asia, Northern China, Southern Australia, SE Asia (+1C -> 10% decrease in sub-tropical grain yield).
7. Increased temperature, droughts, floods and coastal loss coupled with increased population (9.5 billion by 2050) means greater impact on ecosystems.
8. Coral loss started at 320 ppm CO2 (inevitable general death above 450 ppm due to warming-induced expulsion of photosynthetic zooanthellae symbiont and difficulty making calcareous exoskeleton due to lowered pH: some CO2 dissolves in ocean water, this resulting in biologically deleterious acidification: CO2 + H2O -> H2CO3 -> HCO3- + H+; HCO3- -> CO32- + H+ ; ecosystem disaster).
9. Sex ratio changes in reptilian species due to increased average temperature.
10 Species extinction rate is now 100-1,000 times greater than previously, impacted by AGW and increasing human population and land use (hence term Anthropocene Era). .
11. 6 major previous mass extinction events in Paleaozoic (490-250 Mya; successively Ordovician, Silurian, Devonian, Carboniferous, Permian): (1) End-Ordovician, Ordovician -Silurian Mass Extinction, 434 Mya , (2) End-Devonian Mass Extinction, 354 Mya) and (3) End-Permian Mass Extinction, 251 Mya; in Mesozoic (250-65 Mya; successively Triassic, Jurassic, Cretaceous): (4) End-Triassic, Triassic-Jurassic Mass Extinction 205 Mya); and Cenozoic (65 Mya to present): (5) Cretaceous-Tertiary (K/T) Mass Extinction or Cretaceous-Paleogene boundary (KPB) mass extinction, 66 Mya, and (6) Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum (PETM), 55 Mya (dinosaurs disappeared around this time, likely due to a meteor strike).
12. The most recent mass extinction event occurred in the Cenozoic 55 Mya and is called the Paleocene- Eocene Thermal Maximum (PETM). PETM was associated with rapid global warming, profound changes in ecosystems, and major perturbations in the carbon cycle (increase in CO2 as well as CH4 perhaps due to vulcanism) . Many ocean foraminifera and land mammals became extinct, but numerous modern mammalian groups emerged. Massive dissolution of ocean deposited carbonate occurred detected as a big entry of 13C-depleted (old) carbon into the hydrosphere or atmosphere at the start of the PETM during which lobal temperatures rose by about 6 °C over a period of approximately 20,000 years i.e. 0.0003 °C per year as compared the current Anthropocene Mass Extinction (extinction rate 100-1,000 times greater than normal) and a temperature increase of 0.8C over 100 years i.e. 0.009°C per year or possibly as much as 6°C over 100 years or 0.06°C per year.
13. Successive loss of Antarctic sea ice, sea ice-associated phytoplankton, krill and thence krill-eating animals e.g. fish, penguins, seals, whales (massive decline already in krill for various reasons).
D. Projected biological impacts.
1. Increasing temperature, drought, floods, sea level rise (possibly 2 metre by 2100), increased high intensity storms and storm surges (see (C) above) resulting in further loss of arable land, ecosystems, pressure on remaining ecosystems.
2. Coral loss due to ocean warming (expulsion of Zooxanthellae photosynthetic algae symbionts and coral bleaching) and ocean acidification from CO2 dissolution impacts on calcareous exoskeleton formation. Major coral death above 450 ppm CO2.
3. Ocean acidification impacting all ocean organisms with calcareous exoskeletons (about one-third of the carbon dioxide (CO2) released into the atmosphere as a result of human activity has been absorbed by the oceans, where it partitions into the constituent ions of carbonic acid, this leading to ocean acidification, one of the major threats to marine ecosystems and particularly to calcifying organisms such as corals (animals with photosynthetic symbionts) , foraminifera (single-celled eukaryote amoeboid protists with a calcareous external shell ), coccolithophores (photosynthetic algae that generate calcareous plates) and lobster, crab, shrimp and krill crustaceans with food chain implications).
4. Above 500 ppm CO2 major loss of phytoplankton (bottom of the ocean food chain) and dimethyl sulphide (DMS) production (involved in cloud seeding); complete loss of Greenland ice sheet (long-term loss yielding 7 m sea level rise); loss of terrestrial plants as CO2 sinks (i.e. net CO2 emission).
5. Complete loss of Arctic summer sea ice in circa 2015 (loss of ecosystems, positive feedback effect (Albedo Flip) to get even moire GHG pollution, increased risk of oil pollution in Arctic.from increased shipping and mineral extraction).
6. Successive loss of Antarctic sea ice, sea ice-associated phytoplankton, krill and thence krill-eating animals e.g. fish, penguins, seals, whales.
7. Water stress in particular regions with agricultural, ecosystem, peace impacts.
8. Concerns that ocean Coccolithophore algae that make calcareous plates would be damaged by warming and decreasing pH may not necessarily be borne out (during the Paleocene–Eocene Thermal Maximum (PETM; 55 Million Years Ago), rapid release of isotopically light C to the ocean–atmosphere system elevated the greenhouse effect and warmed temperatures by 5–7 °C for 105 yr. However despite acidification of the ocean (some CO2 dissolves in ocean water, this resulting in biologically deleterious acidification: CO2 + H2O -> H2CO3 -> HCO3- + H+; HCO3- -> CO32- + H+) there was not a productivity crisis among calcifying phytoplankton (negative effects could have been balanced by increased weathering i.e. increased nutrient inventories could have resulted from climatically enhanced weathering).Similarly, a heavily calcified Emiliania huxleyi morphotype has been found in in modern waters with low pH.
8. Climate genocide. Both Dr James Lovelock FRS (Gaia hypothesis) and Professor Kevin Anderson ( Director, Tyndall Centre, UK) have recently estimated that only about 0.5 billion people will survive this century due to unaddressed, man-made global warming. Noting that the world population is expected to reach 9.5 billion by 2050, these estimates translate to a climate genocide involving deaths of 10 billion people this century, this including roughly 2 times the present populations of various non-European groups, specifically 6 billion under-5 year old infants, 3 billion Muslims, 2 billion Indians, 1.3 billion non-Arab Africans, 0.5 billion Bengalis, 0.3 billion Pakistanis and 0.3 billion Bangladeshis. Biofuel genocide (food for fuel, price increase, volatility). It is estimated that of 18 million people who die avoidably each year, from deprivation 5 million people die each year from carbon burning (4.5 million) and climate change (0.5 million ) (DARA). These horrendous projections raise the further moral issues of climate change justice, climate justice, climate change injustice, climate injustice, climate change terrorism, climate terrorism, climate change denial, climate denial.
E. Urgency of required action.
1. 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. Thus some opinions: (a) Professor James Hansen (top US climate scientist, head, NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies): “We face a climate emergency”; (b) Nobel Laureate Professor Peter Doherty: “We are in real danger”; (c) Professor David de Kretser AC (eminent medical scientist and former 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”; (d) 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”; (e) Synthesis Report of the March 2009 Copenhagen Scientific Climate Change Conference: “Inaction is inexcusable”; and (f) 2010 Open Letter by 255 members of the US National Academy of Sciences: “Delay is not an option”.
2. Climate emergency actions urgently required: (a) Change of societal philosophy to one of scientific risk management and biological sustainability with complete cessation of species extinctions and zero tolerance for lying; (b) Urgent reduction of atmospheric CO2 to a safe level of about 300 ppm (as recommended by leading climate and biological scientists to address the current mass species extinction event and to permit return and sustainability of Arctic sea ice); (c) Rapid switch to the best non-carbon and renewable energy (solar, wind, geothermal, wave, tide and hydro options that have currently roughly the same market price as coal burning-based power and a 4 times cheaper “true price” taking environmental and human impacts into account) 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.
3. Budget approach to last remaining permissible GHG pollution.
(a). Professor Hans Joachim Schellnhuber (Director, Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research, Germany): for a 67% chance of avoiding a catastrophic 2C temperature rise the World must cease CO2 emissions by 2050 and top per capita greenhouse gas (GHG) polluters such as the US and Australia must get to zero CO2 emissions before 2020.
(b) Australian Climate Commission's "The Critical Decade" reports, 2011, 2012, 2013: for a 75% chance of avoiding a disastrous 2 degree Centigrade temperature rise the World can emit no more than 1 trillion tonnes of CO2 before reaching zero emissions in about 2050. Australia's high Domestic plus Exported GHG pollution rate means that relative to 2010 it must get to zero emissions in 1.9 years (or in 4.6 years ignoring Exported GHG pollution). In the 2013 Report the Climate Commission estimates a present terminal budget of 600 Gt and 16 years at current rates of pollution before this is exceeded.
(c) WBGU (that advises German Government on climate change), “Solving the climate dilemma: the budget approach” (2009): for a 75% chance of avoiding a disastrous 2 degree Centigrade (2C) temperature rise the World can emit no more than 0.6 trillion tonnes of CO2 before reaching zero emissions in about 2050. Australia's high Domestic plus Exported GHG pollution rate means that by August 2011 it had already used up its “fair share”. Australia's huge resources and bipartisan policy of unlimited coal, gas and iron ore exports means that it is set to exceed the whole world's terminal budget of 600 Gt CO2 by a factor of THREE (3). Global fossil fuel corporations intend to exceed the world's terminal budget by a factor of about FIVE (5).
(d) Using latest data from the US EIA, World Bank and NASA Dr Gideon Polya estimates 2 years left relative to 2016 before the terminal budget (Terminal Carbon Pollution Budget) is exceeded.
4. Climate genocide. Estimates by Dr James Lovelock FRS and Professor Kevin Anderson (Deputy Director of the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research, University of Manchester) that only 0.5 billion will survive unaddressed climate change this century translate to a climate genocide involving deaths of 10 billion people this century, this including roughly twice the present population of particular mainly non-European groups, specifically 6 billion under-5 year old infants, 3 billion Muslims in a terminal Muslim Holocaust, 2 billion Indians, 1.3 billion non-Arab Africans, 0.5 billion Bengalis, 0.3 billion Pakistanis and 0.3 billion Bangladeshis.
5. Humanitarian organisation DARA report (2012) commissioned by 20 countries says that more than 100 million people will die and global economic growth will be cut by 3.2 percent of gross domestic product (GDP) by 2030 if the world fails to tackle climate change; DARA estimates that about 5 million people die annually from climate change (0.5 million) or carbon burning (4.5 million).
6. Bangladesh's Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina on DARA report (2012): "One degree Celsius rise in temperature is associated with 10 percent productivity loss in farming. For us, it means losing about 4 million metric tonnes of food grain, amounting to about $2.5 billion. That is about 2 percent of our GDP".
7. Threat of 50Gt methane from East Siberian Arctic Shelf. Gail Whiteman, Chris Hope and Peter Wadhams (2013): “Economic time bomb. As the amount of Arctic sea ice declines at an unprecedented rate, the thawing of offshore permafrost releases methane. A 50-gigatonne (Gt) reservoir of methane, stored in the form of hydrates, exists on the East Siberian Arctic Shelf. It is likely to be emitted as the seabed warms, either steadily over 50 years or suddenly. Higher methane concentrations in the atmosphere will accelerate global warming and hasten local changes in the Arctic, speeding up sea-ice retreat, reducing the reflection of solar energy and accelerating the melting of the Greenland ice sheet. The ramifications will be felt far from the poles… To quantify the effects of Arctic methane release on the global economy, we used PAGE09. This integrated assessment model calculates the impacts of climate change and the costs of mitigation and adaptation measures… The methane pulse will bring forward by 15–35 years the average date at which the global mean temperature rise exceeds 2°C above pre-industrial levels — to 2035 for the business-as-usual scenario and to 2040 for the low-emissions case (see 'Arctic methane'). This will lead to an extra $60 trillion (net present value) of mean climate-change impacts for the scenario with no mitigation, or 15% of the mean total predicted cost of climate-change impacts (about $400 trillion)."
8. Further to point #7, a methane GWP of 105 means that 50Gt CH4 from the Arctic sea bed amounts to 50 x 105 =5,250 Gt CO2-e i.e. 5,250/600 = 8.8 or roughly 9 times greater than the world's terminal GHG budget that must not be exceeded if we are to avoid a catastrophic 2C temperature rise.
9. Arctic CH4, cost of returning to 300 ppm CO2 and are we doomed? Failure of the world to tackle man-made climate change massively violates intergenerational equity and intergenerational justice. The cost of conversion of cellulosic waste to biochar in the US mid-West is about $49-$74 per tonne CO2 as compared to $210-$303 per tonne CO2 in the UK. There is 700 billion tonnes of CO2 in the atmosphere and the cost of reversing 2 centuries of fossil fuel burning by means of biochar-based return of the atmospheric CO2 concentration to the pre-industrial 300 ppm from the current 400 ppm by removing 0.25 x 700 = 175 billion tonnes CO2 has been estimated at $13 trillion to $53 trillion (US dollars) or 15-62% of the current world annual GDP of $85 trillion. These numbers, while horrifying, nevertheless show that it is still conceivable (albeit very unlikely) that we could save the world from climate disaster.
However methane (CH4) has a Global Warming Potential (GWP) 105 times greater than that of carbon dioxide (CO2) on a 20 year time frame and taking aerosol impacts into account. Accordingly the predicted entry of 50 billion tonnes of methane (CH4) into the atmosphere from the Arctic in the coming decades is equivalent to 50 x 105 = 5,250 billion tonnes CO2-equivalent (CO2-e ) and the cost of $13 trillion to $53 trillion for removing 175 billion tonnes CO2 as biochar translates conservatively to $390 trillion to $1,590 trillion for conversion of 5,250 billion tonnes of CO2-e via CO2 to biochar . This estimate represents about 5 to 20 years of world GDP and tells even the most optimistic person that we are doomed unless radical action is taken now to stop Arctic warming immediately.
10. Market-based asserted "solutions".
(a) Carbon Price, Carbon Tax. A suitably high Carbon Price can help shift to 100% renewable energy. Dr James Hansen and others argue for a "Fee and Dividend" system in which fossil fuels are taxed at the mine gate and the receipts are handed directly to the citizens. Climate economist Dr Chris Hope, Cambridge, argues for $150 per tonne CO2-e. The true Carbon Price in Australia based on existing fossil fuel subsidies ($12 billion pa) and 10,000 annual carbon-burning-related deaths is also about $150 per tonne CO2-e. However the EU ETS price is about $6 per tonne CO2-e and in 2013 the Australian Government abolished a short-lived and flawed Carbon Tax approach (that involves a "futile cycle" of raising $10 billion pa in Carbon Taxes,and making fugitive emissions effectively tax free) and fast-tracking to 2014 an ETS with an EU Carbon Price of about $6 per tonne CO2-e.
(b) Cap-and -Trade Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS). The ETS approach involves setting a Cap on pollution and establishing a "market" for licences to pollute. However this is seen as an immense political confidence trick because (1) the ETS approach has not been empirically shown to reduce GHG pollution, (2) this approach is accordingly counterproductive , and (3) it involves a national government, e.g. the Australian Government, fraudulently selling licences to pollute the one common atmosphere of all countries in the the world.
(c) Direct Action. "Direct Action" is what is needed to install 100% renewable nergy ASAP (for details see section H). In Australia the Coalition Opposition has a policy of "Direct Action" that is too little too late (20% rather than 100% renewable energy by 2020) and which counterproductively involves providing subsidies to polluters to pollute less.
(d) Divest from fossil fuels. Divestment from fossil fuel corporations is an important way individuals, religious organizations, social organizations in general (e.g. societies, unions) , institutions (e.g. universities), superannuation funds, pension funds, companies and indeed local, state and federal governments can take concrete action against man-made climate change that is threatening the Biosphere and Humanity. The world’s terminal GHG pollution budget, that must not be exceeded if we are to have a 75% chance of avoiding a catastrophic 2C temperature rise, is 600 Gt CO2. The fossil fuel industry intends to exploit its stock exchange-listed reserves of 762 GtCO2 that is approximately a quarter of the world’s total reserves of 2,795 Gt CO2 on combustion. However historical GHG pollution since the start of the Industrial Revolution has now brought us to the point at which an estimated 50 Gt of methane (CH4) is predicted to be released from the East Siberian Arctic Shelf in coming decades, GHG pollution equivalent 5,250 Gt CO2-equivalent, 9 times greater than the world’s terminal GHG pollution budget.
11. For an alphabetically-organized compendium of expert views on the seriousness of the situation see "Are we doomed?".
12. Neoliberal, corporatist Mainstream media lying and Mainstream media censorship hides the worsening climate emergency. Proper public perception of the gravity of the worsening climate emergency is due to corporatist, neoliberal Mainstream media lying and Mainstream media censorship in Western Murdochracies Lobbyocracies and Corporatocracies in which Big Money buys politicians, parties, policies, public perception of reality, votes and political power.
Polya's 3 Laws of Economics mirror the 3 Laws of Therrnodynamics of science and are (1) Price minus COP (Cost of Production) equals profit; (2) Deception about COP strives to a maximum; and (3) No work, price or profit on a dead planet. These fundamental laws help expose the failure of neoliberal capitalism in relation to wealth inequality, massive tax evasion by multinational corporations, and horrendous avoidable deaths from poverty and pollution culminating in general ecocide, speciescide, climate genocide, omnicide and terracide (see Gideon Polya. “Polya's 3 Laws Of Economics Expose Deadly, Dishonest And Terminal Neoliberal Capitalism”, Countercurrents, 17 October, 2015: http://www.countercurrents.org/polya171015.htm ).
F. Further key points.
1. Gas is not clean, it is dirty, 1 tonne of methane (CH4) generating 2.8 tonnes CO2 on combustion. Gas burning is cleaner than coal burning in terms of twice the MWh/tonne CO2 emitted and less health damaging pollutants but gas is not necessarily cleaner than coal burning GHG-wise. Thus methane (CH4) leaks (3.3% in the US; 7.9% from fracking shale deposits) and is 105 times worse than CO2 as a GHG on a 20 year time frame taking aerosol impacts into account, this meaning that a Carbon Tax-driven coal to gas transition could double electric power industry-derived GHG pollution (if shale gas is used). A coal-to-gas transition is contraindicated.
2. Climate change is damaging and destroying ecosystems (ecocide) and the species extinction rate is now 100-1,000 times greater than normal (Australia is a world leader). We must not destroy what we cannot replace.
3. Leading scientists, economists and analysts slam the Carbon Trading Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS) approach as empirically ineffective, dangerously counterproductive and inherently fraudulent because it involves governments selling licences to pollute the one common atmosphere of all countries.
4. 2.6 % leakage of CH4 yields the same greenhouse effect as burning the remaining 97.4% (noting that 1g CH4 has 105 times the GWP of 1 g CO2) – ergo, stop gas exploitation, aquifer-poisoning and aquifer-depleting fracking of shale and coal seams.
Methane (CH4) is a gas, leaks, is 85% of natural gas, and has a Global Warming Potential (GWP) of 105 relative to the same mass of CO2 on a 20 year time frame and with aerosol impacts considered. On this basis and assuming that natural gas is 100% CH4 or an equivalent hydrocarbon, a gas leakage of 2.6% means that the greenhouse gas (GHG) warming effect from the leaked gas is the same as that of the CO2 from burning the remaining 97.4% of the gas.
With no gas leakage, burning 1 tonne of CH4 yields 2.75 tonnes CO2 as compared to burning 1 tonne of carbon (C) yielding 3.67 tonnes CO2.
However suppose we have 100 tonnes (100 t) of methane (CH4) and A tonnes leaks so that (100 – A) tCH4 x 2.75 t CO2-equivalent / t CH4 = A t CH4 x 105 t CO2-equivalent/ t CH4 -> 275 – 2.75A = 105 A - > 107.5A = 275 -> A = 275/107.5 -> A = 2.56 or about 2.6.
Thus with a mere 2.6% of systemic gas leakage (it is about 3% in the US), the burning of gas results in 2 x 0.974 x 2.75 = 5.36 tonnes CO2-equivalent i.e. with 2.6% systemic gas leakage, burning natural gas is about 5.36/3.67 = 1.5 times dirtier GHG-wise than burning coal.
Gas is dirty energy, gas is not clean energy, gas is not clean-er than coal GHG-wise, and indeed gas is dirtier than coal GHG-wise i.e a coal-to-gas transtion is absurd and dangerous.
5. Many countries (e.g. EU countries and Australia) support a 450 ppm CO2 -e and 2C temperature rise "cap". However the Synthesis Report of the 2,500-delegate March 2009 scientific Copenhagen Climate Conference indicates that we have already exceeded 450 ppm CO2-e and over 90% of delegates polled thought 2C was inevitable this century.
6. Atmospheric CO2 must be urgently returned to about 300 ppm for a safe Planet.for all peoples and all species. Circa 320 ppm CO2 is required for restoration of the Arctic sea ice and for coral sustainability. However atmospheric CO2 concentration is currently 400 ppm and is increasing at about 2.4 ppm per year. Less not more!
7. Stop shale oil and tar sands exploitation (e.g. Canada-US keystone oil pipeline) means “game over” for Planet. Dr James Hansen (NASA): “The tar sands are estimated (e.g. see IPCC Fourth Assessment Report) to contain at least 400 GtC (equivalent to about 200 ppm CO2). Easily available reserves of conventional oil and gas are enough to take atmospheric CO2 well above 400 ppm, which is unsafe for life on earth. However, if emissions from coal are phased out over the next few decades and if unconventional fossil fuels including tar sands are left in the ground, it is conceivable to stabilize earth's climate. Phasing out emissions from coal is itself an enormous challenge. However, if the tar sands are thrown into the mix, it is essentially game over.” 70% recovery of oil from the Alberta tar sands can be estimated to yield about 600 Gt CO2 -e on combustion (i..e. equivalent to the WBGU's terminal GHG pollution budget that must not be exceeded if we are to have a 75% chance of avoiding a catastrophic 2C temperature rise).
8. “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; or 74 if Australia’s huge Exported CO2 pollution is included).
9. Biofuel from crops such as sugar cane or corn carries an enormous Carbon Debt. Biofuel from photosynthetic algae (e.g. in in CO2-enriched ponds close to power stations) is not carbon neutral in a carbon economy. Legislatively mandated biofuel in the US, UK and the EU is unconscionable use of food for fuel and drives up world food prices with consequent malnourishment and starvation (Biofuel Genocide).
10. Nuclear options have been suggested but in the context of a carbon economy, the overall nuclear cycle produces CO2 (from mining, transport, processing and enrichment , cement production for power station cnstruction, disposlal of waste and ultimately decommissioning of power stations. Further, when limited high quality uranium oxide reserves are used up use of low grade ores may mean that a new nuclear power station could release the same CO2/MWh as a new gas-fired power station. Thorium-based nuclear power is cleaner and safer than uranium-based power. Fast breeder reactors have been advocated as a highly efficient option but there are major fears relating to expense, security, nuclear terrorism and predicted severe human rights impacts of a plutonium economy. A former proponent, Dr James Lovelock FRS, now argues that we have run out of time for the nuclear stop-gap solution and now advocates the biochar option for drawing down atmospheric CO2.
11. Rail transport is vastly more energy effcient than road tranpsort (e.g. a tram can be 20 times more energy effcient tha a 4WD vehicle.
12. Carbon burning pollutants are deadly and kill about 5 million people each year worldwide,
G. Australia.
1. Carbon burning pollutants have been estimated from Canadian and New Zealand data to kill about 10,000 Australians yearly. Australians dying each year from the effects of pollutants from vehicles, coal burning for electricity and other carbon burning total about 2,200, 4,600 and 2,800, respectively (about 7 million people die annually worldwide from carbon burning pollutants of whom about 75,000 die from the burning of Australian coal exports).
2. Australia has about 0.3% of the World’s population but its Domestic plus Exported GHG pollution is about 3% of the World total (climate exceptionalism, climate racism, and climate injustice in addition to horrific intergenerational inequity).
3. Australia already has a huge negative carbon tax of $11 billion annually (2013) to subsidize carbon burning.
4. It is estimated that an Australian carbon tax of circa $23/tonne CO2-e will encourage gas-fired power, $70/tonne CO2-e will encourage wind and about $200/tonne CO2-e will encourage concentrated solar thermal installation (indeed Australian Government hopes for a Carbon Tax-driven coal to gas transition but (a) gas can be dirtier than coal GHG-wise depending upon the degree of CH4 leakage and (b) the Australian Government has decided to slash the Carbon Price in 2014 from $25 per tonne CO2-e to about $6 per tonne CO2-e.
5. True carbon price. A risk avoidance-based estimate of $7.6 million for the value of a statistical life, Australian annual subsidies of $11 billion for fossil fuel burning, 9,600 annual Australian carbon pollution-related deaths and Australia’s annual Domestic GHG pollution (2009) of 552 million tonnes CO2-e yields a Carbon Price of $7.6 million x 9,600 annual deaths = $73 billion + $11 billion = $84 billion / 552 million tonnes CO2-e = $152/tonne CO2-e ( = $562 /tonne C).
6. The Australian Bureau of Agricultural and Resource Economics (ABARE) has projected that Australia's black coal exports will increase at an average rate of 2.6% per year over the next 20 years and that liquid natural gas (LNG) exports will increase at 9% per year over the same period. Further, it is estimated that Australian exports of dried brown coal will reach 20 million tonnes by 2020, this corresponding to about 59 million tonnes CO2-e after combustion.
7. The initial Carbon Tax-ETS-Ignore Agriculture (CTETSIA) policy of the Australian Government fails comprehensively in 3 key areas, specifically (1) it entrenches climate change inaction for decades by promoting a Carbon Tax-driven coal to gas transition (that will double electricity generation-derived GHG pollution if shale gas used) and scuppering science-demanded 100% renewable energy by 2020; (2) it adopts an empirically ineffective, disastrously counterproductive and inherently fraudulent ETS approach and (3) ignores major GHG sources of petrol, diesel, biofuel, fossil fuel exports (apart from fugitive emissions, extraction and transport costs), soil, forestry and agriculture (agriculture is responsible for over 50% of GHG pollution).
8. Success in “tackling climate change” is surely measured in terms of GHG pollution reduction but Australia’s Domestic plus Exported GHG pollution is huge and ever-increasing.
From Treasury, ABARE, and US EIA data and assuming an 11% annual growth in iron ore exports, 2.4% annual growth in coal exports and 9% annual growth in gas exports, Australia’s Domestic and Exported greenhouse gas (GHG) pollution is as follows (million tonnes CO2-e or Mt CO2-e). The data are based on fossil fuel combustion and ignore ignore fugitive emissions due leakage of gas (mainly methane, CH4) from coal mines and in coal-seam gas (CSG) production.
2000: 565 (Domestic) + 505 (coal exports) + 17 (LNG exports) + 105 (iron ore exports) = 1,192.
[2005: 572 (Domestic) + 654 (coal exports) + 26 (LNG exports) + 199 (iron ore exports) = 1,451; 2005 data estimated as the mean of the 2000 and 2010 data].
2009: 600 (Domestic) + 784 (coal exports) + 31 (LNG exports) + 97 (iron ore exports) = 1,512.
2010: 578 (Domestic) + 803 (coal exports) + 34 (LNG exports) + 293 (iron ore exports) = 1,708.
[2015: 600 (Domestic) +921 (coal exports) + 57 (LNG exports) + [30 (brown coal exports) notional, unrealized] + 533 (iron ore exports) = 2,141 - 30 = 2,111; 2015 data estimated as the mean of the 2010 and 2020 data].
2020: 621 (Domestic) + 1,039 (black coal exports) + 80 (LNG exports) + [59 (brown coal exports) notional] + 772 (iron ore exports) = 2,571.
9. Australia used up its "fair share" of the world's terminal greenhouse gas (GHG) pollution budget of 600 billion tonnes CO2-e in 2011. The German WBGU and the Australian Climate Commission have estimated that no more than 600 billion tonnes of CO2 can be emitted between 2010 and zero emissions in 2050 if the world is to have a 75% chance of avoiding a catastrophic 2C temperature rise. Inspection of item #8 reveals that Australia had already exceeded its fair share of this terminal greenhouse gas pollution budget of 600 billion tonnes CO2-e in 2011.
10. The Australian bipartisan policy of unlimited coal, gas and iron ore exports means that, given Australia's huge resources, Australia is set to exceed the WBGU's terminal GHG pollution budget by a factor of three (3) (the World is set to exceed this budget by a factor of 5).
11. In August 2015 the Coalition Government offered a 2030 "target" of "26% off 2005 GHG pollution by 2030" i.e. 423 Mt CO2-e of Domestic GHG pollution. If due to international pressure Australia's 2030 Exported GHG pollution remains at the level predicted for 2020 (1,950 Mt CO2-e) then Australia's 2030 Domestic plus Exported GHG pollution will be 423 + 1,950 = 2,373 or 112% of the 2015 value and 164% of the 2005 value i.e. Australia is promising the World that its 2030 Domestic plus Exported GHG pollution will be 1.1 times bigger than that in 2015.
In November 2015 the Labor Opposition proposed a notional 2030 "target" of "45% off 2005 GHG pollution by 2030" i.e. 315 Mt CO2-e of Domestic GHG pollution. If Australia's 2030 Exported GHG pollution remains at the level predicted for 2020 (1,950 Mt CO2-e) then Australia's 2030 Domestic plus Exported GHG pollution will be 315 + 1,950 = 2,265 or 107% of the 2015 value and 156% of the 2005 value i.e. both Australia's Labor Opposition and COALition Government are promising the World that Australia's Domestic plus Exported GHG pollution in 2030 will be about 1.1 times bigger than that in 2015.
H. 100% renewable energy, cessation of GHG pollution, re-afforestation, biochar & bicarbonate
1. The Beyond Zero Emissions (BZE) plan for 100% renewable stationary energy for Australia by 2020 (Zero Carbon Australia by 2020, ZCA 2020) involves 40% wind energy, 60% concentrated solar thermal (CST) with molten salts energy storage for 24/7 baseload power, biomass and hydroelectric backup (for days of no wind and low sunshine) and a HV DC and HC AC national power grid. The BZE scheme was costed at $370 billion over 10 years, with roughly half spent on CST, one quarter on wind and one quarter on the national electricity grid.
2. Seligman scheme. A scheme for 100% renewable energy for Australia has been set out by top electrical engineer Professor Peter Seligman (a major player in development of the bionic ear). Professor Seligman’s scheme involves wind, solar thermal, other energy sources, hydrological energy storage (in dams on the Nullabor Plain in Southern Australia), an HV AC and HV DC electricity transmission grid and a cost over 20 years of $253 billion.
3. Wind power. Ignoring cost-increasing energy storage and transmission grid costs and cost-decreasing economies of scale for a 2- to 10-fold size increase, here are 2 similar cost estimates for installation of wind power for 80% of Australia’s projected 325,000 GWh of annual electrical energy by 2020: (1) 90,000 MW capacity, 260,000 GWh/year, $200 billion/10 years (10-fold scale-up from GL Garrad Hassan) and (2) 96,000 MW, 260,000 GWh/year, $144 billion (2-fold scale up from BZE ).
4. Science-demanded reduction of atmospheric CO2 from current 400 ppm to 300 ppm requires “negative GHG emissions” achieved by cessation of GHG pollution ASAP and CO2 reduction though re-afforestation, renewable energy driven CO2 trapping in alkaline solutions, and biochar (as much as 12 billion tonnes carbon as biochar can be fixed annually globally from renewable energy-driven anaerobic pyrolysis of existing agricultural and forestry cellulosic waste).
5. Re-afforestation (SE Australian native forests are World’s best forest carbon sinks; 14 M ha, 25.5 Gt CO2, 460 Mt CO2/yr avoided for next 100 years if retained. Sir Nicholas Stern: only $20 billion pa to halve annual global deforestation.
6. Livestock production inefficient, requires compensating carbon sinks – we are all in this together.
7. Biochar. Atmospheric CO2 can be reduced from the current 400 ppm CO2 back to a safe and sustainable 300 ppm CO2 by fixing CO2 as cellulose via solar-energy-driven photosynthesis (nCO2 + nH2O -> (CH2O)n + O2 ) with subsequent anaerobic pyrolysis of cellulosic material (e.g. waste wood and straw) to yield carbon (C, charcoal) ((CH2O)n -> nC + n H2O).which can then be added to soil or buried in holes in the ground (e.g. used coal mines). Thus p224, Progress in Thermochemical Biomass Conversion, volume 1, IAE Bioenergy, ed. A,V, Bridgewater (Blackwell Science) informs us that we could obtain 1.7 GtC/yr (straw from agriculture) + 4.2 GtC/yr (total grass upgrowth from grasslands upgrowth) + 6 GtC/yr (possible sustainable wood harvest) = 11.9 GtC/yr. From this one can see why biochar expert Professor Johannes Lehmann of Cornell University is correct calculating that it is realistically possible to fix 9.5bn tonnes of carbon per year as biochar, noting that global annual production of carbon from fossil fuels is about 9 bn tonnes.
Unfortunately, biochar is expensive to produce and thus for every $1 derived from coal burning, $2-$3 will have to be spent at today's prices by future generations converting the consequent CO2 back to carbon (biochar) (based on US mid-West corn stalk-derived biochar; multiply this by by 4 for the cost in the UK) i.e. a major issue of intergenerational equity.
8. CO2 trapping as carbonate (CO3-). Theoretically one can use solar energy or indeed other renewable energy to generate alkaline solutions (high OH- concentration) from electrolysis of saline solutions (i.e. NaCl solutions e.g. sea water) and thence trap CO2 thus: 2Na+ + CO2 + 2OH- -> CO3- + H2O + 2 Na+ (solid Na2CO3 can be stored underground). Unfortunately while electrolyis of sea water (NaCl solution) yields useful and combustible hydrogen (H2), the other gaseous product is chlorine (Cl2), ) that is toxic, as is hypochorite ( ClO- ) produced when chlorine reacts with hydroxyl ions (OH-) (see“Process for preparing sodium hydroxide, chlorine and hydrogen from aqueous salt solution using solar energy”, US Patent: https://patents.google.com/patent/US20090107850 ). However, the Direct Air Capture (DAC) system captures as water-insoluble calcium carbonate (CaCO3) all the CO2 in the incoming air stream (circa 80% nitrogen, N2; 20% oxygen, O2; 0.04% CO2) by passage through a lime solution of calcium ions (Ca2+ ) and hydroxyl ions (OH- ) . The calcium carbonate is then heated to generate lime (calcium oxide, CaO) and a stream of circa 100% carbon dioxide (CO2) which can then be compressed and hopefully permanently sequestered (e.g. in deep ocean, in underground in spaces from former coal or gas extraction or by underground reactions to form carbonates with basalt rocks). Note that in chemistry carbon dioxide is denoted as CO2 but for convenience I have used CO2 elsewhere in this essay except for chemical equations such as those below summarizing the key steps of DAC:
(a) CO2 (CO2) scrubbed out of air by passage through lime solution (Ca2+ + 2 OH- ) in water (H2O) to form carbonate ions (CO32-): CO2 + 2OH- -> CO32- + H2O
(b) Carbonate (CO32- ) precipitated as calcium carbonate (CaCO3 ): Ca2+ + CO32- -> CaCO3
(c) Lime (calcium oxide, CaO) regenerated by heating calcium carbonate (CaCO3) with the resultant CO2 being sequestered : CaCO3 -> CaO + CO2 -> CO2 sequestered.
(d) Lime (CaO) dissolved in water (H2O): CaO + H2O -> Ca2+ + 2 OH-
A pilot plant has been constructed that sequesters 1 Mt CO2 per year (equivalent to annual emissions of 250,000 average cars) at a cost of $100-150 per tonne of CO2 captured, purified, and compressed to 150 bar.
CO2 pumped underground can react with basaltic minerals to yield carbonates.
9. Accelerated Weathering of Limestone (AWL).The waste gas from burning coal or gas is passed through a sea water-limestone (CaCO3) scrubber with the following reaction: CO2 (gas) + CaCO3 (solid) + H2O <-> Ca2+ (aqueous) + 2 HCO3- (aqueous) . The scrubbing solution is then piped to the sea. Carbon in the oceans as bicarbonate is 10 times that in all recoverable fossil fuel reserves and about 60 times that in the CO2 in the atmosphere. The carbon in carbonate minerals is about 4,000 times greater than the carbon in oil and coal fossil fuel reserves and the AWL process would in part reverse the deleterious acidification the oceans due to the massive CO2 pollution of the atmosphere.
10. Mineral carbonation (CO2 absorption by reacting with powdered CO2-reactive minerals).
I. Biochemistry, climate change and solutions.
1. Biochemistry (Biological Chemistry) is the Chemistry of Life.
2. Atoms. Atoms are composed of subatomic particles Neutrons (n), Protons (p+), Electrons (e-). Atomic Number of atom = no. of protons. Atomic Mass = mass of neutrons + protons + electrons In element (uncharged); sum of (Σ) electrons = Σ protons. H (hydrogen, 1p+ + 1e- ) -> ionizes -> p+ (proton, H+) + e- i.e. H+ = p+ = proton (later: more H+ in solution -> more acidic, lower (↓) pH)
3. Atomic structure. Hydrogen atom: 1 p+ in Nucleus (most of mass, extremely tiny volume) , 1 e- in 1s shell. Larger atoms: ns, p+s in Nucleus plus e-s . For stability want to fill up shells (orbitals) i.e. 2 e-s in 1s, 2 e-s in 2s, 6 e-s in 2p etc. Particle versus wave duality: imagine e- as a particle or as a cloud of electron density (described by wave equations).
4. Molecules. Molecules form when atoms share electrons to form Covalent Bonds (Single -, Double = or Triple ≡). Thus H• + Hx (monovalent H atoms, 1s (1) ) -> stable H•xH (hydrogen molecule, diatomic H2 molecule, H-H) i.e. 1s filled for both Hs & 1 covalent bond (a single bond) links the 2 Hs. Other key examples: 2H (1s(1)) + O (divalent oxygen, 1s(2)2s(2)2p(4) ) -> H2O = H-O-H = water (1s(2)2s(2) 2p(6)) (stable 2s and 6p);
N (trivalent nitrogen, 1s(2)2s(2)2p(3)) + 3H (1s(1)) -> NH3 (ammonia, N now: 1s(2)2s(2)2p(6), 3 single bonds)
C (tetravalent carbon, 1s(2)2s(2)2p(2) ) a 4H (1s(1)) ->CH4 = methane (C now: 1s(2)2s(2)2p(6), 4 single bonds) [Jane Austen, Pride and Prejudice", first sentence: "It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune . must be in want of a wife." ].
5. Valency. H monovalent, oxygen (O) divalent (has 2 friends), nitrogen (N) trivalent (has 3 friends), carbon (C ) tetravalent (has 4 friends), sulphur (S) divalent or tetravalent, phosphorus (P) pentavalent e.g.
Hydrogen (H) univalent: H- (e.g. H-O-H);
Oxygen (O) divalent: -O- (e.g. H-O-H, water) or O= (e.g. O=O, O2 , oxygen molecule & O=C=O, carbon dioxide);
Nitrogen (N) trivalent: e.g. NH3 (ammmonia), -N= (e.g. the free radical nitric oxide, •N=O) & N≡ (e.g. N≡N = N2, nitrogen molecule & -C≡N, nitrile e.g. acetonitrile CH3-C=N);
Carbon (C) tetravalent: C (e.g. CH4, methane), =C= (e.g. O=C=O, carbon dioxide & ethylene H2C=CH2) & -C≡C- (e.g. H-C≡C-H, C2H2, acetylene &
δ-C≡Oδ+ , carbon monoxide)
Sulphur (S) divalent: -S- (e.g, H-S-H, H2S, hydrogen sulphide) and Sulphur (S) tetravalent: =S= (e.g. O=S=O, SO2, sulphur dioxide);
Phosphorus (P) pentavalent: P (e.g. H3PO4, phosphoric acid).
6. Atomic size. Van der Waals radii represents the “space" occupied by an atom and from which intrusion by other atoms is repelled by a huge energy barrier (in nm = nanometers = 10-9 metres): H (0.1), O (0.140, F (0.140, N )0.150, C (0.17), S (0.18), Cl (0.19), P (0.19)
7. Electronegativity of atomic constituents of molecules i.e. some atoms in a molecule get more of the shared electron cloud than others e.g. F > O > Cl >N > Br > S > C > I > Se > P. Thus unequal sharing of e-s in H2O so that O is more negative than H in H2O: H δ+ -O δ--H δ+ .
8. Hydrogen bonding. Differential charge on H and O atoms of H2O means that an H atom can be “shared” by electronegative O atoms in adjacent molecules: H δ+ -O δ- -H δ+ . This means that H-O-H molecules can be linked via Hydrogen Bonds i.e. H δ+ …O δ-(-H δ+)2 . Hydrogen bonding can occur between other O-containing molecules of biochemical importance. Hydrogen bonds (H bonds) are very weak and readily broken at room temperature (RT). Hence the solid, liquid & gas phases of H2O) in which molecules are tightly and exactly arrayed in ice (solid; below 0C), there is some short-range order of “flickering clusters’ in liquid water (0-100C) and H bonding ceases above 100C (gas phase).
9. Ionization & protonation-deprotonation in aqueous solution.
H-O-H (water) ↔ OH- (hydroxyl ion) + H+ (proton)
H2O + H+ ↔ H3O+ (hydronium ion)
R-C(=O) -OH (R-COOH, a carboxylic acid) ↔ R-C(=O)-O- (carboxylate ion) + H+ (proton) (acids donate protons so [H+] (H+concentration) increases i.e. pH = -log10 [H+] decreases e.g. vinegar is acidic).
CH3-COOH (acetic acid) ↔ CH3-COO- (acetate ion) + H+ (vinegar is acetic acid CH3COOH = CH3C(=O)OH)
NH3 (ammonia) + H+ (proton) ↔ NH4+ (ammonium ion, X-N+H3 )
CH3-NH2 (methylamine) + H+ ↔ CH3-NH3+ (protonated methylamine, CH3-N+H3 ) (bases bind protons i.e. pH = -log10 [H+] increases i.e. [OH-] increases e.g. ammonia is basic or alkaline).
10. Isotopes. Increasing neutrons (ns) in the nucleus increases mass and can increase instability (basket of eggs analogy). Radioactive or non-radioactive isotopes of major elements found in biological systems (e.g. H, C, O, N, P, K, Na, S, Ca, Cl, I) have been very useful in paleoclimatology and also in biochemical research as “tracers” for the normal, abundant isotope. Genetic damage is directly proportional to dose => minimize ingestion (e.g. gloves) and minimize exposure (e.g. to high energy emitters such as P-32) (e.g. lead, screen).
H-1 (1H) abundant (normal) hydrogen (1p+ + 1e-)
H-2 (2H) deuterium (e.g. in heavy water D2O) (1p+ + n + 1e-)
H-3 (3H) tritium (radioactivity, disintegrates, half-life = time for half to disintegrate = t1/2 = 12.32 years, low energy 0.019 Mev ß emitter) (1p+ + 2n + 1e-)
C-12 (12C) abundant carbon (6n + 6p+ + 6e-)
C-13 (13C) very low abundance, C-12 plus 1 n, non-radioactive
C-14 (14C) very low abundance (C-12 plus 2n , radioactive, t1/2 = 5,730 years, useful in carbon dating; relatively low energy 0.15 Mev ß emitter)
P-31 (31P) non-radioactive abundant P (15p+ + 16n + 15e-) )
P-32 (32P) radioactive P isotope (half-life 14.29 days, relatively high energy 1.71 Mev ß emitter) (15p+ + 17n + 15e-)
11. Covalent bonds & light absorption.
Single X-Y e.g. –O-H (rotation and vibration e.g. from light absorption ).
Double X=Y e.g. –C=O (keto group), HC=CH (ethylene) (vibration but no rotation about double bond; cf electric plug).
Triple bond X≡Y e.g. H-C≡C-H (acetylene) and N≡N (N2, nitrogen molecule, vibration but no rotation about triple bond).
Light photon wave-particle duality. Electromagnetic spectrum from highest energy (smallest wavelength) to lowest energy (highest wavelength): Gamma rays, X-rays, Ultra-violet (UV), Visible, Infra-Red, Microwave, Radio. Prisms separate (e.g. rainbow)
Red things reflect red light, absorb other visible wavelengths.
12. Non-covalent H bonds & weak interactions. H bonds; Van der Waals (weak internuclear attraction); hydrophobic ( very important water-repelling interactions between non-polar, hydrophobic, “water-fearing” entities e.g. olive oil in water); ionic (electrostatic) interactions (e.g. X-O-…H3N+-Y).
13. Living organisms are self-replicating systems. On earth inanimate systems (perhaps near undersea vulcanism) evolved into living systems that are (1) water-based; (2) membrane-bounded cells; (3) self-repairing; (4) self-replicating. Living systems are highly ordered cells in a randomizing universe. Living cells feed on available free energy (Gibbs free energy, G) → energy-requiring synthesis, maintenance & replication
14. Life and the Laws of Thermodynamics. 1. The energy of the universe is constant. 2. The disorder (or entropy, S) of the universe increases. Living systems extract energy from a chaotic universe to repair and replicate highly ordered systems.
15. Cells are the minimum units of autonomous, self-replicating life (self-aware, self-evolving, self-repairing and self-replicating robots are “living” in this sense and hopefully might conceivably be generated before man destroys himself).
Bulk constituent water (H2O)
Cell membrane = plasma membrane (PM) encloses cell
PM = phospholipid (PL) bilayer + proteins, oligosaccharides
PM 0.01 micrometre (µm, 10-6 metre) = 10 nanometre (nm) thick
Bimolecular layer of hydrophobic (water fearing, water repelling, non-polar, fatty) phospholipid (PL) molecules:
O= =O
Outside cell O= =O Inside cell
(O2, oxidizing) O= =O (XH2, reducing)
where = is the hydrophobic (water fearing, water repelling, non-polar) fatty acyl chain part of fatty acids (esterified to glycerol) CH3- (CH2)n- ; O is polar head group, C-O-P(=O, -OH) -O-X
16. Subcellular structure and organelles (city and economy analogy) . Cells are mostly water, membranes are mostly phospholipid bilayers (plus cholesterol, proteins, some carbohydrates), proteins (amino acids polymers) have structural, signalling and catalytic (enzyme functions) , Prokaryotes: bacteria, have no nucleus. Eukaryotes: membrane-bounded, DNA-containing nucleus (plants, fungi, animals). PL bilayer membranes enclose specialized organelles within the cytsol of the cell listed below with functions in parentheses):
Smooth endoplasmic reticulum (ER) (tubular network: lipid synthesis, detoxification of xenobiotics);
Rough ER (tubular network; decorated with ribosomes involved in the synthesis of proteins for export);
Rough ER-linked Golgi vesicles (protein modification and export);
Lysosomes (breaking down proteins, polynucleotides, fats);
Vacuoles (storage and transport of molecules);
Peroxisomes (getting rid of toxic hydrogen peroxide, H2O2, and superoxide, •O2-, generated through oxidative metabolism);
Nucleus (contains the double-stranded DNA constituting genes encoding proteins that are transcribed to yield messenger RNA that is translated on ribosomes in the cytosol or on the rough ER to yield proteins; also contains nucleolus where ribosomal RNAs, rRNAs, are made by transcription of rRNA genes);
Mitochondria (DNA-containing, double membrane-enclosed powerhouses of the cell; derived evolutionarily from prokaryote symbionts; generate ATP, the energy currency of the cell from Oxidative Phosphorylation whereby reduced coenzymes, XH2, from oxidation of Glucose by Glycolysis and the Tricarboxylic Acid (TCA) Cycle are oxidized via an Electron Transport Chain (ETC) that ultimately passes electrons from XH2 to O2 as the Terminal Electron Acceptor and in the process generates a Proton Gradient across the Inner Mitochondrial Membrane that drives the rotation of the membrane-associated ATP Synthase (ATPase) that makes the High Energy Compound or HEC ATP);
Chloroplasts (in plant cells) are double-membrane-bounded organelles containing thylakoid membrane-bounded compartments that are involved in the Light Reactions of Photosynthesis (sun-derived light energy from photon capture by the Light Harvesting Assemblies of photosystems I and II (PSI and PSII) drive a process of electron flow through the Photosynthetic Electron Transport Chain in which electrons flow from the photolysis of water (generating O2) to Q (the Primary Acceptor of PSII), thence downhill via cytochromes and plastoquinone to PSI (associated with proton gradient generation and coupled ATP generation by Photophosphorylation via a rotating photosynthetic ATP Synthase (ATPase)) and thence via Z (the Primary Acceptor of PSI) to reduce (add H or electrons) to the coenzyme NADP+ to form NADPH. The intermembrane stroma contains enzymes of the Dark Reactions of Photosynthesis catalyzing the formation of Glucose (C6) in reactions of the Calvin Cycle of which some crucially involve use of ATP and NADPH generated in the Light Reactions.
The Plasma Membrane (PM) is a phospholipid bilayer that contains solute transporters, hormone receptors, clathrin (for receptor internalization), and glycoproteins (glycosylated with sugars that are oriented towards the outside; the basis of blood groups, immunological incompatibility, tissue rejection).
The Cytosol contains the organelles, proteins and metabolites plus complex structures such as ribosomes (complex of rRNAs and proteins; involved in protein synthesis), proteasomes (macromolecular assemblies involved in degradation of proteins tagged with the protein ubiquitin) , cytoskeletal elements (actin and myosin that make up contractile micrifilaments involved in cell shape and motility, and microtubules involved in intracellular transport and separation of chromosomes at mitosis, cell division).
17. The Cytosol also contains enzymes for the following key reaction sequences (number sof carbon atoms in the key molecules are given in parentheses) :
Anaerobic Glycolysis: glucose (C6) oxidation -> -> phosphoenolpyruvate (PEP, C3, a HEC) -> pyruvate (C3) <-> lactate (C3) and ATP by substrate level phosphorylation (in emergency anaerobic conditions e.g. running from a predator, lactate accumulates but in aerobic conditions the pyruvate (C3) enters the mitochondria (singular: mitochondrion) and is oxidized to CO2 (C1) in the TCA Cycle with resultant reduced coenzymes XH2 feeding electrons into the inner membrane-associated Electron Transport Chain (ETC( for consequent Oxidative Phosphorylation that yields 36 ATP per glucose (C6) as comparedto 2 ATP per glucose for Anaerobic Glycols
Anaerobic glycolysis (running from a predator or for the bus) (cytosol): glycogen (animal starch, (CH2O)n) -> glucose (C6) (C6) -> -> using 2 NAD+ and 2 ATP -> 2 NADH + 4 ATP + 2 CH3COOH (pyruvate, C3) -> 2 CH3CH2OH (lactate = reduced private ) + 2 NAD+ (used to keep the process going) -> net 2 ATP per glucose and accumulation of lactate (muscles feel sore) (in brewing beer, yeast does the same sort of thing in anaerobic conditions but pyruvate (C3) is decarboxylated to yield 2CO2 (C1) and 2 acetaldehyde (CH3CHO, C2) which is reduced to 2 ethanol (C2; CH3CH2OH) and yielding 2NAD+ to permit the process to continue) .
Aerobic glycolysis (cytosol): glycogen (animal starch, (CH2O)n) -> glucose (C6) -> -> 2 NADH + 2 ATP + 2 CH3COOH (pyruvate, C3) -> 2 pyruvate (C3) enters mitochondrial matrix -> oxidized via TCA cycle (= Tricarboxylic Acid Cycle = Krebs Cycle = Citric Acid Cycle) -> 6 CO2 (C1), 2GTP (= 2 ATP), 8 NADH, 2 FADH2 (reduced coenzymes) -> reduced coenzymes oxidized via ETC so that oxidative phosphorylation (ox phos) yields 30 ATP (from 10 NADH) & 4 ATP (from 2 FADH2) -> 38 ATP/glucose in total (cf only 2 ATP/glucose via “emergency” anaerobic glycolysis).
Fatty acid (FA) synthesis : synthesis in times of Plenty of Fatty Acids (FAs) from acetyl(C2)Coenzyme A via malonate (C3) and critically involving the enzymes (protein catalysts) acetyl coenzyme A carboxylase (ACC) and FA synthase (conversely FA oxidation, or β-oxidation of FAs to form acetate (C2) and the mobile ketone bodies acetoacetate (C4) (C4) and its reduced derivative 3-hydroxybutyrate (C4) is confined to the mitochondrial matrix, and entry of FA;s into the matrix as Fatty acyl-carnitine is prevented by malonyl(C3)CoenzymeA inhibition of the enzyme catalyze the formation of this, namely Carnitine AcylTransferase I, CATI, this preventing a futile cycle of concomitant FA synthesis and destruction.
Pentose phosphate pathway: uses excess glucose in times of Plenty to generate the reduced coenzyme NADPH used for biosynthetic reactions such as FA synthesis and DNA synthesis, and ribose, the precursor for nucleotide, DNA and RNA synthesis
plus many enzymes for:
Gluconeogenesis (G’neo) (liver and kidney) required to maintain blood glucose at circa 4 mmoles per litre (4 millimolar, 4 mM, 4 x 10-3 M) during Fasting (e.g. when sleeping): [pyruvate (C3) + CO2 (C1)-> oxaloacetate (C4) via Pyruvate Carboxylase in mitochondria] → in the cytosol via PEP Carboxykinase, oxaloacaetate (C4) → CO2 (C1) + phosphoenol pyruvate (PEP, C3) -> via the enzymes of Glycolysis -> -> glucose-6-phosphate (C6) => glucose (C6) in the blood ( liver and kidney cells) (G'neo converts pyruvate (C3), lactate (C3) and amino acids from protein breakdown to glucose; through a Glyoxylate Cycle and G'neo plants but not animals can make glucose from FAs and acetyl(C2) coenzyme A). Protein phsophatase-reversed phosphorylation and inactivation by Fasting-activated cyclic AMP-dependent protein kinase, PKA, of liver Pyruvate kinase (catalyzes PEP + ADP -> pyruvate + ATP, a key substrate level phosphorylation in Glycolysis ) prevents a futile cycle of simultaneously making and destroying PEP).
Urea cycle (liver and small intestine) required to remove excess ammonia (NH3, N1) from amino acids from protein degradation by [ammonia (NH3, N1) & CO2 (C1) -> carbamoyl phosphate (C1, N1) via Carbamoylphosphate Synthase in the mitochondrion -> citrulline by reaction with ornithine (X-NH2) catalyzed by Ornithine transcarbamoylase in mitochondrial matrix] -> cytosol → arginine -> ornithine + urea (C1N2) in the cytosol (liver and kidney cells) -> urea excreted via kidneys (in man; different mechanism for N excretion in birds).
18. Overview of protein-, DNA- and RNA-based life:
a. Life: cell-based; self-replicating, self-repairing, liquid H2O-based (operates between 0-100oC).
b. Information flow:
DNA -> DNA - DNA replication (in eukaryote nucleus, mitochondrion or chloroplast). DNA -> DNA (DNA replication vias DNA polymerase, DNA ligase; DNA polynucleotide with bases (A, T, G, C) attached via N-glycosidic links to the 1’-position of (2’)-deoxyribose of a 5’-deoxyribose-3’-phosphate-5’-deoxyribose- 3’-phosphate backbone, noting that there is a 5’ end and a 3’ end ; plectonemically coiled, base-paired, complementary, anti-parallel sense and anti-sense strands, A=T, G≡C base-pairing; Genetic Code of 64 triplet codons, codon degeneracy (61 codons for 20 common amino acids with >1 codon for all except for Methionine and Tryptophan, 3 stop codons )
DNA -> mRNA (messenger RNA) - transcription (in eukaryote nucleus, mitochondrion or chloroplast). DNA (e.g. sense strand 5’-ATG GGG … 3’ in this example, noting that there is a 5’ end and a 3’ end) -> mRNA (transcription catalyzed by RNA polymerases; RNA polynucleotide with bases (A, U, G, C) attached via N-glycosidic links to the 1’-position of ribose on a 5’-ribose-3’-phosphate-5’ ribose backbone; fidelity yields in this example 5’- AUG-GGG).
mRNA -> protein - translation (in eukaryote cytosol, mitochondrion or chloroplast). Protein synthesis (translation) from post-transcriptionally-modfied mRNA on ribosomes to yield a polypeptide with the sequence in this example N-terminal-Methionine- Glycine… C-terminus -> protein processing. Fidelity of information flow via mRNA codon hydrogen bonding to corresponding tRNA (transfer RNA) anticodon (A=U, G≡C). Post-translational processing by polypeptide cleavage, chemical additions (e,g, glycosylation), folding
c. Need for catalysts.
(1). Need thousands of specific catalysts to “speed up” (catalyze) specific metabolite conversions
(2). Need catalysts operating in H2O & stable in 0-100oC range for liquid H2O.
(3). Needed an evolutionary mechanism to select better catalysts & macromolecule structural “scaffolds” (mutation, Darwinian natural selection).
d. Why proteins as catalysts?
(1). Strings of 20 of different amino acids (aas) linked by peptide bonds gives a huge diversity (20100 different sequences 100-aas long – but utility in a mostly aqueous environment limits the useful proportion) plus “post-translational modfication -> a huge diversity.
(2). Proteins can be soluble in H2O (solvated by hydrogen bonded H2O).
(3). Gene mutation - variability, evolutionary selection mechanism & evolution of “better” proteins for catalytic and other functions.
19. Overview of protein structure.
Primary structure - amino acid sequence (20 common Genetic Code-encoded amino acids - general frormula R-CH (-NH2 , -COOH), different R groups that have different polarity e.g. positively charged, negatively charged,uncharged polar, hydrophobic, the alphabet of life - that are inserted in translation; however some of these can be modified post-translationally e.g, proline -> 4-hydroxyproline in collagen).
Secondary structure - 3D structure of sequence elements; alpha-helices (right handed helical and compact, favoured by large amino acid R groups that point away from the structure, spring analogy), b-strands (stretched , favoured by small amino acids like glycine,m serine and alanine), b-turns (ordered turn structure involving hydrogen bonds), ranmdom coils (no evident structure).
Tertiary structure - overall 3D structure, unique structure (some breathing), compact (very little internal space for simple molecules like H2O), disulphide links, very important hydrophobic interactions in aqueous solution , ionic, H-bonding, dipole-dipole and weak Van der Waals interactions
Quaternary structure - subunit complexity & arrangement e.g. monomers, homodimers A-A, heterodimers A-B (e.g. oxygen-carrying Haemoglobin, α2β2), multimeric complexes (e.g. mitochondrial and chloroplast ATPase), macromolecular assemblies (mitochondrial and chloroplast ETCs, ribosomes).
20. Enzymes (Es), kinetics and thermodynamics: enzymes are proteins and catalysts; active site, substrate (S), transition state (E-S*), product (P) release, lock & key versus induced fit models (for specificity of E for S, stereospecificity (e.g. only L-amino acids and not the mirror image D-amino acids occur in proteins on this planet), other molecular interactions as for protein tertiary structure): E + S ↔ E-S ↔ E-S* (transition state) ↔ E–P ↔ E + P (Product). Enzymes are protein catalysts that speed up specific chemical reactions without themselves undergoing net change. In the kitchen or the laboratory we speed up reactions by heating the reagents – this lowers the Activation Free Energy Barrier (ΔGact) that must be overcome for an exergonic ( free energy releasing, ΔG<0) reaction to proceed. Thus a piece of paper (composed of cellulose; a linear polysaccharide polymer, (CH2O)n ) will survive and may only brown slightly for thousands of years but briefly apply a flame (overcome the ΔGact) and it will burn to completion in seconds: (CH2O)n + O2 -> n CO2 + nH2O. An enzyme changes the kinetics (speed) of reaction but does not change the overall thermodynamic feasibility of a reaction (ΔG<0).
A useful analogy: a stick man Jack on top of a cliff. Before he can jump off he has to use energy to jump onto the fence (ΔGact). If he jumps off he releases free energy in the exergonic process of falling to the ground (ΔG<0) and when he splatters to his death at the bottom, disorder (entropy S) is increased (he is dead and order cannot be restored in this instance). However if he abseils down via a pulley he can couple the free energy loss from falling (free energy out, ΔG<0) to lift Jill from the ground to the top of the cliff (an energy-requiring , endergonic reaction ; ΔG> 0).
Thus plants use solar energy to drive the endergonic reaction (free energy to be put in, ΔG> 0) : nCO2 + nH20 + solar energy -> (CH2O)n (glucose, starch) + nO2.
Plant-eaters oxidize carbohydrates like glucose (C6) in an exergonic (G releasing) reaction (ΔG<0): (CH2O)n + O2 -> n CO2 + nH2O but couple this exergonic reaction to the endergonc formation (ΔG> 0) of the High Energy Compound (HEC) ATP (adenosine-5’-triphosphate) from ADP (adenosine’5’-diphosphate ) and inorganic phosphate (HPO42- , Pi): ADP + Pi -> ATP + H2O.
ATP is called the “Energy Currency of Cells” because the exergonic hydrolyis of ATP: ATP + H2O -> ADP + Pi (ΔG<0; ΔG˚ = −30.5 kJ/mol (−7.3 kcal/mol) can be coupled to energy requiring, endergonic reactions (ΔG> 0) such as biosynthesis, walking, thinking. Note that 1 cal raises the Temperature (T) of 1 ml of H2O by 1C; an active adult needs about 2,000 kcal per day.
21. Overview of metabolism:
(1). Primary solar energy-driven plant photosynthesis in chloroplasts (or photosynthetic bacteria) involves CO2 fixation via Ribulose-bis-phosphate carboxylase (Rubisco; about 50% of leaf protein) to form 3-phosphoglycerate (3-PGA) and then reduction and interconversion involving Light Reactions-derived ATP and NADPH into carbohydrate (CH2O)n e.g. glucose (C6), starch or cellulose ((CH2O)n); energy for plant-eating organisms from come from exergonic (ΔG<0) oxidation of photosynthetically-derived glucose (C6) - (CH2O)n + O2 -> n CO2 + nH2O - coupled to endergonic (ΔG> 0 ) ATP formation; endergonic (free energy requiring, ΔG> 0 ) biosynthetic reactions (e.g. protein , DNA, RNA, lipid synthesis) are coupled to ATP hydrolysis; exergonic reactions (free energy releasing, ΔG<0) coupled to endergonic (ΔG>ATP) synthesis; G released in small steps in aerobic and anaerobic metabolism e.g. in the TCA cycle reactions pyruvate (C3) from the glycolytic oxidation of glucose (C6) is oxidized to CO2 (C1) in successive steps involving the coupled formation of reduced coenzymes XH2 from their respective oxidized forms, X; thence electrons from XH2 go to O2 as the terminal Electron Acceptor via the ETC and in the process a Proton Gradient is generated across the Inner Mitochondrial Membrane that drives the rotation of the membrane-associated ATP Synthase (ATPase) that makes ATP in Oxidative Phosphorylation.
(2). The High Energy Compound (HEC) ATP is the energy currency for motion (involving actin and myosin of muscle) , solute transport (e.g. PM-located transporters to get solutes across the hydrophobic PM) , biosynthesis (e.g of prtoens, DNA, RNA, FAs, PLs, glucose in G'neo) and signalling (e.g. neuronal and muscle cell excitability involves making transmembrane Ca2+ gradients via PM and ER Ca2+ ATPases and Na+ and K+ gradients via the Na+ K+ ATPase) .
(3). The reduced coenzyme NADPH is used in reductive biosynthesis and is generated in Plenty conditions, notably by the cytosolic Pentose Phosphate Pathway for making NADPH (the reduced form of NADP+) and the monosaccharide ribose for anabolic (building up) reactions in “Plenty” situations (e.g FA synthesis, nucleotide synthesis) . In contrast, the coenzyme NAD+(oxidized form) and NADH (reduced form) are used in catabolic (breaking down) reactions (e.g. Glycolysis, FA oxidation, TCA Cycle aka Krebs Cycle, Citric Acid Cycle ). Note that oxidation-reduction (e.g. Y + XH2 <-> YH2 + X) is like a buyer and seller - . oxidation variously involves the addition to a reductant of an O, removal of a H or removal of an electron (e-) whereas reduction involves with the oxidized partner in the reaction the corresponding removal of an O, addition of a H or addition of an electron.
(4). Monomer-polymer conversions involve amino acids (monomers of polypeptides or proteins) , monosaccharides (the sugar monomers of polysaccharides e.g. the monosaccharide glucose (C6) is the monomer of the linear polysaccharides ((CH2O)n) cellulose and the non-linear and more water-soluble starch), and the sugar-base-phosphate mononucleotides (monomers of the polynucleotides (DNA, RNA) (e.g. adenosine monophosphate, AMP, is adenine-ribose-phosphate; the HEC adenosine diphosphate, ADP, is adenine-ribose-phosphate-phosphate; and the HEC adenosine triphosphate, ATP, is adenine-ribose-phosphate-phosphate-phosphate).
(5). There are distinct degradative and biosynthetic pathways, anabolic (building up) and catabolic (breaking down) pathways and metabolic compartmentation (e.g. FA synthesis in cytosol, FA catabolism in mitochondria) that maintain homeostasis or balance and avoid futile cycles in different states (notably Plenty and Fasting).
(6). Overall homeostasis, cell division versus apoptosis (programmed cell death), and enzyme activity regulated by enzyme amount and by regulation of the activity of existing enzymes by allosteric modifiers (Feed Forward Activation (FF+) and Feedback Inhibition (FB-)), signalling-controlled, reversible covalent modification, including second messenger-mediated hormonal control by switching enzymes on or off by phosphorylation and dephosphorylation (important second messengers being Ca2+ , cyclic AMP, cyclic GMP and particular inositol phospholipids that activate particular second messenger-activated protein kinases that put phosphoryl (phosphate) groups on particular proteins thereby functionally switching them on or off ; e.g. lion in street -> fear -> increased adrenaline release from adrenal medulla -> adrenalin (epinephrine) binds to a specific PM beta-adrenergic receptor -> via trimeric G protein complex activation -> adenylate cyclase activated -> cyclic AMP made from ATP -> activation of cyclic AMP-dependent protein kinase -> proteins phosphorylated e.g. phosphotriglyceride lipase active -> triglyceride breakdown to glycerol plus FAs -> catabolism -> increased ATP -> increased ability to run away i.e. stimulus-response coupling), and the breakdown and new synthesis of enzymes that can be hormonally regulated (e.g. sustained stress -> corticosteroid hormone cortisol released from adrenal cortex -> binds to a cytosolic receptor which translocates to the nucleus -> binds to PEPCK gene promoter -> transcription of PEPCK -> .PEPCK made -> increased Gluconeogenesis -> increased [glucose ] in blood -> better ability to cope with sustained stress.
22. Regulation of animal (human, rat, mouse etc) metabolism in Plenty and in Fasting by Insulin/Glucagon control & stimulus-response coupling (a lesson from Mother Nature for a world engaged in a non-sustainable and terracidal carbon burng economy) :
Plenty: increased [blood glucose] -> increased insulin (peptide hormone from pancreas beta cells) -> binds to insulin-Receptor Tyrosine Kinase (RTK ; on PM) -> PKB activated by PL second messengers -> specific protein phosphorylation (and indirectly insulin activated dephosphorylation by protein phosphatases) -> increased glucose transport, glucose-dependent gene expression, glycolysis, and anabolic reactions (increased glycogen synthesis, protein synthesis, FA synthesis) and decreased catabolic reactions (glycogenolysis, FA oxidation, protein degradation, gluconeogenesis) -> ultimately lowered blood [glucose] (should be about 4 mM).
Fasting: lowered blood [glucose] -> glucagon (another peptide hormone; from pancreas alpha cells) -> glucagon binds to glucagon receptor on PM -> adenylate cyclase activated -> increased cyclic AMP (second messenger hunger signal) (& lowered Fructose-2,6-bisphosphate, F26BP, Plenty signal) -> activated cyclic AMP-dependent protein kinase ( PKA) -> specific protein phosphorylation (reversed by dephosphorylation by protein phosphatases) -> increased catabolism ( increased fatty acid oxidation, gluconeogenesis, glycogenolysis) and decreased anabolism ( decreased glycolysis, fatty acid synthesis) -> ultimately increased blood [glucose].
Brain function obligately depends on glucose catabolism and organs maintain steady blood [glucose] of about 4 mM in fasting per: 1. use of glycogen (muscle & liver); 2. gluconeogenesis & glucose release by liver; 3. use of fatty acids from adipocytes, ketone bodies from liver; 4. shift of adipocytes, muscle & liver from glucose to fatty acids (and eventually ketone bodies).
23. Biochemistry & climate change problem, and biological solutions.
Major CO2 sinks include photosynthetic bacterial photosynthesis and plant photosynthesis yielding cellulose and related carbohydrates of wood and thence of soil carbonaceous compounds of humus (roughly half of forest carbon in tree wood and half in soil carbon; SE Australian Eucalyptus regnans (Mountain ash) forests are the best forest carbon sinks in the world). Photosynthesis yields carbohydrate: nCO2 + nH20 + solar energy -> (CH2O)n (relatively stable cellulose) + nO2. Most of photosynthesis is reversed by carbohydrate oxidation by fires or aerobic organisms: (CH2O)n + O2 -> nCO2 + nH2O. Some CO2 dissolves in ocean water, this resulting in acidification (biologically deleterious to organism with calcareous exoskeletons e.g. coral, crustaceans) : CO2 + H2O -> H2CO3 -> HCO3- + H+; HCO3- -> CO32- + H+ (see later: threat to coral from ocean acidification as well as warming). Fixation of CO2 by ocean photosynthetic algae and prokaryote phytoplankton could be increased by adding fertilizer to oceans (a major geoengineering proposal).
Coal derives from anaerobic geologic conversion of cellulosic carbohydrates to carbon ((CH2O)n + heat, pressure -> nC + n H2O). Subterranean oil drives from anaerobic decarboxylation of biologically-derived fatty acids (CH3(CH2)n-COOH + heat, pressure -> CH3(CH2)nH + CO2. Subterranean methane (CH4) derives from anaerobic reduction of carbohydrates by anaerobic bacteria (reduction being addition of electrons (e-), addition of hydrogen atoms (H) or removal of oxygen (O)): (CH2O)n + 4H (derived from catabolism and reduced coenzymes) -> nCH4 + nH2O. We must keep coal in the ground and get energy from renewable and geothermal sources.
Oil derives from decarboxylation of biological fatty acids (FAs). Oil is a vital precursor for plastics and pharmaceuticals yet we are burning this vital feedstock as well as polluting the atmosphere and oceans with CO2 from oil combustion. Biofeul production carries a huge carbon pollution debt as well as beiugn an obscene use of food for fuel, driving up food prices and condemning 2 billion to malnourishment, 1 billion to hunger and millions to starvation.
Methane derives from anaerobic degradation of biological material e.g. in swamps, waste dumps, livestock digestion: (CH2O)n + 4H (derived from reduced coenzymes) -> nCH4 + nH2O or, overall: 2(CH2O)n-> nCH4 + nCO2. Global warming is already releasing CH4 from H2O-CH4 clathrates in tundra and in shallow parts of the Arctic Ocean. Fugitive CH4 emissions occur from coal mines, coal seam gas (CSG) extraction, conventional natural gas extraction, from coal seam and shale fracking and from systemic gas reticulation leakage. World Bank re-assessment of the livestock contribution to GHG pollution (e.g. deforestation, cattle belching) indicates that annual global greenhouse gas (GHG) pollution is 64 Gt CO2-e, about 50% bigger than the 42 Gt CO2-e hitherto thought and that the livestock contribution is over 51% of the bigger figure (a major element of this analysis being a 20 year time frame considered for CH4 GWP rather than a 100 year time frame. Solutions include keeping gas in the ground, decreasing livestock production (different bacterial flora, vaccination against methanogens, shifting to kangaroo meat, fish aquaculture involving 2 kg grain per kg meat versus 7 for beef, vegetarian or vegan culture, plant-derived protein, soy milk.
Nitrous oxide (N2O) derives from agricultural use of nitrogenous fertilizers and from fossil fuel (coal, gas and oil) combustion - ergo, apply smarter use of nitrogenous fertilizers.
Albedo (light reflectivity) decreased by disappearance of Arctic sea ice - restore albedo by painting roads and roof tops white and biologically by appropriate plant ground vover. .
Biochar. Atmospheric CO2 can be reduced from the current 400 ppm CO2 back to a safe and sustainable 300 ppm CO2 by fixing CO2 as cellulose via solar-energy-driven photosynthesis (nCO2 + nH2O -> (CH2O)n + O2 ) with subsequent anaerobic pyrolysis of cellulosic material (e.g. waste wood and straw) to yield carbon (C, charcoal) ((CH2O)n -> nC + n H2O).which can then be added to soil or buried in holes in the ground (e.g. used coal mines). Thus p224, Progress in Thermochemical Biomass Conversion, volume 1, IAE Bioenergy, ed. A,V, Bridgewater (Blackwell Science) informs us that we could obtain 1.7 GtC/yr (straw from agriculture) + 4.2 GtC/yr (total grass upgrowth from grasslands upgrowth) + 6 GtC/yr (possible sustainable woodharvest) = 11.9 GtC/yr. From this one can see why biochar expert Professor Johannes Lehmann of Cornell University is correct calculating that it is realistically possible to fix 9.5bn tonnes of carbon per year using biochar, noting that global annual production of carbon from fossil fuels is about 9 bn tonnes.
Introduced plant pests (e.g. introduced "mimosa", Mimosa pigra and Gamba grass, Andropogon gayanus, in the Northern Territory of Australia) are good candidates for disposal via biochar production.
Unfortunately biochar is expensive to produce and thus for every $1 derived from coal burning, $1-$2 will have to be spent converting the consequent CO2 back to carbon (biochar) (based on US mid-West corn stalk-derived biochar; multiply this by by 4 for the cost in the UK) for every $1 derived from gas burning, about $1will have to be spent converting the consequent CO2 back to carbon (biochar) (based on US mid-West corn stalk-derived biochar; multiply this by by 4 for the cost in the UK).
The cost of conversion of cellulosic waste to biochar in the US mid-West is about $49-$74 per tonne CO2 as compared to $210-$303 per tonne CO2 in the UK. There is 700 billion tonnes of CO2 in the atmosphere and the cost of reversing 2 centuries of fossil fuel burning by means of biochar-based return of the atmospheric CO2 concentration to the pre-industrial 300 ppm from the current 400 ppm by removing 0.25 x 700 = 175 billion tonnes CO2 has been estimated at $13 trillion to $53 trillion (US dollars) or 15-62% of the current world annual GDP of $85 trillion. These numbers, while horrifying, nevertheless show that it is still conceivable (albeit very unlikely) that we could save the world from climate disaster.
Various methods have been proposed for removing atmospheric CO2 from past or continuing pollution (e.g. back to 300 ppm CO2) including (with critiques in parenthesis):
(a) Carbon Capture and Storage or Carbon Capture and Sequestration (CCS) underground of CO2 from power stations ( widely touted but not presently commercially feasible [4]);
(b) Ocean storage of power station-derived CO2 in the deep ocean (similarly costly in relation to compression and also contraindicated by associated ocean acidification deadly to calcifying photosynthetic and animal organisms with calcium carbonate-based exteriors e.g. coccolithophore algae, corals, foraminifera, echinoderms, crustaceans and molluscs);
(c) Algal photosynthesis use to generate biomass through photosynthesis in power plant-associated algal ponds (huge expense and incomplete CO2 removal );
(d) Ocean algal photosynthesis per fertilization of oceans to promote photosynthetic fixation of CO2 into biomass (huge cost and massive global ecosystem disruption with unknown consequences);
(e) Re-afforestation - biological removal of CO2 as cellulose in tree trunks and as carbon compounds in the soil (clearly a major part of the solution but there are limits to re-afforestation and soil carbon storage; there is presently about 700 Gt C in biomass (mostly wood) and 1,600 Gt C in soil as humus; SE Australian Eucalyptus regnans forests are the best forest carbon sinks in the world);
(f) Accelerated Weathering of Limestone (AWL) - relatively cheap CO2 sequestration as bicarbonate in oceans through Accelerated Weathering of Limestone (AWL) by scrubbing power plant emissions in sea water plus limestone (CaCO3) (compression costs would make more general application to removing CO2 from the atmosphere even more expensive – however in the context of a presently existing and unfortunately entrenched and dominant carbon economy this mechanism is important ); and
(g) Biochar (carbon, charcoal) production and storage through anaerobic pyrolysis at 400-700C of waste biomass cellulosic materials - the annual biochar production using existing agricultural and forestry waste would be similar to the amount of carbon pollution produced annually by industry.
(h) Direct Air Capture (DAC) successively involving capturing CO2 in an aquius potassium hydoroxide (KOH) solution, generating calcium carbonate (CaCO3) and recoering an alkaline scrubbing solution by heating Ca Co3 to geenrate CaO (lime) and CO2 (concentrated and sequestered).
(i) Mineral carbonation involving trapping CO2 by reaction with suitably pulverized CO2-reacting minerals (e.g. wollastonite).
NB. Other so-called geo-engineering approaches to global warming with variously very serious ecological and biological implications include (i) shades in space, (ii) adding sulphate aerosols to the stratosphere or troposphere to promote global dimming, (iii) changing albedo by large-scale plant monocultures or a-biotically (e.g. by painting roofs or roads white).
However methane (CH4) has a Global Warming Potential (GWP) 105 times greater than that of carbon dioxide (CO2) on a 20 year time frame and taking aerosol impacts into account. Accordingly the predicted entry of 50 billion tonnes of methane (CH4) into the atmosphere from the Arctic in the coming decades is equivalent to 50 x 105 = 5,250 billion tonnes CO2-equivalent (CO2-e ).
There is 2,800 billion tonnes of CO2 in the atmosphere, and the cost of reversing 2 centuries of fossil fuel burning by means of biochar-based return of the atmospheric CO2 concentration to the pre-industrial 300 ppm from the current 415 ppm [2020] through removing 1,400 billion tonnes CO2 at $200 per tonne is $280 trillion (US dollars) (cf the current world annual GDP of $85 trillion).
J. Some key useful references.
This course synopsis is on the websites for the Yarra Valley Climate Action Group (see: http://yvcag.blogspot.com/2011_08_01_archive.html and https://sites.google.com/site/yarravalleyclimateactiongroup/2011-climate-change-course ) and 300.org (see: http://300org.blogspot.com/2011_08_01_archive.html and https://sites.google.com/site/300orgsite/2011-climate-change-course ) together with numerous detailed Web-accessible references (these sites also contain many other carefully researched and documented articles). Some key references include:
James Hansen, “Letter to PM Kevin Rudd”: http://www.columbia.edu/~jeh1/mailings/2008/20080401_DearPrimeMinisterRudd.pdf .
John Holdren, “The science of climatic disruption”: http://www.usclimateaction.org/userfiles/JohnHoldren.pdf .
Professor Hans Joachim Schellnhuber, “Terra quasi-incognita: beyond the 2 degree C line”: http://www.eci.ox.ac.uk/4degrees/ppt/1-1schellnhuber.pdf .
Intergovernmental Panel of Climate Change (IPCC) Fourth Assessment report: Climate Change 2007 (AR4): http://www.ipcc.ch/publications_and_data/publications_and_data_reports.shtml#.T-ZXUZHiK9K .
IPCC Fourth Assessment report: Climate Change 2007: Synthesis report for Policy Makers (2007): http://www.ipcc.ch/publications_and_data/ar4/syr/en/spm.html .
IPCC, Fifth Assessment report“Summary for policymakers”, 2013: http://www.climatechange2013.org/images/uploads/WGIAR5-SPM_Approved27Sep2013.pdf .
K. Some further key, summarizing references (2012).
CSIRO-Australian Bureau of Meteorology, "The State of the Climate 2012": http://www.csiro.au/Outcomes/Climate/Understanding/State-of-the-Climate-2012.aspx.
Andrew Glikson, "On Arctic sea ice melt and coal mine canaries", The Conversation, 2012: https://theconversation.edu.au/on-arctic-sea-ice-melt-and-coal-mine-canaries-5967.
Key References.
A. Man-made global warming and GHGs.
John Holdren, “The science of climatic disruption”: http://www.usclimateaction.org/userfiles/JohnHoldren.pdf .
Drew T. Shindell , Greg Faluvegi, Dorothy M. Koch , Gavin A. Schmidt , Nadine Unger and Susanne E. Bauer , “Improved Attribution of Climate Forcing to Emissions”, Science, 30 October 2009:
Vol. 326 no. 5953 pp. 716-718: http://www.sciencemag.org/content/326/5953/716 .
Shindell et al (2009), Fig.2: http://www.sciencemag.org/content/326/5953/716.figures-only .
US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration NOAA, “Recent monthly mean CO2 at Mauna Loa”: http://www.esrl.noaa.gov/gmd/ccgg/trends/ .
Australian Climate Commission, “The Critical Decade. Climate science, risks and responses”, 2011: http://climatecommission.gov.au/topics/the-critical-decade/ .
Jeremy D. Shakun et al., “Global warming preceded by increasing carbon dioxide concentrations during the last deglaciation”, Nature, volume 484, pages 49-54, April 2012: http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v484/n7392/full/nature10915.html.
Intergovernmental Panel of Climate Change (IPCC) Fourth Assessment report: Climate Change 2007 (AR4): http://www.ipcc.ch/publications_and_data/publications_and_data_reports.shtml#.T-ZXUZHiK9K .
IPCC Fourth Assessment report: Climate Change 2007: Synthesis report for Policy Makers (2007): http://www.ipcc.ch/publications_and_data/ar4/syr/en/spm.html .
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: http://www.worldwatch.org/files/pdf/Livestock%20and%20Climate%20Change.pdf .
Ken Branson, “New finding shows that climate change can happen in a geological instant ”, Rutgers News, 6 October 2013: http://news.rutgers.edu/research-news/new-finding-shows-climate-change-can-happen-geological-instant/20131003#.Ul42lFP3S42 .
“Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum (PETM)”, Wikilpedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paleocene%E2%80%93Eocene_Thermal_Maximum .
Joe Romm, “Earth may have warmed 5C in 13 years when CO2 doubled”, RE New Economy, 14 October 2013: http://reneweconomy.com.au/2013/petm-shocker-co2-levels-doubled-55-million-years-ago-earth-may-warmed-9f-13-years-61702
Gail Whiteman, Chris Hope and Peter Wadhams, “Vast costs of Arctic change”, Nature, 499, 25 July 2013: http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v499/n7459/pdf/499401a.pdf and http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v499/n7459/full/499401a.html
Climate Reality Project, “Climate Crisis 101. Learn the basics of climate change science and how you can take action” (2018): https://www.climaterealityproject.org/sites/climaterealityproject.org/files/Climate%20101_FINAL.pdf?utm_source=advocacy&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=general&utm_content=climate_101_ebook .
B. Already observed climatic disruption consequences of global warming.
John Holdren, “The science of climatic disruption”: http://www.usclimateaction.org/userfiles/JohnHoldren.pdf .
Andrew Glikson, "On Arctic sea ice melt and coal mine canaries", The Conversation, 2012: https://theconversation.edu.au/on-arctic-sea-ice-melt-and-coal-mine-canaries-5967.
CSIRO-Australian Bureau of Meteorology, "The State of the Climate 2012": http://www.csiro.au/Outcomes/Climate/Understanding/State-of-the-Climate-2012.aspx.
Synthesis Report from the March 2009 Copenhagen Climate Change Conference, Climate Change, Global risks, challenges & decisions”, Copenhagen 10-12 March, 2009, University of Copenhagen, Denmark: http://lyceum.anu.edu.au/wp-content/blogs/3/uploads//Synthesis%20Report%20Web.pdf .
Intergovernmental Panel of Climate Change (IPCC) Fourth Assessment report: Climate Change 2007 (AR4): http://www.ipcc.ch/publications_and_data/publications_and_data_reports.shtml#.T-ZXUZHiK9K .
IPCC Fourth Assessment report: Climate Change 2007: Synthesis report for Policy Makers (2007): http://www.ipcc.ch/publications_and_data/ar4/syr/en/spm.html .
C. Already observed biological impacts related to AGW.
John Holdren, “The science of climatic disruption”: http://www.usclimateaction.org/userfiles/JohnHoldren.pdf .
Phillip Levin, Donald Levin, “The real biodiversity crisis”, American Scientist, January-February 2002: http://www.americanscientist.org/issues/pub/the-real-biodiversity-crisis .
Brendan Mackey, Heather Keith, Sandra Berry, David Lindenmeyer (ANU), “Green Carbon. The role of natural forests in carbon storage”: http://epress.anu.edu.au/green_carbon/pdf/whole_book.pdf .
“Australia’s threatened species”, Nova: http://www.science.org.au/nova/010/010key.htm .
Intergovernmental Panel of Climate Change (IPCC) Fourth Assessment report: Climate Change 2007 (AR4): http://www.ipcc.ch/publications_and_data/publications_and_data_reports.shtml#.T-ZXUZHiK9K .
IPCC Fourth Assessment report: Climate Change 2007: Synthesis report for Policy Makers (2007): http://www.ipcc.ch/publications_and_data/ar4/syr/en/spm.html .
John Cook, “Earth’s 5 mass extinction events”, Sceptical Science, 15 April 2010: http://www.skepticalscience.com/Earths-five-mass-extinction-events.html .
"Big 5 mass extinction events”, BBC, Nature: http://www.bbc.co.uk/nature/extinction_events .
"Paleocene- Eocene Thermal Maximum”, Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paleocene%E2%80%93Eocene_Thermal_Maximum .
D. Projected biological impacts.
John Holdren, “The science of climatic disruption”: http://www.usclimateaction.org/userfiles/JohnHoldren.pdf .
Phillip Levin, Donald Levin, “The real biodiversity crisis”, American Scientist, January-February 2002: http://www.americanscientist.org/issues/pub/the-real-biodiversity-crisis .
Brendan Mackey, Heather Keith, Sandra Berry, David Lindenmeyer (ANU), “Green Carbon. The role of natural forests in carbon storage”: http://epress.anu.edu.au/green_carbon/pdf/whole_book.pdf .
“Australia’s threatened species”, Nova: http://www.science.org.au/nova/010/010key.htm .
Intergovernmental Panel of Climate Change (IPCC) Fourth Assessment report: Climate Change 2007 (AR4): http://www.ipcc.ch/publications_and_data/publications_and_data_reports.shtml#.T-ZXUZHiK9K .
IPCC Fourth Assessment report: Climate Change 2007: Synthesis report for Policy Makers (2007): http://www.ipcc.ch/publications_and_data/ar4/syr/en/spm.html .
DARA, “Climate Vulnerability Monitor. A guide to the cold callus of a hot planet”, 2012: http://daraint.org/climate-vulnerability-monitor/climate-vulnerability-monitor-2012/
Reuters, ”100 mln to die by 2030 if world fails to act on climate”, 28 September 2012: http://in.reuters.com/article/2012/09/26/climate-inaction-idINDEE88P05P20120926 .
Climate Genocide: https://sites.google.com/site/climategenocide/ .
"Are we doomed? Too late to save earth?", 300.org: https://sites.google.com/site/300orgsite/are-we-doomed .
Gideon Polya, “Jane Austen and the Black Hole of British History” (G.M. Polya, Melbourne, 1998, 2008, now available for free perusal on the web; see: http://janeaustenand.blogspot.com/) .
Gideon Polya, “Body Count. Global avoidable mortality since 1950” (G.M. Polya, Melbourne, 2007, now available for free perusal on the web: http://globalbodycount.blogspot.com/).
Heather M. Stoll, Nobumichi Shimizu, David Archer, Patrizia Ziveri, “”Coccolithophore productivity response to greenhouse event of rghe Oqapekeocne-Eocene Thermal Maximum”, Earth and Planetary Science Letters, Volume 258, Issues 1–2, 15 June 2007, Pages 192–206: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0012821X07001902 .
L. Beaufort et al., “Sensitivity of coccolithophores to carbonate chemistry and acean acidification”, Nature, Nature, 476, 80–83 (04 August 2011): http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v476/n7358/abs/nature10295.html .
E. Urgency of required action.
Andrew Glikson, "On Arctic sea ice melt and coal mine canaries", The Conversation, 2012: https://theconversation.edu.au/on-arctic-sea-ice-melt-and-coal-mine-canaries-5967.
James Hansen, “Letter to PM Kevin Rudd”: http://www.columbia.edu/~jeh1/mailings/2008/20080401_DearPrimeMinisterRudd.pdf .
John Holdren, “The science of climatic disruption”: http://www.usclimateaction.org/userfiles/JohnHoldren.pdf .
Professor Hans Joachim Schellnhuber, “Terra quasi-incognita: beyond the 2 degree C line”: http://www.eci.ox.ac.uk/4degrees/ppt/1-1schellnhuber.pdf .
Australian Climate Commission, “The Critical Decade. Climate science, risks and responses”, 2011: http://climatecommission.gov.au/topics/the-critical-decade/ .
Gideon Polya, "Doha climate change inaction. Only 5 years left to act", MWC News, 9 December 2012: http://mwcnews.net/focus/analysis/23373-gideonpolya-climate-change.html .
Australian Climate Commission, “The Critical Decade 2013”: http://climatecommission.gov.au/report/the-critical-decade-2013/ .
Intergovernmental Panel of Climate Change (IPCC) Fourth Assessment report: Climate Change 2007 (AR4): http://www.ipcc.ch/publications_and_data/publications_and_data_reports.shtml#.T-ZXUZHiK9K .
IPCC Fourth Assessment report: Climate Change 2007: Synthesis report for Policy Makers (2007): http://www.ipcc.ch/publications_and_data/ar4/syr/en/spm.html .
ABARE and Geoscience Australia , “Australian Energy Resource Assessment”, Chapter 4 “Gas”: http://adl.brs.gov.au/data/warehouse/pe_aera_d9aae_002/aeraCh_04.pdf .
Gideon Polya, “Australia 's Huge Coal, Gas & Iron Ore Exports Threaten Planet”, Countercurrents, 15 May 2012: http://www.countercurrents.org/polya150512.htm .
Bill McKibben, “Global warming’s terrifying new math”, Rolling Stone, 19 July 2012: http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/global-warmings-terrifying-new-math-20120719 .
WBGU, “Solving the climate dilemma: the budget approach”: http://www.ecoequity.org/2009/10/solving-the-climate-dilemma-the-budget-approach/ .
US EIA, “Energy-related carbon dioxide emissions”, Table A10: http://www.eia.gov/forecasts/ieo/emissions.cfm .
DARA, “Climate Vulnerability Monitor. A guide to the cold callus of a hot planet”, 2012: http://daraint.org/climate-vulnerability-monitor/climate-vulnerability-monitor-2012/
Reuters, ”100 mln to die by 2030 if world fails to act on climate”, 28 September 2012: http://in.reuters.com/article/2012/09/26/climate-inaction-idINDEE88P05P20120926 .
Climate Genocide: https://sites.google.com/site/climategenocide/ .
"Are we doomed? Too late to save earth?", 300.org: https://sites.google.com/site/300orgsite/are-we-doomed .
Gail Whiteman, Chris Hope and Peter Wadhams, “Vast costs of Arctic change”, Nature, 499, 25 July 2013: http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v499/n7459/pdf/499401a.pdf and http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v499/n7459/full/499401a.html .
Gideon Polya, “Gigantic cost of requisite climate change action threatens massive intergenerational inequity and intergenerational injustice”, Countercurrents, 1 August 2013: http://www.countercurrents.org/polya010813.htm .
“300.org – return atmosphere CO2 to 300 ppm”, 300.org: http://sites.google.com/site/300orgsite/300-org---return-atmosphere-co2-to-300-ppm .
“Forest biomass-derived Biochar can profitably reduce global warming and bushfire risk”, Yarra Valley Climate Action Group: https://sites.google.com/site/yarravalleyclimateactiongroup/forest-biomass-derived-biochar-can-profitably-reduce-global-warming-and-bushfire-risk .
Simon Shackley, Jim Hammond, John Gaunt and Rodrigo Ibarrollo, “The feasibility and costs of biochar deployment in the UK ”, Carbon Management, 2(3), 335-356 (2011): http://www.geos.ed.ac.uk/homes/sshackle/CostsBiochar.pdf .
Dr Chris Hope interviewed by Emma Alberici, “Climate economist warns of impact climate change" , ABC Lateline, 29 July 2103: http://www.abc.net.au/lateline/content/2013/s3813766.htm .
Gideon Polya, “ Australia 's Huge Coal, Gas & Iron Ore Exports Threaten Planet”, Countercurrents, 15 May 2012: http://www.countercurrents.org/polya150512.htm .
Gideon Polya, " Doha climate change inaction. Only 5 years left to act", MWC News, 9 December 2012: http://mwcnews.net/focus/analysis/23373-gideonpolya-climate-change.html .
Australian Climate Commission, “The critical decade 2013: a summary of climate change science, risks and responses” p7, 2013: http://climatecommission.gov.au/wp-content/uploads/The-Critical-Decade-2013-Summary_lowres.pdf .
Dr Chris Hope, “How high should climate change taxes be?”, Working Paper Series, Judge Business School, University of Cambridge, 9.2011: http://www.jbs.cam.ac.uk/fileadmin/user_upload/research/workingpapers/wp1109.pdf .
“Australian carbon burning-related deaths and carbon burning subsidies => minimum Carbon Price of A$554 per tonne carbon (C) or A$151 per tonne CO2-e ”, Yarra Valley Climate Action Group: http://sites.google.com/site/yarravalleyclimateactiongroup/2011-carbon-burning .
Science and economics experts: Carbon Tax needed and NOT Carbon trading”, 300.org : https://sites.google.com/site/300orgsite/sciennce-economics-experts-carbon-tax-needed-not-carbon-trading .
Mainstream media lying: https://sites.google.com/site/mainstreammedialying/ .
Mainstream media censorship: https://sites.google.com/site/mainstreammediacensorship/ .
“ABC Fact-checking Unit & incorrect reportage by the ABC”: https://sites.google.com/site/mainstreammediacensorship/abc-fact-checking-unit .
“ABC censorship & malreportage” https://sites.google.com/site/abccensorship/abc-censorship .
Gideon Polya, “Why we must divest from fossil fuel corporations to help save the Biosphere and Humanity”, Countercurrents, 9 October 2013: http://www.countercurrents.org/polya091013.htm .
“Divest from fossil fuels”: https://sites.google.com/site/300orgsite/divest-from-fossil-fuels .
Gideon Polya. “Polya's 3 Laws Of Economics Expose Deadly, Dishonest And Terminal Neoliberal Capitalism”, Countercurrents, 17 October, 2015: http://www.countercurrents.org/polya171015.htm .
F. Further key points.
Gideon Polya, "Gas is not clean energy": https://sites.google.com/site/gasisnotcleanenergy/home .
Phillip Levin, Donald Levin, “The real biodiversity crisis”, American Scientist, January-February 2002: http://www.americanscientist.org/issues/pub/the-real-biodiversity-crisis .
“Experts: carbon tax needed and not cap-and-trade emissions trading scheme (ETS)”, 300.org): http://300org.blogspot.com/2011/05/experts-carbon-tax-not-ets.html .
Drew T. Shindell , Greg Faluvegi, Dorothy M. Koch , Gavin A. Schmidt , Nadine Unger and Susanne E. Bauer , “Improved Attribution of Climate Forcing to Emissions”, Science, 30 October 2009:
Vol. 326 no. 5953 pp. 716-718: http://www.sciencemag.org/content/326/5953/716 .
Shindell et al (2009), Fig.2: http://www.sciencemag.org/content/326/5953/716.figures-only .
Robert W. Howarth, Renee Santoro and Anthony Ingraffea, “Methane and the greenhouse-gas footprint of natural gas from shale formations”, Climatic Change, 2011: http://www.sustainablefuture.cornell.edu/news/attachments/Howarth-EtAl-2011.pdf .
Synthesis Report from the March 2009 Copenhagen Climate Change Conference, Climate Change, Global risks, challenges & decisions”, Copenhagen 10-12 March, 2009, University of Copenhagen, Denmark: http://lyceum.anu.edu.au/wp-content/blogs/3/uploads//Synthesis%20Report%20Web.pdf .
“300.org – return atmosphere CO2 to 300 ppm”, 300.org: http://sites.google.com/site/300orgsite/300-org---return-atmosphere-co2-to-300-ppm .
Gideon Polya, “Climate Genocide”: http://sites.google.com/site/climategenocide/ .
G. Australia.
CSIRO-Australian Bureau of Meteorology, "The State of the Climate 2012": http://www.csiro.au/Outcomes/Climate/Understanding/State-of-the-Climate-2012.aspx.
Beyond Zero Emissions Zero (BZE), Zero Carbon Australia by 2020 Report (BZE ZCA2020 Report), 2010: http://www.beyondzeroemissions.org/about/bze-brand .
Australian Climate Commission, “The Critical Decade. Climate science, risks and responses”, 2011: http://climatecommission.gov.au/topics/the-critical-decade/ .
Gideon Polya, “Country By Country Analysis Of Years Left Until Science-demanded Zero Greenhouse Gas Emissions”, Countercurrents, 11 June 2011: http://www.countercurrents.org/polya110611.htm .
"Gas is not clean energy": https://sites.google.com/site/gasisnotcleanenergy/home .
Gideon Polya, “Carbon Price & Climate Change Action Fact Sheet for leading per capita greenhouse gas polluter Australia”, Bellaciao, 14 March 2011: http://bellaciao.org/en/spip.php?article20628 .
“Australia’s threatened species”, Nova: http://www.science.org.au/nova/010/010key.htm .
“Australian carbon burning-related deaths”, Yarra Valley Climate Action Group: http://sites.google.com/site/yarravalleyclimateactiongroup/2011-carbon-burning .
Australian Conservation Foundation (ACF), “Australia spends $11 billion more encouraging pollution than cleaning it up”, 1 March 2011: http://www.acfonline.org.au/articles/news.asp?news_id=3308&eid=11731 .
Beyond Zero Emissions (BZE), “Carbon pricing – will it benefit renewable energy”, February 2011: http://xa.yimg.com/kq/groups/15154881/738777308/name/BZE%20Carbon%20Price%20Recommendations%2020110228.pdf .
Gideon Polya, “Australia's Domestic plus Exported GHG pollution has increased under Labor”, Yarra Valley Climate Action Group: http://sites.google.com/site/yarravalleyclimateactiongroup/australia-s-ghg-pollution .
ABARE, “Australian energy national and state projections to 2029-2030”: http://www.abare.gov.au/publications_html/energy/energy_06/nrg_projections06.pdf .
Peter Seligman, “Australian sustainable energy – by the numbers”, Melbourne Energy Institute, University of Melbourne , 2010: http://energy.unimelb.edu.au/ozsebtn/.
James Hansen, “Letter to PM Kevin Rudd”: http://www.columbia.edu/~jeh1/mailings/2008/20080401_DearPrimeMinisterRudd.pdf .
Brendan Mackey, Heather Keith, Sandra Berry, David Lindenmeyer (ANU), “Green Carbon. The role of natural forests in carbon storage”: http://epress.anu.edu.au/green_carbon/pdf/whole_book.pdf .
Australian coal and LNG exports will grow at 2.4% pa and 9% pa, respectively, according to estimates based on ABARE data:
“Why to invest in Australia Mining sector”, Invest in Australia: http://www.investinaustralia.com/industry/mining/why-invest-australian-mining-sector .
Gideon Polya, “Australia threatens World with unlimited coal, gas and iron ore exports”, Bellaciao, 15 May 2012: http://bellaciao.org/en/spip.php?article21922
Australian Treasury, “Strong Growth, Low Pollution. Modelling a carbon price”, 2011: http://cache.treasury.gov.au/treasury/carbonpricemodelling/content/report/downloads/Modelling_Report_Consolidated.pdf .
ABARE, “Australian energy national and state projections to 2029-2030”: http://www.abare.gov.au/publications_html/energy/energy_06/nrg_projections06.pdf .
Australian coal and LNG exports will grow at 2.4% pa and 9% pa, respectively, according to estimates based on ABARE data:“Why to invest in Australia Mining sector”, Invest in Australia: http://www.investinaustralia.com/industry/mining/why-invest-australian-mining-sector .
US Energy Information Administration (US EIA), Australian natural gas production: http://www.eia.gov/countries/country-data.cfm?fips=AS#ng .
WA lifts nation’s record LNG production, exports in 2010, News.com: http://www.news.com.au/top-stories/wa-lifts-nations-record-lng-production-exports-in-2010/story-e6frfkp9-1226017753583?from=public_rss .
“Stop air pollution deaths”: https://sites.google.com/site/300orgsite/stop-air-pollution-deaths .
H. 100% renewable energy, cessation of GHG pollution, re-afforestation, biochar & bicarbonate
Beyond Zero Emissions Zero (BZE), Zero Carbon Australia by 2020 Report (BZE ZCA2020 Report), 2010: http://www.beyondzeroemissions.org/about/bze-brand .
Peter Seligman, “Australian sustainable energy – by the numbers”, Melbourne Energy Institute, University of Melbourne , 2010: http://energy.unimelb.edu.au/ozsebtn/.
Brendan Mackey, Heather Keith, Sandra Berry, David Lindenmeyer (ANU), “Green Carbon. The role of natural forests in carbon storage”: http://epress.anu.edu.au/green_carbon/pdf/whole_book.pdf .
Gideon Polya, “Carbon Price & Climate Change Action Fact Sheet for leading per capita greenhouse gas polluter Australia”, Bellaciao, 14 March 2011: http://bellaciao.org/en/spip.php?article20628 .
Gideon Polya, “Forest biomass-derived Biochar can profitably reduce global warming and bushfire risk”, Yarra Valley Climate Action Group: http://sites.google.com/site/yarravalleyclimateactiongroup/forest-biomass-derived-biochar-can-profitably-reduce-global-warming-and-bushfire-risk .
Long Cao and Ken Caldeira, “Atmospheric carbon dioxide removal: long-term consequences and commitment”, Environmental Research Letters, 5(2) (2010): http://iopscience.iop.org/1748-9326/5/2/024011 .
“Carbon capture and storage”, Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carbon_capture_and_storage .
Ken Caldeira and Greg H. Rau, “Accelerating carbonate dissolution to sequester carbon dioxide in the ocean: geochemical implications”, Geophysical Research Letters, 27 (2), 225-226 (2000): http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1029/1999GL002364/abstract .
Greg H. Rau, Ken Caldeira, Kevin G. Knauss, Bill Downs and Hamid Sarv, “Enhanced carbonate dissolution as a means of capturing and sequestering carbon dioxide”, First National Conference on Carbon Sequestration, Washington DC, May 14-17, 2000: http://www.netl.doe.gov/publications/proceedings/01/carbon_seq/p24.pdf .
G.H. Rau, “CO2 mitigation via capture and chemical conversion in seawater”, Environ Sci Technol 45:1088–1092, 2011: http://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/es102671x .
IPCC, “Summary for policymakers”, 2013: http://www.climatechange2013.org/images/uploads/WGIAR5-SPM_Approved27Sep2013.pdf .
“100% renewable energy by 2020”: https://sites.google.com/site/100renewableenergyby2020/ .
“Cut carbon emissions 80% by 2020”: https://sites.google.com/site/cutcarbonemissions80by2020/ .
Kevin Bullis, “Capturing and storing carbon dioxide in one simple step”, MIT Technology Review, 20 September 2013: http://www.technologyreview.com/news/519406/capturing-and-storing-carbon-dioxide-in-one-simple-step/ .
I. Biochemistry, climate change and solutions.
D.L. Nelson, M.M. Cox, “Lehninger Principles of Biochemistry” (Worth, 2000, 3rd edition) [this or later editions the core textbook, albeit giving a vastly more detailed coverage]
B.D. Hames, N.M. Harper, “Instant Notes in Biochemistry” (Bios, 2000) [excellent summary of Biochemistry]
Chapter 2, Gideon Polya, “Biochemical Targets of Plant Bioactive Compounds. A pharmacological reference guide to sites of action and biological effects” (Taylor & Francis/CRC Press, 2003) [34 page summary of Biochemistry].
C.K. Matthews & K.E. van Holde, “Biochemistry” (Benjamin-Cummins, 1996) [especially for biochemical methods & glossary of biochemical terms].
References.
1. Professor Hans Joachim Schellnhuber, “Terra quasi-incognita: beyond the 2 degree C line”< 4 Degrees & Beyond, International Climate Conference, 26-30 September 2009, Oxford University: http://www.eci.ox.ac.uk/4degrees/ppt/1-1schellnhuber.pdf .
2. Beyond Zero Emissions Zero (BZE), Zero Carbon Australia by 2020 Report (BZE ZCA2020 Report), 2010: http://www.beyondzeroemissions.org/about/bze-brand .
3. Australian Climate Commission, “The Critical Decade. Climate science, risks and responses”, 2011: http://climatecommission.gov.au/topics/the-critical-decade/ .
4. Gideon Polya, “Country By Country Analysis Of Years Left Until Science-demanded Zero Greenhouse Gas Emissions”, Countercurrents, 11 June 2011: http://www.countercurrents.org/polya110611.htm .
5. "Gas is not clean energy": https://sites.google.com/site/gasisnotcleanenergy/home .
6. Gideon Polya, “Carbon Price & Climate Change Action Fact Sheet for leading per capita greenhouse gas polluter Australia”, Bellaciao, 14 March 2011: http://bellaciao.org/en/spip.php?article20628 .
7. Phillip Levin, Donald Levin, “The real biodiversity crisis”, American Scientist, January-February 2002: http://www.americanscientist.org/issues/pub/the-real-biodiversity-crisis .
8. “Australia’s threatened species”, Nova: http://www.science.org.au/nova/010/010key.htm .
9. “Experts: carbon tax needed and not cap-and-trade emissions trading scheme (ETS)”, 300.org): http://300org.blogspot.com/2011/05/experts-carbon-tax-not-ets.html .
10. 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:
https://awellfedworld.org/wp-content/uploads/Livestock-Climate-Change-Anhang-Goodland.pdf .
11. Synthesis Report from the March 2009 Copenhagen Climate Change Conference, Climate Change, Global risks, challenges & decisions”, Copenhagen 10-12 March, 2009, University of Copenhagen, Denmark: http://lyceum.anu.edu.au/wp-content/blogs/3/uploads//Synthesis%20Report%20Web.pdf .
12. “300.org – return atmosphere CO2 to 300 ppm”, 300.org: http://sites.google.com/site/300orgsite/300-org---return-atmosphere-co2-to-300-ppm .
13. US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration NOAA, “Recent monthly mean CO2 at Mauna Loa”: http://www.esrl.noaa.gov/gmd/ccgg/trends/ .
14. “Australian carbon burning-related deaths and carbon burning subsidies => minimum Carbon Price of A$554 per tonne carbon (C) or A$151 per tonne CO2-e ”, Yarra Valley Climate Action Group: http://sites.google.com/site/yarravalleyclimateactiongroup/2011-carbon-burning.
15.Gideon Polya, “Climate Genocide”: http://sites.google.com/site/climategenocide/ .
16. Australian Conservation Foundation (ACF), “Australia spends $11 billion more encouraging pollution than cleaning it up”, 1 March 2011: http://www.acfonline.org.au/articles/news.asp?news_id=3308&eid=11731 .
17. Beyond Zero Emissions (BZE), “Carbon pricing – will it benefit renewable energy”, February 2011: http://xa.yimg.com/kq/groups/15154881/738777308/name/BZE%20Carbon%20Price%20Recommendations%2020110228.pdf .
18. Gideon Polya, “Australia's Domestic plus Exported GHG pollution has increased under Labor”, Yarra Valley Climate Action Group: http://sites.google.com/site/yarravalleyclimateactiongroup/australia-s-ghg-pollution .
19. ABARE, “Australian energy national and state projections to 2029-2030”: http://www.abare.gov.au/publications_html/energy/energy_06/nrg_projections06.pdf .
20. Peter Seligman, “Australian sustainable energy – by the numbers”, Melbourne Energy Institute, University of Melbourne , 2010: http://energy.unimelb.edu.au/ozsebtn/.
21. GL Garrad Hassan https://www.cleanenergycouncil.org.au/mediaObject/events/2010-conference/presentations/1600-Barber---White/original/CEC%202010%20conference%20-%20GLGH.pdf .
22. Gideon Polya, “Forest biomass-derived Biochar can profitably reduce global warming and bushfire risk”, Yarra Valley Climate Action Group: http://sites.google.com/site/yarravalleyclimateactiongroup/forest-biomass-derived-biochar-can-profitably-reduce-global-warming-and-bushfire-risk .
23. “Climate crisis facts and required actions”, Yarra Valley Climate Action Group: http://sites.google.com/site/yarravalleyclimateactiongroup/climate-crisis-facts-required-actions .
24. Gideon Polya, “Oz Labor’s Carbon Tax-ETS & gas for coal plan means INCREASED GHG pollution”, Bellaciao, 27 August 2011: http://bellaciao.org/en/spip.php?article21140 .
25. Gideon Polya, “Shocking analysis by country of years left to zero emissions”, Green Blog, 1 August 2011: http://www.green-blog.org/2011/08/01/shocking-analysis-by-country-of-years-left-to-zero-emissions/ .
26. Drew T. Shindell , Greg Faluvegi, Dorothy M. Koch , Gavin A. Schmidt , Nadine Unger and Susanne E. Bauer , “Improved Attribution of Climate Forcing to Emissions”, Science, 30 October 2009:
Vol. 326 no. 5953 pp. 716-718: http://www.sciencemag.org/content/326/5953/716 .
27 Shindell et al (2009), Fig.2: http://www.sciencemag.org/content/326/5953/716.figures-only .
28. Robert W. Howarth, Renee Santoro and Anthony Ingraffea, “Methane and the greenhouse-gas footprint of natural gas from shale formations”, Climatic Change, 2011: http://www.sustainablefuture.cornell.edu/news/attachments/Howarth-EtAl-2011.pdf .
29. Australian Treasury, “Strong growth, low pollution. Modelling a carbon price”, 2011: http://cache.treasury.gov.au/treasury/carbonpricemodelling/content/report/downloads/Modelling_Report_Consolidated.pdf?v=1 .
30. John Holdren, “The Science of climatic disruption”: http://www.usclimateaction.org/userfiles/JohnHoldren.pdf .
31. James Hansen, “Letter to PM Kevin Rudd”: http://www.columbia.edu/~jeh1/mailings/2008/20080401_DearPrimeMinisterRudd.pdf .
32. Heather Keith, Brendan G. Mackey and David Lindenmayer, “Re-evaluation of biomass carbon stocks and lessons from the world's most carbon-dense forests”, Proc. Nat. Acad. Sci,, vol. 106, no. 28, pages 11635–11640: http://www.pnas.org/content/106/28/11635.long .
33. Australian cogrow at 2.4% pa and 9% pa, respectively, according to estimates based on ABARE data:
“Why to invest in Australia Mining sector”, Invest in Australia: http://www.investinaustralia.com/industry/mining/why-invest-australian-mining-sector .
34. Gideon Polya, “Shocking analysis by country of Climate Debt of greenhouse gas polluters”, Bellaciao, 14 December 2011: http://bellaciao.org/en/spip.php?article21491 .
35. "Climate Debt, Climate Credit": https://sites.google.com/site/climatedebtclimatecredit/home.
36. Jeremy D. Shakun et al., “Global warming preceded by increasing carbon dioxide concentrations during the last deglaciation”, Nature, volume 484, pages 49-54, April 2012: http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v484/n7392/full/nature10915.html.
37. Intergovernmental Panel of Climate Change (IPCC) Fourth Assessment report: Climate Change 2007 (AR4): http://www.ipcc.ch/publications_and_data/publications_and_data_reports.shtml#.T-ZXUZHiK9K .
38. IPCC Fourth Assessment report: Climate Change 2007: Synthesis report for Policy Makers (2007): http://www.ipcc.ch/publications_and_data/ar4/syr/en/spm.html .
39. ABARE and Geoscience Australia , “Australian Energy Resource Assessment”, Chapter 4 “Gas”: http://adl.brs.gov.au/data/warehouse/pe_aera_d9aae_002/aeraCh_04.pdf .
40. Gideon Polya, “Australia 's Huge Coal, Gas & Iron Ore Exports Threaten Planet”, Countercurrents, 15 May 2012: http://www.countercurrents.org/polya150512.htm .
41. Bill McKibben, “Global warming’s terrifying new math”, Rolling Stone, 19 July 2012: http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/global-warmings-terrifying-new-math-20120719 .
42. WBGU, “Solving the climate dilemma: the budget approach”: http://www.ecoequity.org/2009/10/solving-the-climate-dilemma-the-budget-approach/ .
43. US EIA, “Energy-related carbon dioxide emissions”, Table A10: http://www.eia.gov/forecasts/ieo/emissions.cfm .
44. DARA, “Climate Vulnerability Monitor. A guide to the cold callus of a hot planet”, 2012: http://daraint.org/climate-vulnerability-monitor/climate-vulnerability-monitor-2012/
45. Reuters, ”100 mln to die by 2030 if world fails to act on climate”, 28 September 2012: http://in.reuters.com/article/2012/09/26/climate-inaction-idINDEE88P05P20120926 .
46. Climate Genocide: https://sites.google.com/site/climategenocide/ .
47. "Are we doomed? Too late to save earth?", 300.org: https://sites.google.com/site/300orgsite/are-we-doomed .
48. Gail Whiteman, Chris Hope and Peter Wadhams, “Vast costs of Arctic change”, Nature, 499, 25 July 2013: http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v499/n7459/pdf/499401a.pdf and http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v499/n7459/full/499401a.html .
49. Dr Chris Hope, “How high should climate change taxes be?”, Working Paper Series, Judge Business School, University of Cambridge, 9.2011: http://www.jbs.cam.ac.uk/media/assets/wp1109.pdf .
50. Dr Chris Hope interviewed by Emma Alberici, “Climate change could cost 60 trillion dollars ”, Lateline, 29 July 2103: http://www.abc.net.au/lateline/content/2013/s3813760.htm .
51. Australian Climate Commission, “The critical decade 2013: a summary of climate change science, risks and responses”, 2013, p7: http://climatecommission.gov.au/wp-content/uploads/The-Critical-Decade-2013-Summary_lowres.pdf .
52. Gideon Polya, “Gigantic cost of requisite climate change action threatens massive intergenerational inequity and intergenerational injustice”, Countercurrents, 1 August 2013: http://www.countercurrents.org/polya010813.htm .
53. “300.org – return atmosphere CO2 to 300 ppm”, 300.org: http://sites.google.com/site/300orgsite/300-org---return-atmosphere-co2-to-300-ppm .
54. “Forest biomass-derived Biochar can profitably reduce global warming and bushfire risk”, Yarra Valley Climate Action Group: https://sites.google.com/site/yarravalleyclimateactiongroup/forest-biomass-derived-biochar-can-profitably-reduce-global-warming-and-bushfire-risk .
55. Simon Shackley, Jim Hammond, John Gaunt and Rodrigo Ibarrollo, “The feasibility and costs of biochar deployment in the UK ”, Carbon Management, 2(3), 335-356 (2011): http://www.geos.ed.ac.uk/homes/sshackle/CostsBiochar.pdf .
56. Dr Chris Hope interviewed by Emma Alberici, “Climate economist warns of impact climate change" , ABC Lateline, 29 July 2013:
http://www.abc.net.au/lateline/content/2013/s3813766.htm
57. Gideon Polya, " Doha climate change inaction. Only 5 years left to act", MWC News, 9 December 2012: http://mwcnews.net/focus/analysis/23373-gideonpolya-climate-change.html .
58. Dr Chris Hope, “How high should climate change taxes be?”, Working Paper Series, Judge Business School, University of Cambridge, 9.2011: http://www.jbs.cam.ac.uk/fileadmin/user_upload/research/workingpapers/wp1109.pdf .
59. Science and economics experts: Carbon Tax needed and NOT Carbon trading”, 300.org : https://sites.google.com/site/300orgsite/sciennce-economics-experts-carbon-tax-needed-not-carbon-trading .
60. “ABC Fact-checking Unit & incorrect reportage by the ABC”: https://sites.google.com/site/mainstreammediacensorship/abc-fact-checking-unit .
61. “ABC censorship & malreportage” https://sites.google.com/site/abccensorship/abc-censorship .
62. D.L. Nelson, M.M. Cox, “Lehninger Principles of Biochemistry” (Worth, 2000, 3rd edition) [this or later editions the core textbook, albeit giving a vastly more detailed coverage]
63. B.D. Hames, N.M. Harper, “Instant Notes in Biochemistry” (Bios, 2000) [excellent summary of Biochemistry]
64. Chapter 2, Gideon Polya, “Biochemical Targets of Plant Bioactive Compounds. A pharmacological reference guide to sites of action and biological effects” (Taylor & Francis/CRC Press, 2003) [34 page summary of Biochemistry].
65. C.K. Matthews & K.E. van Holde, “Biochemistry” (Benjamin-Cummins, 1996) [especially for biochemical methods & glossary of biochemical terms].
66. Heather M. Stoll, Nobumichi Shimizu, David Archer, Patrizia Ziveri, “”Coccolithophore productivity response to greenhouse event of the Paleocene--Eocene Thermal Maximum”, Earth and Planetary Science Letters, Volume 258, Issues 1–2, 15 June 2007, Pages 192–206: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0012821X07001902 .
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68. John Cook, “Earth’s 5 mass extinction events”, Sceptical Science, 15 April 2010: http://www.skepticalscience.com/Earths-five-mass-extinction-events.html .
69. "Big 5 mass extinction events”, BBC, Nature: http://www.bbc.co.uk/nature/extinction_events .
70. "Paleocene- Eocene Thermal Maximum”, Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paleocene%E2%80%93Eocene_Thermal_Maximum .
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[81]. “Divest from fossil fuels”: https://sites.google.com/site/300orgsite/divest-from-fossil-fuels .
[82]. Ken Branson, “New finding shows that climate change can happen in a geological instant ”, Rutgers News, 6 October 2013: http://news.rutgers.edu/research-news/new-finding-shows-climate-change-can-happen-geological-instant/20131003#.Ul42lFP3S42 .
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[87]. Climate Justice & Intergenerational Equity (2014): https://sites.google.com/site/300orgsite/climate-justice .
[88]. Gideon Polya. “Polya's 3 Laws Of Economics Expose Deadly, Dishonest And Terminal Neoliberal Capitalism”, Countercurrents, 17 October, 2015: http://www.countercurrents.org/polya171015.htm .
[89]. Climate Reality Project, “Climate Crisis 101. Learn the basics of climate change science and how you can take action” (2018): https://www.climaterealityproject.org/sites/climaterealityproject.org/files/Climate%20101_FINAL.pdf?utm_source=advocacy&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=general&utm_content=climate_101_ebook .
Dr Gideon Polya has been teaching science students at a major Australian university over 4 decades. He published some 130 works in a 5 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: http://globalbodycount.blogspot.com/ ); see also his contributions “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 ) and “Ongoing Palestinian Genocide” in “The Plight of the Palestinians (edited by William Cook, Palgrave Macmillan, London, 2010: http://mwcnews.net/focus/analysis/4047-the-plight-of-the-palestinians.html ). He has just published a revised and updated 2008 version of his 1998 book “Jane Austen and the Black Hole of British History” (see: http://janeaustenand.blogspot.com/ ) 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: http://www.open2.net/thingsweforgot/ bengalfamine_programme.html ). When words fail one can say it in pictures - for images of Gideon Polya's huge paintings for the Planet, Peace, Mother and Child see: http://sites.google.com/site/artforpeaceplanetmotherchild/ and http://www.flickr.com/photos/gideonpolya/ .
ALPHABETICALLY-ORGANIZED, DETAILED EXPLANATIONS OF KEY TERMS RELATING TO ADVOCACY & ACHIEVEMENT OF CLIMATE JUSTICE, INTERGENERATIONAL JUSTICE & INTERGENERATIONAL EQUITY
ABC Strategy. Successful –isms and –ists have an ABC strategy involving Accountability (negative feedback for non-adherence), Badge (symbol) and Credo (brief statement of position). Environmental-ism requires (A) accountability e.g. holding people, politicians, parties, candidates, countries and corporations accountable by boycotts, divestment, sanctions, exposure and scorn, (B) wearing a badge at all times (e.g. “300 ppm CO2”) and (C) a simple credo e.g. “For a safe planet for all peoples and all species we must urgently return the atmospheric CO2 from the present 400 ppm CO2 to the safe and sustainable pre-industrial 300 ppm CO2”,
Accelerated Weathering of Limestone (AWL). Proposed but not yet commercial Accelerated Weathering of Limestone (AWL) involves waste gas from burning coal or gas being passed through a sea water-limestone (CaCO3) scrubber with the following reaction: CO2 (gas) + CaCO3 (solid) + H2O <-> Ca2+ (aqueous) + 2 HCO3- (aqueous) . The scrubbing solution is then piped to the sea. Carbon in the oceans as bicarbonate is 10 times that in all recoverable fossil fuel reserves and about 60 times that in the CO2 in the atmosphere. The carbon in carbonate minerals is about 4,000 times greater than the carbon in oil and coal fossil fuel reserves and the AWL process would in part reverse the deleterious acidification the oceans due to the massive CO2 pollution of the atmosphere [1].
Anthropogenic Climate Change (AGW) (see Climate Change and Man-made Climate Change). Anthropogenic Climate Change refers to the change in the Earth’s climate due to Man’s pollution of the atmosphere with greenhouse gases (GHGs), principally carbon dioxide (CO2) and methane (CH4), since the start of the Industrial Revolution in the mid-18th century [1]. CO2 is the major contributor to anthropogenic global warming (AGW), deriving from aerobic respiration involving oxidation of carbohydrate ( (CH2O)n + O2 -> n CO2 + nH2O), lime (CaO) in cement production (CaCO3 -> CaO + CO2), and the combustion of fossil fuels such as coal ( C + O2 -> CO2) , oil (CH3(CH2)nH + (n + 1)O2 + (n + 2) O2 -> (n+1)CO2 + (n+2)H2O) -> (n+1)CO2 + (n+2)H2O) and natural gas, mainly methane (CH4 + 2O2 -> CO2 + 2 H2O). Other GHGs (Global Warming Potential, GWP, relative to CO2 on a 20 year time frame in parentheses) include methane (CH4; 79, or 105 with aerosol impacts included) (from natural gas and anaerobic biomass degradation), nitrous oxide (N2O, 289) (from power plants and agriculture) and man-made GHGs e.g. chlorofluorohydrocarbon CFC-12, CCl2F2 (11,000), hydrochlorofluorohydrocarbon HFC-22, CHClF2 (5,160), hydrofluorohydrocarbon HFC-23, CHF3 (12,000), sulphur hexafluoride SF6 (16,300), nitrogen trifluoride NF3 (12,300).
Avoidable Death (see Avoidable Mortality, Excess Death, Excess Mortality). Avoidable Mortality (Avoidable Mortality, Excess Death, Excess Mortality) is the difference between the ACTUAL mortality in a country and the mortality EXPECTED in a peaceful, decently-run country with the same demographics. By 1950 ALL the World potentially had access to the requisites for very the low avoidable mortality obtaining in European countries, namely clean water, sanitation, proper nutrition, literacy (especially female literacy), primary health care, antibiotics and major preventive medicine programs including public health education, prophylactics (such as insecticides, antiseptics, mosquito netting, soap and condoms) and major vaccinations. However such benefits took decades to arrive in many countries and are still variously lacking in African countries. Nevertheless, in most countries outside Africa the annual mortality rate (expressed as deaths per 1,000 people per year) typically declined to a minimum and in the best countries (typically European and East Asian countries) eventually began to rise, with this reflecting aging populations. Using United Nations Population Division demographic data going back to 1950 (the 2002 Revision), it was possible to make base-line estimates of expected mortality for various demographically distinct groups. For many high birth-rate Third World countries the base-line mortality estimates clustered about 4 deaths per 1,000 of population [2].
Avoidable Mortality (see Avoidable Death, Excess Death, Excess Mortality).
Biochar. Biochar is the charcoal ( i.e. carbon, C) derived from the anaerobic (minus oxygen) heating of cellulosic waste to about 400-700C: [3]. This represents one of the major ways if reducing the atmospheric CO2 from the present circa 400 ppm to a safe and sustainable circa 300 ppm CO2 that had obtained until the last century for about 1 million years (as advocated by 300.org: [4, 5] as compared to the politically pragmatic but insufficient 350 ppm CO2 advocated by 350.org [6] ).
Biofuel Genocide. The legislatively mandated “food for fuel” perversion is grossly wasteful, involves a huge Carbon Debt, and drives up grain price in a hungry world with the potential for famine as in the WW2 BegkaFamine in which 6-7 million poeope doed because f a 4-fold increase in the price of rice [2] ( see the :Biofuel Genocide” website)..
Boycott. (see Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS)). Peace is the only way but silence kills and silence is complicity. Decent people are obliged to (a) inform everyone they can about the worsening Climate Crisis and (b) urge and apply Boycotts as appropriate against all people, politicians, parties, policies, companies, corporations and countries complicit in the worsening Climate Emergency .e.g. Boycott the climate change denialist Murdoch Media [7]. :
Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) (see Boycott). BDS was successfully applied against Apartheid South Africa and is now widely applied against Apartheid Israel in the interests of 1-man-1-vote democracy, justice, human rights and reconciliation in Palestine [8]. Many people, notably anti-racist Jewish humanitarians , demand BDS in support of equal human rights and indeed any human rights for 10 million human rights-deprived Palestinians [8] and BDS is surely required agaisn the climate criminals threatening to extinguish the very lives of 10 billion mostly Third World people this century through unaddressed climate change. Some advocate Boycott of Murdoch media and other Mainstream media (MSM) which have variously promoted Climate Change Denialism (Climate Change Scepticism) and/or Effective Climate Change Denialism (Effective Climate Change Scepticism) [7].
Cap and Trade (see Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS)). This is basically a fraudulent device to allow particular countries to set a notional cap on greenhouse gas (GHG) pollution and then trade limited and dodgy Carbon Credits and limited and dodgy licences to pollute the one common atmosphere of all countries. This might be a bit more plausible if the licences were sold by acutely global warming –threatened countries like mega-delta nations (e.g. Bangladesh and Myanmar) and Island States (e.g. Tuvalu and Kiribati)
Carbon Burning. Carbon burning is the burning of carbon-containing substances e.g. wood, coal, gas and oil to yield carbon dioxide (CO2) and other substances (see Carbon Burning Pollutants) [2, 5]. Thus , for example, the compete combustion of carbon-containing fuels is as follows: carbohydrate (e.g. wood cellulose) ( (CH2O)n + O2 -> n CO2 + nH2O), coal ( C + O2 -> CO2) , oil (CH3(CH2)nH + (n + 1) O2 + (n+2)/2 O2 -> (n+1)CO2 + (n+2)H2O) and natural gas, mainly methane (CH4 + 2O2 -> CO2 + 2 H2O) [5].
Carbon Burning-related Deaths. About 10,000 Australians die each year from the effects of pollutants from vehicles, coal burning for electricity and other carbon burning, the estimates being 2,200, 4,600 and 2,800, respectively. Given Australia's annual Domestic GHG pollution of about 552 Mt CO2-e (2011) and given a "value of a statistical life" (VOSL) of $7.6 million per person ($73 billion pa for Australian carbon burning-related deaths) and $10 billion pa in fossil fuel subsidies, the minimum Carbon Price to cover carbon burning-derived deaths and carbon burning subsidies is $7.6 million X 9,600 = $73 billion plus $10 billion = $83,000 million/552 Mt CO2-e = or $150 per tonne CO2-e (A$555 per tonne C) as compared to the best political offer yet in Australia of $23 per tonne CO2-e.” [9]. It is estimated that about 5 million people die each year worldwide from climate change (0.5 million) and 4.5 million (carbon burning pollutants), it being estimated that 100 million people will have died thus by 2030 if climate change is not properly addressed [10, 11]. .
Carbon Burning Pollutants. Gas-fired power plants (GFPPs) are clean-er than coal-fired power plants (CFPPs) in the sense that per unit of electrical energy they emit lower amounts of pollutants such as the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide (CO2), and the very toxic pollutants carbon monoxide (CO), nitrogen oxides (NOx), sulphur dioxide (SO2), particulates (fine soot to ultrafine particles), and heavy metals such as mercury (Hg) [12]. Thus according to Naturalgas.org [13], the fossil fuel-derived pollutant emissions levels (in pounds per Btu of energy input) are as follows (noting that this is for average gas burning and not specifically for gas-turbine power stations) - for CO2: 117,000 (gas), 164,000 (oil) and 208,000 (coal); for CO: 40 (gas), 33 (oil) and 208 (coal); for NOx: 92 (gas), 448 (oil) and 457 (coal); for SO2: 1 (gas), 1,122 (oil), and 2,591 (coal); for particulates: 7 (gas), 84 (oil) and 2,744 (coal); and for Hg: 0.000 (gas), 0.007 (oil) and 0.016 (coal). In addition, radioactive material is a significant pollutant from coal burning but not from gas burning. However, while Hg and radioactivity are negligible pollutants for gas burning and SO2 emission is very low, CO2, NOx and particulate matter (PM) are significant pollutants from GFPPs [12, 13]. Particulate matter (PM) is generated by GFPPs and CFPPs but gas-fired power plants disproportionately produce fine PM that is of particular concern because it can penetrate deep into the lungs [12]. Thus according to the World Health Organization (WHO) “no threshold for PM has been identified below which no damage to health is observed.” [14].
Carbon Credit (see Carbon Debt). The Historical Carbon Debt (aka Historical Climate Debt) of a country can be measured by the amount of greenhouse gas (GHG) it has introduced into the atmosphere since the start of the Industrial revolution in the mid-18th century. The Carbon Credit of a country can be measured by the amount of GHG it can generate as its "fair share" of the 600 billion tnnes of CO2 the World is permitted to generate between 2010 and zero emissions in 2050 if it is to have a 75% chance of avoiding a catastrophic 2C temperature rise (EU policy). Historical Carbon debt minus Carbon Credit equals Net Carbon Debt - and when a negative number can be called Net Carbon Credit (aka Net Climate Credit) [15].
Carbon Debt (see Carbon Credit). NASA’s Dr James Hansen has provided a breakdown of global responsibility for fossil fuel-derived CO2 pollution between 1751 and 2006 as a percentage (%) of the Historical Carbon Debt (1751-2006) of 346 Gt C [16]. A US dollar value can be placed on that Carbon Debt from the estimate of a requisite Carbon Price for effective climate change action of $150 per tonne CO2-e [15. Thus $150 per tonne CO2-e x 346 billion tonnes C x 3.7 tonne CO2-e per tonne C = $192 trillion or about 2.3 times the World’s GDP. Annual GHG pollution is 64 billion tonnes CO2-e and thus Carbon Debt for future generations in increasing each year by $150 per tonne CO2-e x 0.064 trillion tonnes CO2-e = $9.6 trillion i.e. by about $10 trillion annually.
Carbon dioxide (CO2). Carbon dioxide (CO2 for convenience on the web but in chemical convention CO2 ) is the major contributor to anthropogenic global warming (AGW), deriving from aerobic respiration involving oxidation of carbohydrate (e.g. wood cellulose) ( (CH2O)n + O2 -> n CO2 + nH2O), lime (CaO) generation in cement production (CaCO3 -> CaO + CO2), and the combustion of fossil fuels such as coal ( C + O2 -> CO2) , oil (CH3(CH2)nH + (n + 1) O2 + (n+2)/2 O2 -> (n+1)CO2 + (n+2)H2O) and natural gas, mainly methane (CH4 + 2O2 -> CO2 + 2 H2O) [1].
Carbon Dioxide-equivalent (CO2-e). CO2-equivalent (CO2-e) is the sum of all the GHGs (excluding water, H2O) expressed as CO2-equivalents). Water is excluded on the assumption that the hydrological cycle means that there no net effect of water [1].
Carbon Pollution. Carbon pollution refers to the increased atmospheric CO2 and CO2-e [1]. Note that carbon (C) has an atomic weight of 12 and carbon dioxide (CO2) has a molecular weight of 44 so one converts from “atmospheric C” to “atmospheric CO2” by multiplying by 44/12 = 3.7 e.g. 750 Gt atmospheric C = 750 GtC x 3.7 t CO2/t C = circa 2,800 Gt atmospheric CO2 . More specifically, Carbon Pollution refers of extra carbon dioxide (CO2), extra methane (CH4) or extra CO2-equivalent (CO2-e, this including all GHGs excluding water (H2O) expressed as CO2-equivalents). Until the mid-20th century, CO2 in the atmosphere had been no higher than 300 ppm for about 1 million years but has now reached 400 ppm (at Mauna Loa) and increasing at 2.4 ppm CO2 each year. CO2 also dissolves in the ocean and about 90% of the extra heart from global warming is in the ocean [1].
Carbon Pollution-related Deaths (also see Carbon Burning-related Deaths). About 5 million people die each year world-wide due to Carbon Pollution-derived climate change (0.5 million) and from Carbon Burning Pollutants (4.5 million) and it it being estimated that 100 million people will have died thus by 2030 if climate change is not properly addressed [10, 11]. Toxic pollutants from the burning of carbon-containing fuels (e.g. in wood burning, vehicles, industry and in gas-fired and coal-fired power stations) variously include carbon monoxide (CO0, nitrogen oxides (NOx e.g. N2O, NO2), heavy metals (e,g, mercury), radioactivity, fine Particulate Matter (e.g. PM10, PM2.5)), Volatile Organic Compounds (some carcinogenic) and sulphur dioxide (SO2) [12-14].
Carbon Sequestration (also see Carbon Storage). Carbon Sequestration can refer to the so far non-commercially- proven scheme for sequestering CO2 from power stations underground or at the bottom of the oceans. Carbon sequestration can also be achieved by generating Biochar (charcoal, carbon) and burying it safe from combustion. Proposed but not yet commercial Accelerated Weathering of Limestone (AWL) involves waste gas from burning coal or gas being passed through a sea water-limestone (CaCO3) scrubber with the following reaction: CO2 (gas) + CaCO3 (solid) + H2O <-> Ca2+ (aqueous) + 2 HCO3- (aqueous) . The scrubbing solution is then piped to the sea. Carbon in the oceans as bicarbonate is 10 times that in all recoverable fossil fuel reserves and about 60 times that in the CO2 in the atmosphere. The carbon in carbonate minerals is about 4,000 times greater than the carbon in oil and coal fossil fuel reserves and the AWL process would in part reverse the deleterious acidification the oceans due to the massive CO2 pollution of the atmosphere [1].
Carbon Storage (also see Carbon Sequestration). There is presently: 700- 750 GtC (billion tonne carbon) in atmosphere (mostly as 750 GtC x 3.7 t CO2/t C = circa 2,800 Gt CO2 and about half due to historical fossil fuel combustion); 700 GtC in biomass (mostly wood); 1,600 GtC in soil; 36,000 GtC in ocean as bicarbonate ion (HCO3-); there is no net CO2 from vulcanism and weathering (on a time scale of less than 100,000 years) [1].
Carbon Price (see Carbon Tax). Man-made climate change is happening because GHG polluters are not held financially responsible for the health and environmental consequences i.e. governments are hugely subsidizing the killing of the planet. Thus, for example, in Australia (one of the world’s worst annual per capita GHG polluters), the Coalition Federal Government insists on a Carbon Price of $0 (zero dollars) per tonne CO2-e i.e. it allows climate criminal polluters to dangerously pollute the one common atmosphere and ocean of all countries on earth for free. In contrast, leading climate change economist Dr Chris Hope from 89-Nobel-Laureate Cambridge University estimates that a Carbon Price of about $150 per tonne CO2-e is required for effective climate change action [17]. Australia’s current annual Domestic greenhouse gas (GHG) pollution is about 2 Gt CO2-e (2 billion CO2-e) [1] and hence the climate criminal Australian Coalition Government is subsidizing this deadly, terracidal activity to the tune of $150 per tonne CO2-e x 2 billion tonnes CO2-e per year = $300 billion per year [18].
Carbon Tax (see Carbon Price). A Carbon Price can be established fraudulently via a Cap and Trade (see Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS)). However it can be honestly set by a direct Carbon Tax analogous to an excise tax on alcohol. Thus leading climate scientist Dr James Hansen has suggested the following: “A price on emissions that cause harm is essential. Yes, a carbon tax. Carbon tax with 100 percent dividend is needed to wean us off fossil fuel addiction. Tax and dividend allows the marketplace, not politicians, to make investment decisions. Carbon tax on coal, oil and gas is simple, applied at the first point of sale or port of entry. The entire tax must be returned to the public, an equal amount to each adult, a half-share for children. This dividend can be deposited monthly in an individual’s bank account. Carbon tax with 100 percent dividend is non-regressive. On the contrary, you can bet that low and middle income people will find ways to limit their carbon tax and come out ahead. Profligate energy users will have to pay for their emissions. Demand for low-carbon high-efficiency products will spur innovation, making our products more competitive on international markets. Carbon emissions will plummet as energy efficiency and renewable energies grow rapidly. Black soot, mercury and other fossil fuel emissions will decline. A brighter, cleaner future , with energy independence, is possible” [19].
Climate Change (see Man-made Climate Change). Climate Change refers to the change in the Earth’s climate due to Man’s pollution of the atmosphere with greenhouse gases (GHGs), principally carbon dioxide (CO2) and methane (CH4), since the start of the Industrial Revolution in the mid-18th century [1]. The Greenhouse Effect due to absorption of (infrared) radiation by CO2 was discovered by UK scientist John Tyndall in the mid-19th century [1].
Climate Change Action (see Climate Change Inaction). The World is rapidly running out of time to deal with man-made climate change. Thus according to the German WBGU and Australian Climate Commission (sacked by the effective climate change denialist Coalition Federal Government and now surviving unfunded as the Australian Climate Council), relative to 2014 we have only 15 years left before we exceed the Terminal Carbon Budget of 600 Gt CO2 that must not be exceeded if we are to have a 75% chance of avoiding a catastrophic 2C temperature rise [20, 21]. However a more stringent analysis taking methane CO2-e contributions into account estimates that relative to 2014 we have only 4 years left before we exceed 600 Gt CO2-e [22, 23]. Business As Usual (BAU) and exploitation if all fossil fuel reserves means that the world will exceed the Terminal Carbon Budget by a factor of 5 [24] and Australian exploitation of all its fossil fuel and iron ore reserves means that it will exceed the terminal Carbon Budget by a factor of 3 [25]. An estimate of “years left to zero emissions” has been determined for all countries relative to mid-2011 - countries that must cease GHG pollution within 10 years relative to mid-2011 are Belize (1.3 years), Qatar (2.3), Guyana (2.4), Malaysia (3.4), United Arab Emirates (3.4), Kuwait (4.1), Papua New Guinea (4.3), Brunei (4.8), Australia (4.8), Antigua & Barbuda (4.9), Zambia (5.1), Canada (5.1), Bahrain (5.2), United States (5.5), Trinidad & Tobago (6.4), Luxembourg (5.9), Panama (6.3), New Zealand (6.5), Estonia (6.9), Botswana (7.0), Ireland (7.4), Saudi Arabia (7.6), Venezuela (7.9), Indonesia (8.4), Equatorial Guinea (8.6), Belgium (8.7), Turkmenistan (8.8), Singapore (8.9), Czech Republic (9.0), Liberia (9.0), Netherlands (9.3), Russia (9.3), Nicaragua (9.3), Finland (9.5), Oman (9.7), Palau (9.8), Brazil (9.8), Uruguay (9.8), Denmark (10.0). If one considers Australia’s Domestic plus Exported GHG pollution, Australia used up its “fair share” of the World’s Terminal Carbon Budget in 2011 (3 years ago) [26].
Climate Change Cost (see Climate Cost). (A). Leading climate change economist Dr Chris Hope from 89-Nobel-Laureate Cambridge University estimates that a Carbon Price of about $200 per tonne CO2-e is required for effective climate change action [17]. World Bank analysts have revised upwards the annual global GHG pollution from 42 Gt CO2-e to 64 Gt CO2-e [27]. One can accordingly estimate the annual cost of climate change inaction (i.e. a Carbon Price of $0 per tonne CO2-e) at $200 per tonne CO2-e x 64 billion tonnes CO2-e per year = $13 trillion or about 15% of the Global GDP of $85 trillion. (B). Another way is to consider the biochar-based cost of reducing the atmospheric CO2 from the present dangerous 400 ppm to a safe and sustainable 300 ppm CO2 [3-4]. The cost of conversion of cellulosic waste to biochar in the US mid-West is about $49-$74 per tonne CO2 as compared to $210-$303 per tonne CO2 in the UK. There are 2,800 billion tonnes of CO2 in the atmosphere and at $200 per tonne CO2 the cost of reversing 2 centuries of fossil fuel burning by means of biochar-based return of the atmospheric CO2 concentration to the pre-industrial 300 ppm from the current 400 ppm by removing 0.5 x 2,800 = 1,400 billion tonnes CO2 is $280 trillion or 3.3 times the current world annual GDP of $85 trillion. (C) A further way is to consider the US EPA recently estimating the Value of a Statistical Life (VOSL, VSL) at $7.4 million per person. All men being equal, we can apply this estimate to the 10 million people who die annually [2020] from climate change and carbon burning [10, 11] to get a Climate Change Cost estimate of $74 trillion per year. These numbers, while horrifying, nevertheless show that it is still conceivable (albeit very unlikely) that we could save the world from climate disaster [1, 28, 29].
Climate Change Denialism (see Climate Change Scepticism). Science is about the critical testing of potentially falsifiable hypotheses and thus is inherently sceptical. Climate Change Denialism (Climate Change Scepticism) of a tiny minority of independent or fossil fuel corporation-backed scientists is overly sceptical to the point of radical and dangerous divergence from an overwhelming consensus of circa 97% of scientists. Big Money (notably fossil fuel corporations and the Murdoch media Empire) has ensured substantial layperson Climate Change Denialism (Climate Change Scepticism) in the neoliberal Western Murdochracies, Lobbyocracies and Corporatocracies with this leading to Effective Climate Change Denialism (Effective Climate Change Scepticism) and dangerous Climate Change Inaction in countries like Canada, Australia and the USA. However US Secretary of State John Kerry has signalled a change in the US Democrat postion in a recent speech in Djakarta, Indonesia: “But because of climate change, it is no secret that today, Indonesia is also one of the most vulnerable countries on Earth… First and foremost, we should not allow a tiny minority of shoddy scientists and science and extreme ideologues to compete with scientific fact… The science is unequivocal. And those who refuse to believe it are simply burying their heads in the sand” [30].
Climate Change Inaction (see Climate Change Action, Climate Change Denialism and Climate Change Scepticism). The Synthesis Report from the 2,500-delegate, March 2009 Copenhagen Climate Change Scientific Conference concluded “Inaction is inexcusable” [31]. A 2010 Open Letter by 255 members of the prestigious US National Academy of Sciences (including 11 Nobel Laureates) concluded “Delay is not an option” [32]. The World is rapidly running out of time and money to deal with the worsening climate crisis - thanks to climate criminals the Carbon Debt cost for future generations to restore a safe planet is now $192 trillion and increasing by about $10 trillion each year.
Climate Change-related Deaths. DARA has estimated 0.5 million climate change-related deaths each year [10, 11] . However this may be a considerable under-estimate because it can be readily determined from UN Population Division data that 18 million people die avoidably each year in a Developing World that is increasingly impacted by climate change (it was estimated that total global annual avoidable deaths in 2003 totalled 16 million [1]).
Climate Change Scepticism (see Climate Change Denial).
Climate Corruption. Worsening GHG pollution means continuing pollution of the one common atmosphere and one common ocean of all countries i.e. it is theft of common resources. This dangerous theft is compounded by the absence of a Carbon Price due to fossil fuel lobbying in the neoliberal Murdochracies, Lobbyocracies and Corporatocracies in which Big Money buys people, politicians, parties, policies, public perception of reality and political power in utter perversion of public life and democracy i.e. egregious corruption that also involves murderous depraved indifference toward the 5 million people who perish each year due to climate change (0.5 million) and carbon burning pollutants (4.5 million) [10, 11]. Thanks to climate criminals the Carbon Debt cost for future generations to restore a safe planet is now $192 trillion and increasing by about $10 trillion each year.
Climate Cost (see Climate Change Cost). The annual cost of climate change can be estimated at (A) $13 trillion (from non-application of a Carbon Price of $200 per tonne CO2), and (B) $74 trillion (from a US VOSL of $7.4 million per person applied to 10 million annual deaths from carbon burning and climate change). Thanks to climate criminals the Carbon Debt cost for future generations to restore a safe planet is now $250 trillion and increasing by about $13 trillion each year [2020].
Climate Crimes. The current Climate Crimes involve (1) illegal, remorseless, corrupt, charge-free pollution of the one common atmosphere and ocean of all countries, (2) depraved indifference to 5 million annual deaths from climate change and carbon burning, (3) an annual increase in Carbon Debt by about $10 trillion, (4) worsening damage and threat to vulnerable Humanity (climate racism, climate terrorism), (5) worsening damage to the Biosphere (the extinction rate is already 100-1000 times greater than normal [33] and most coral and coral reefs have only 20 years to go before the tipping point of irreversible decline [34], and (6) worsening Climate Genocide that will see 10 billion mostly Third World people perish this century if climate change is not properly addressed [35]. Thanks to climate criminals the Carbon Debt cost for future generations to restore a safe planet is now $192 trillion and increasing by about $10 trillion each year.
Climate Criminal. Climate criminals are those who commit climate crimes (see Climate Crimes) and include corporate leaders and complicit politicians “persuaded” into climate change inaction and complicity in climate criminality.Thanks to climate criminals the Carbon Debt cost for future generations to restore a safe planet is now $192 trillion and increasing by about $10 trillion each year.
Climate Crisis. With as few as 4 years left at current rates of GHG pollution before the World exceeds the Terminal Carbon Budget of 600 Gt CO2 [22] , energy-related GHG pollution at a record high [36], the World running at the worst-case scenario of the IPCC [37, 38], the Arctic summer sea ice set to disappear in 2015 [39], over 5,025 Gt CO2-e of methane set to be released in coming decades [40] and atmospheric CO2 at 400 ppm and increasing at a record rate [41] we have a climate crisis and a climate emergency that are made worse by World governments not in effect recognizing the crisis and emergency [42, 43]. Thanks to climate criminals the Carbon Debt cost for future generations to restore a safe planet is now $192 trillion and increasing by about $10 trillion each year.
Climate Denialism (see Climate Change Denialism, Climate Change Scepticism, and Climate Scepticism).
Climate Emergency (see Climate Crisis).
Climate Holocaust. Holocaust simply means death of a huge number of people as exampled by the WW2 Jewish Holocaust (5-6 million people killed, 1 in 6 dying from deprivation), the WW2 Holocaust in general (30 million Slavs, Jews and Gypsies killed), the WW2 Bengali Holocaust (6-7 million Indians deliberately starved to death by the British) and the 35 million Chinese killed associated with the Japanese occupation of China in the1930s and 1940s. [2]. A predicted Climate Genocide involving the avoidable deaths of 10 billion people this century due to unaddressed climate change certainly represents a Climate Holocaust as well as a Climate Genocide (see Climate Genocide). .
Climate Genocide. Holocaust simply means death of a huge number of people as exampled by the WW2 Jewish Holocaust (5-6 million people killed, 1 in 6 dying from deprivation), the WW2 Holocaust in general (30 million Slavs, Jews and Gypsies killed), the WW2 Bengali Holocaust (6-7 million Indians deliberately starved to death by the British) and the 35 million Chinese killed associated with the Japanese occupation of China in the1930s and 1940s. [2]. However the International Law definition of “genocide” is by Article 2 of the UN Genocide Convention: it involves Assessment of “intent’ by those responsible, and states “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.” [44]. “Intent” to commit mass murder is only rarely explicitly expressed but can be readily established through the horrendous, ongoing reality. Javier Sethness-Castro comments in relation to “intent” in relation to the related phenomenon of “climate genocide” that similarly arises from racist First World greed and depraved indifference: “Dominant relations can hence be characterized as governed by what Chomsky calls “depraved indifference” to human life. Australian scientist Gideon Polya has termed the current situation “climate genocide”, while Bangladeshi climatologist Atiq Rahman similarly labels it “climatic genocide”. The phrases are accurate if the word genocide is to be understood as murder of persons belonging to particular classes and social groups, as originally formulated by Raphael Lemkin, the concept’s inventor. If the definition is extended to membership or residence in particular geographic regions – a collective of sorts – the term fits better, even if the question of intent for such eventualities is left unresolved: Under the internationally accepted definition, acts of genocide occur only if governed by conscious intent. Against this view, Chomsky is right to suggest that those concerned with such problems focus on “predictable outcome as evidence for intent”. Not to work to undermine global capitalism is effectively to be complicit with the genocide of southern peoples. Jean-Paul Sartre put it well in a statement he issued as president of the International War Crimes Tribunal on Vietnam: “The genocidal intent is implicit in the facts. It is not necessarily premeditated.” [45]. Dr Gideon Polya has made a Formal Complaint to the International Criminal Court over Australian involvement in Climate Genocide and other genocidal atrocities (2008). [46].
Climate Injustice (see Climate Justice, Intergenerational Injustice, and Intergenerational Justice). Unaddressed man-made climate change represents an enormous injustice to the vulnerable of the World, in particular those of the Developing World, about 10 billion of whom will die this century under Business Ass Usual. However there is also an immense intergenerational injustice as future generations in both the North and the South are bequeathed a mounting Carbon Debt of about $10 trillion each year (as outlined above, a Carbon Price of about $150 per tonne CO2-e is required for effective climate change action [17]. World Bank analysts have revised upwards the annual global GHG pollution from 42 Gt CO2-e to 64 Gt CO2-e [27]. One can accordingly estimate the annual cost of climate change inaction (i.e. a Carbon Price of $0 per tonne CO2-e) at $150 per tonne CO2-e x 64 billion tonnes CO2-e per year = $9,600 billion = $9.6 trillion or about 11% of Global GDP of $85 trillion). Dr James Hansen et al.: “We assess climate impacts of global warming using ongoing observations and paleoclimate data. We use Earth’s measured energy imbalance, paleoclimate data, and simple representations of the global carbon cycle and temperature to define emission reductions needed to stabilize climate and avoid potentially disastrous impacts on today’s young people, future generations, and nature. A cumulative industrial-era limit of ~500 GtC fossil fuel emissions and 100 GtC storage in the biosphere and soil would keep climate close to the Holocene range to which humanity and other species are adapted. Cumulative emissions of ~1000 GtC, sometimes associated with 2°C global warming, would spur “slow” feedbacks and eventual warming of 3–4°C with disastrous consequences. Rapid emissions reduction is required to restore Earth’s energy balance and avoid ocean heat uptake that would practically guarantee irreversible effects. Continuation of high fossil fuel emissions, given current knowledge of the consequences, would be an act of extraordinary witting intergenerational injustice. Responsible policymaking requires a rising price on carbon emissions that would preclude emissions from most remaining coal and unconventional fossil fuels and phase down emissions from conventional fossil fuels” [47]
Climate Justice (see Climate Justice, Intergenerational Injustice, and Intergenerational Justice). .
Climate Racism. The worsening Climate Genocide will overwhelmingly severely impact the non-European South rather than the European North and there is thus a climate racism dimension to the worsening climate genocide. Between 1950 and 2005 global avoidable deaths from deprivation totaled 1.3 billion Spaceship Earth with the First World in charge of the flight deck and 1.2 billion of these deaths were associated with the non-European World and 0.6 billion with the Muslim World [2]. Today, about 18 million people die avoidably from deprivation ever year in the Developing World (minus China, a nation for which the annual avoidable mortality is essentially zero) [2]. Unaddressed global warming will worsen this Developing World avoidable mortality holocaust with a worst case scenario of an annual average 100 million avoidable deaths [35].
Climate Scepticism (see Climate Change Denialism, Climate Change Scepticism, and Climate Denialism).
Climate Terrorism. Terrorism is the ruthless killing of innocents in support of an ideological or political agenda. The agenda of the capitalist Establishment is maximum profit from a Carbon economy at the expense of the Biosphere and the bulk of Humanity as a whole that depends upon it - .knowing, remorseless mass murder arising from a ruthless economic agenda i.e. climate terrorism..
Climate War. Climate war is a predictable outcome of the worsening resource depletion and worsening Climate Genocide. Indeed the violence associated with the Arab Spring can be seen as driven by economic desperation as well as by ideology.
Coal. Coal derives from anaerobic geologic conversion of cellulosic carbohydrates to carbon ((CH2O)n + heat, pressure -> nC + n H2O). Complete burng of coal © generates CO2: C + O2 -> CO2.
Divestment (see Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions, BDS).
Divestment From Deforestation. Deforestation in the non-European World and land use in general (including food price-elevating and Carbon Debt-incurring food for fuel agriculture, the Biofuel Genocide [48- 50) ] ) are now major contributors to GHG pollution [27, 51, 52].
Divestment From Fossil Fuels. The Western democracies have become Murdochracies, Lobbyocracies and Corporatocracies in which Big Money buys people, politicians, parties, policies, public perception of reality and political power. This transformation has crippled effective action against climate change. Some key strategies that should be adopted by decent people and NGOs around the world are (a) to urge and apply Boycotts, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) against all people, politicians, parties, candidates, countries and corporations involved in man-made climate change and (b) to inform everyone they can about the worsening climate emergency and the need for urgent action. Top climate change economist Professor Lord Stern on report about risks to investment in fossil fuels:" Smart investors can see that investing in companies that rely solely or heavily on constantly replenishing reserves of fossil fuels is becoming a very risky decision. The report raises serious questions as to the ability of the financial system to act on industry-wide long term risk, since currently the only measure of risk is performance against industry benchmarks” [53]. According to Carbon tracker: “ Between 60-80% of cooal, oil and gas reserves of publicly listed compani4s are unburnable if the world is to have a chance of not exceeding global warming of 2oC. The total coal, oil and gas reserves listed on the world’s stock exchanges equals 762GtCO2 – approximately a quarter of the world’s total reserves [of 3,000 Gt CO2]” [53]. Note that the Terminal Carbon Budget Terminal Carbon Budget that must not be exceeded if we are to have a 75% chance of avoiding a catastrophic 2C temperature rise is 600 Gt CO2 [20, 21]. It gets worse – thus, the Global Warming Potential (GWP) of CH4 on a 20 year time frame and with aerosol impacts considered is 105 times that of CO2 [55, 56]. The 50 Gt (billion tonnes) CH4 to he released from the East Siberian Arctic Shelf in coming decades [40] is thus equivalent to 50 billion tonnes CH4 x 105 tonnes CO2-equivalent/tonne CH4 = 5,250 tonnes CO2-e or about NINE (9) times more than the world’s terminal greenhouse gas (GHG) pollution budget. We are doomed unless we can stop this Arctic CH4 release [28]. “Divest from fossil fuels” [54] details towns, cities, countries, colleges, universities, religious organizations, other organizations and individuals committed to divestment from fossil fuel companies.
Divestment from Greenhouse Gas Pollution (see Divestment From Fossil Fuels, Vegan and Vegetarian). World Bank analysts have re-assessed the contribution of livestock to World annual GHG pollution. Their re-assessment is that annual World GHG pollution is 64 Gt CO2-e , 50% higher than the previous estimate of 42 Gt CO2-e and with methanogenic livestock raising and attendant land use contributing over 51% of the bigger figure [27]. There clearly needs to be Divestment not just from fossil fuel companies but from all other commercial activities generating GHGs.
Effective Climate Change Denialism (see Effective Climate Change Scepticism). This term is well illustrated by climate criminal Australia where the major political parties, the governing Liberal Party-National Party Coalition and the opposition Labor Party (collectively also known as the Lib-Labs or Liberal-Laborals) variously pay lip service to climate change but have a common policy of climate change inaction involving a derisory 5% off 2000 GHG pollution by 20202 coupled with unlimited coal, gas and iron ore exports that will see Australia exceed the whole World’s Terminal Carbon Budget of 600 Gt CO2 by a factor of 3 [25].
Effective Climate Change Scepticism (see Effective Climate Change Denialism ).
Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS) (see Cap and Trade). This is basically a fraudulent device to allow particular countries to set a notional cap on greenhouse gas (GHG) pollution and then trade limited and dodgy Carbon Credits and limited and dodgy licences to pollute the one common atmosphere ands one common ocean of all countries. The ETS approach (a) is empirically unsuccessful, (b) is accordingly counterproductive and (c) is fraudulent because it involves the government of a particular country selling its corporations licences to pollute the one common atmosphere and ocean of all countries on earth, Numerous science and economics experts dismiss the ETS approach and demand an effective Carbon Price through a Carbon Tax [57]. Thus Dr Chris Hope from 90-Nobel-Laureate Cambridge University demands a Carbon Tax of about $150 per tonne CO2-e [17] and Dr James Hansen (former head of NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies and Adjunct Professor at 101-Nobel-Laureate Columbia University) argues cogently for an upfront, transparent an effective Carbon Tax. with the receipts going to all citizens [19, 58].
Excess Death (see Excess Mortality, Avoidable Death, Avoidable Mortality). Excess Death (Excess Mortality, Avoidable Death, Avoidable Mortality) is the difference between the ACTUAL mortality in a country and the mortality EXPECTED in a peaceful, decently-run country with the same demographics. By 1950 ALL the World potentially had access to the requisites for very the low excess death obtaining in European countries, namely clean water, sanitation, proper nutrition, literacy (especially female literacy), primary health care, antibiotics and major preventive medicine programs including public health education, prophylactics (such as insecticides, antiseptics, mosquito netting, soap and condoms) and major vaccinations. However such benefits took decades to arrive in many countries and are still variously lacking in African countries. Nevertheless, in most countries outside Africa the annual mortality rate (expressed as deaths per 1,000 people per year) typically declined to a minimum and in the best countries (typically European and East Asian countries) eventually began to rise, with this reflecting aging populations. Using United Nations Population Division demographic data going back to 1950 (the 2002 Revision), it was possible to make base-line estimates of expected mortality for various demographically distinct groups. For many high birth-rate Third World countries the base-line mortality estimates clustered about 4 deaths per 1,000 of population [2].
Excess Mortality (see Excess Death, Avoidable Death, Avoidable Mortality).
Gas (see Natural Gas). Subterranean methane derives from anaerobic reduction of carbohydrates by anaerobic bacteria (reduction being addition of electrons (e-), addition of hydrogen atoms (H) or removal of oxygen (O)): (CH2O)n + 4H (derived from catabolism and reduced coenzymes) -> nCH4 + nH2O [1]. Methane (CH4) (about 85% of natural gas and deriving from anerobic bacterial action on biomass:) is 105 times worse than CO2 as a greenhouse gas (GHG) on a 20 year time frame and taking aerosol impacts into account. Methane leaks (3.3% in the US based on the latest US EPA data and as high as 7.9% for methane from “fracking” or hydrologically fracturing geological seams). Using this information one can determine that gas burning for electricity can be much dirtier than coal burning greenhouse gas-wise (GHG-wise). While gas burning for power generates twice as much electrical energy per tonne of CO2 produced (MWh/tonne CO2) than coal burning and the health-adverse pollution from gas burning is lower than for coal burning, gas leakage in the system actually means that gas burning for powercan be worse GHG-wise than coal burning. At 2.6% gas leakage, ther global warming effect fronm the leaked gas is that same as that from burning the remaining gas (see the website :Gas is not clean energy”) [1].
Global Warming Potential (GWP). Relative GWP based on infra-red (IR) absorbance properties and half-life in atmosphere is directly proportional to radiative forcing and inversely proportional to half-life in the atmosphere.GWP relative to same mass of CO2 on a 20 year time frame: CO2 (1.0), CH4 (79; 105 if aerosol impacts are considered [55, 56]), N2O (289), chlorofluorohydrocarbon CFC-12, CCl2F2 (11,000), hydrochlorofluorohydrocarbon HFC-22, CHClF2 (5,160), hydrofluorohydrocarbon HFC-23, CHF3 (12,000), sulphur hexafluoride SF6 (16,300), nitrogen trifluoride NF3 (12,300).GWP relative to same mass of CO2 (1.0) on a 100 year time frame: CO2 (1.0), CH4 (21), N2O (298), chlorofluorohydrocarbon CFC-12, CCl2F2 (10,900), hydrochlrofluorohydrocarbon HFC-22, CHClF2 (1,810), hydrofluorohydrocarbon HFC-23, CHF3 (14,800), sulphur hexafluoride SF6 (22,800), nitrogen trifluoride NF3 (17,200) [1].
Greenhouse Gas (GHG). The greenhouse effect (discovered by UK chemist John Tyndall, 1858 ) involves thermal radiation from sun being absorbed by surface and air with re-emitted and reflected light being absorbed and re-radiated by air molecules, notably carbon dioxide (CO2), nitrous oxide (N2O), methane (CH4), H2O, and man-made greenhouse gases (GHGs). The greenhouse effect keeps planet warm. Note that the term CO2-equivalent (CO2-e) refers to total GHGs including CO2 and other GHGs expressed as CO2-equivalent.
Greenhouse Gas Pollution (GHG Pollution). World Bank analysts have re-assessed the contribution of livestock to World annual GHG pollution. Their re-assessment is that annual World GHG pollution is 64 Gt CO2-e , 50% higher than the previous estimate of 42 Gt CO2-e and with methanogenic livestock raising and attendant land use contributing over 51% of the bigger figure [27]. CO2 is the major contributor to Anthropogenic Global Warming (AGW), deriving from aerobic respiration involving oxidation of carbohydrate ( (CH2O)n + O2 -> n CO2 + nH2O), lime (CaO) in cement production (CaCO3 -> CaO + CO2), and the combustion of fossil fuels such as coal ( C + O2 -> CO2) , oil (CH3(CH2)nH + (n + 1)O2 + (n + 2)/2 O2 -> (n+1)CO2 + (n+2)H2O) and natural gas, mainly methane (CH4 + 2O2 -> CO2 + 2 H2O) [1].
Intergenerational Equity (see Climate Injustice, Climate Justice, Intergenerational Inequity, Intergenerational Injustice, Intergenerational Justice).
Intergenerational Inequity (see Climate Injustice, Climate Justice, Intergenerational Equity, Intergenerational Injustice, Intergenerational Justice). Profiting from pollution and leaving the mess for future generations to clean up is Climate Injustice and Intergenerational Inequity. Dr James Hansen; “Cap and trade with offsets, in contrast, is astoundingly ineffective. Global emissions rose rapidly in response to Kyoto, as expected, because fossil fuels remained the cheapest energy. Cap and trade is an inefficient compromise, paying off numerous special interests. It must be replaced with an honest approach, raising the price of carbon emissions and leaving the dirtiest fossil fuels in the ground. Are we going to stand up and give global politicians a hard slap in the face, to make them face the truth? It will take a lot of us – probably in the streets. Or are we going to let them continue to kid themselves and us and cheat our children and grandchildren? Intergenerational inequity is a moral issue. Just as when Abraham Lincoln faced slavery and when Winston Churchill faced Nazism, the time for compromises and half-measures is over. Can we find a leader who understands the core issue and will lead?”[58].
Intergenerational Injustice (see Climate Injustice, Climate Justice, Intergenerational Equity, Intergenerational Inequity, Intergenerational Justice). The present generations are drastically diminishing the resources of the planet – notably the forests, fisheries, atmosphere and ocean of the Earth – to the detriment of future generations. Climate change inaction means that in the absence of a carbon price (circa $150 per tonne CO2-e) we are generating a Carbon Debt of future generations of $9.6 trillion each year. Indeed the Carbon Debt inherent in the extra CO2 in the atmosphere is $192 trillion or about 2.3 times the World’s GDP [1]. It can be estimated that for every $1 received for coal by the Australian coal industry our children, grandchildren and further generations will have to spend $2 to $3 at present prices converting the consequent CO2 back to biochar to save the Planet. One can accordingly similarly determine (for Australia) that the biochar production-related debt for future generations for every $1 received by the gas-based electricity industry will be about $0.6-$1.0 at present prices (these estimates must be multiplied by 4 for the cost of biochar production in the UK) - Intergenerational Injustice indeed. [29].
Intergenerational Justice (see Climate Injustice, Climate Justice, Intergenerational Equity, Intergenerational Inequity, Intergenerational Injustice).
Natural Gas (see Gas).
Ocean Acidification. Dissolving CO2 in the ocean results in acidification, The ocean pH has already dropped by 0.1 pH unit, this threatening all ocean organisms with calcareous exoskeletons. About one-third of the carbon dioxide (CO2) released into the atmosphere as a result of human activity has been absorbed by the oceans, where it partitions into the constituent ions of carbonic acid, this leading to ocean acidification, one of the major threats to marine ecosystems and particularly to calcifying organisms such as corals (animals with photosynthetic symbionts) , foraminifera (single-celled eukaryote amoeboid protists with a calcareous external shell ), coccolithophores (photosynthetic algae that generate calcareous plates) and lobster, crab, shrimp and krill crustaceans with food chain implications) [1]. .
Ocean Warming. While average surface temperature has increased by +0.8C relative to 1900, 90% of the extra heat has gone into the ocean. At the current 400 ppm CO2 in the atmosphere most coral is facing irreversible decline from ocean warming and acidification [1].
Oil Oil derives from decarboxylation of biological fatty acids (FAs) over geological time spans. Subterranean oil derives from anaerobic decarboxylation of biologically-derived fatty acids thus: (CH3(CH2)n-COOH + heat, pressure -> CH3(CH2)nH + CO2 [1].
Per Capita Greenhouse Gas Pollution. Collective, national responsibility for the worsening Climate Holocaust and Climate Genocide is in direct proportion to per capita national pollution of the atmosphere with greenhouse gases (GHGs). Indeed, fundamental to any international agreement on national rights to pollute our common atmosphere and oceans should be the belief that “all men are created equal”. However neoliberal-imposed reality is otherwise: “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 25 (Australia; or 74 in 2010 if Australia’s huge Exported CO2 pollution is included) [1, 35, 59]..
Preventable Deaths. Avoidable Mortality (Avoidable Mortality, Excess Death, Excess Mortality) is the difference between the ACTUAL mortality in a country and the mortality EXPECTED in a peaceful, decently-run country with the same demographics. However it is useful to use the term “Preventable Deaths” for intra-national avoidable deaths in prosperous, First World countries such as Australia and the US that have effectively zero avoidable mortality on the international scale of comparison as defined above but in which annual; preventable deaths total about 60,000 [60, 61] and 1.3 million [62, 63], respectively. Thus eminently preventable carbon burning-related deaths in Australia and the US annually total 10,000 [9, 60] and 70,000 [62], respectively. .
Radiative Forcing. Radiative forcing measures warming (positive) effects of e.g. GHGs and carbon particles and cooling (negative ) effects of e.g. sulphate aerosols and reflectivity (albedo) of ice, snow and clouds [1].
Renewable Energy. 100% Renewable Energy (including geothermal energy) is crucial for effectively dealing with the climate emergency and returning atmospheric CO2 from the current dangerous 400 ppm CO2 to a safe and sustainable 300 ppm CO2 that involves the following the following]: (1) Change of societal philosophy to one of scientific risk management and biological sustainability with complete cessation of species extinctions and zero tolerance for lying; .(2) Urgent reduction of atmospheric CO2 to a safe level of about 300 ppm as recommended by leading climate and biological scientists ; and (3) a 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 [1, 28]. “The goal of “100% renewable energy by 2020” and the related goal of “Cut carbon emissions 80% by 2020” have already been embraced by various Island nations, states, cities and corporations [64, 65].
Sanctions (see Boycott, Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS), Divestment, Divestment From Deforestation, Divestment From Fossil Fuels). Peace is the only way but inaction is complicity. Sanctions and indeed Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) are required to stop the climate criminal destroying the planet [54].
Terminal Carbon Budget (see Terminal Carbon Pollution Budget). The World is rapidly running out of time to deal with man-made climate change. Thus according to the German WBGU and Australian Climate Commission (sacked by the effective climate change denialist Coalition Federal Government and now surviving unfunded as the Australian Climate Council), relative to 2014 we have only 15 years left before we exceed the Terminal Carbon Budget of 600 Gt CO2 that must not be exceeded if we are to have a 75% chance of avoiding a catastrophic 2C temperature rise [20, 21].
Terminal Carbon Pollution Budget (see Terminal Carbon Budget).
Tipping Points. The World is rapidly approaching crucial tipping points for irreversible damage to key ecosystems [19, 66]. Thus Professor Peter Wadhams of 90-Nobel-Laureate Cambridge University says that the Arctic summer sea ice may be gone by 2015 [39]; Whiteman and colleagues at 90-Nobel-Laureate Cambridge University say that 50 Gt methane will be released from the East Siberian Arctic sea bed in coming decades, this trtnalsting to a catastrophic 5,250 Gt CO2-e, 9 times greatee tna the Whole World’s Terminal Carbon Budget [40]; the World may have only 4-15 years left before it exceeds the Terminal Carbon Budget of 600 Gt CO2 that must not be exceeded if we are to have a 75% chance of avoiding a catastrophic 2C temperature rise [20, 21, 22]; the atmospheric CO2 has reached 400 ppm and is oceans at about 2.5 ppm per year i.e. it within 20 years it will reach 450 ppm CO2 at which point most coral and coral reefs are doomed – indeed top coral experts of the UK Royal Society Coral Working Group say that at about 400 ppm CO2 most coral is facing irreversible decline from ocean warming and acidification [67]; the species extinction rate is already 100-1,000 times greater than normal [33].
Total Economic Value of Wild Nature. The Total Economic Value (TEV) of Wild Nature may be about 50% of World GDP and Andrew Balmford and colleagues have estimated that : “Loss and degradation of remaining natural habitats has continued largely unabated. However, evidence has been accumulating that such systems generate marked economic benefits, which the available data suggest exceed those obtained from continued habitat conversion. We estimate that the overall benefit:cost ratio of an effective global program for the conservation of remaining wild nature is at least 100:1” [68].
Unknown (see X).
Value Of a Statistical Life (VOSL, VSL). Climate change and carbon burning already kill about 5 million people annually. Assuming that “all men are created equal” we can use the US EPA’s estimate of a Value Of a Statistical Life (VOSL, VSL) of $7.4 million to estimate a risk avoidance based cost of $37 trillion each year, nearly half the World’s annual GDP.
Vegan (see Divestment from Greenhouse Gas Pollution, Vegetarian). World Bank analysts have re-assessed the contribution of livestock to World annual GHG pollution. Their re-assessment is that annual World GHG pollution is 64 Gt CO2-e , 50% higher than the previous estimate of 42 Gt CO2-e and with methanogenic livestock raising and attendant land use contributing over 51% of the bigger figure [27]. The conversion efficiency (kg grain to produce 1 kg gain in live weight) is: herbivorous farmed fish (e.g. carp, tilapia, catfish; less than 2), chicken (2), pork (4), and beef (7). In 2003, 37 percent of the world grain harvest, or nearly 700 million tons, used to produce animal protein. Meat is contraindicated because of GHG pollution and inefficient diversion of scarce food resources in addition to the “food for fuel” Biofuel Genocide obscenity that drives up grain price[1, 69, 70].
Vegetarian (see Divestment from Greenhouse Gas Pollution, Vegan).
World’s Worst for GHG Pollution. “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 25 (Australia; or 74 in 2010 if Australia’s huge Exported CO2 pollution is included) [1, 35, 59]. An estimate of “years left to zero emissions” has been determined for all countries relative to mid-2011 – the worst polluting countries that must cease GHG pollution within 10 years relative to mid-2011 are Belize (1.3 years), Qatar (2.3), Guyana (2.4), Malaysia (3.4), United Arab Emirates (3.4), Kuwait (4.1), Papua New Guinea (4.3), Brunei (4.8), Australia (4.8), Antigua & Barbuda (4.9), Zambia (5.1), Canada (5.1), Bahrain (5.2), United States (5.5), Trinidad & Tobago (6.4), Luxembourg (5.9), Panama (6.3), New Zealand (6.5), Estonia (6.9), Botswana (7.0), Ireland (7.4), Saudi Arabia (7.6), Venezuela (7.9), Indonesia (8.4), Equatorial Guinea (8.6), Belgium (8.7), Turkmenistan (8.8), Singapore (8.9), Czech Republic (9.0), Liberia (9.0), Netherlands (9.3), Russia (9.3), Nicaragua (9.3), Finland (9.5), Oman (9.7), Palau (9.8), Brazil (9.8), Uruguay (9.8), Denmark (10.0). If one considers Australia’s Domestic plus Exported GHG pollution, Australia used up its “fair share” of the World’s Terminal Carbon Budget in 2011 (3 years ago) [26].
World’s Worst for Climate Inaction. The Climate Change Performance Index – Results 2014 [71] shows that of 61 countries examined the following were the worst : Australia (57), Canada (58), Iran (59), Kazakhstan (60), and Saudi Arabia (61). Australia and Canda were the worst OECD countries.
X (see Unknown). .X stands for an unknown. The danger of being so close to various tipping points is that some unpredictable but not unexpected disaster (e.g. a huge volcanic eruptions, catastrophic forest fires, changes in ocean currents or atmosphere jet stream patterns) might suddenly inject a lot more GHGs into the atmosphere and bring the world past particular tipping points. Thus, for example, the Global Warming Potential (GWP) of CH4 on a 20 year time frame and with aerosol impacts considered is 105 times that of CO2 [55, 56]. The 50 Gt (billion tonnes) CH4 to he released from the East Siberian Arctic Shelf in coming decades [40] is thus equivalent to 50 billion tonnes CH4 x 105 tonnes CO2-equivalent/tonne CH4 = 5,250 tonnes CO2-e or about NINE (9) times more than the world’s terminal greenhouse gas (GHG) pollution budget. We are doomed unless we can stop this Arctic CH4 release [28].
Years Left To Zero Emissions. Recent estimates of years left before the World reaches zero emission by exceedeing the Terminal Carbon Pollution Budget range from 0-15 years [20-23]. An estimate of “years left to zero emissions” has been determined for all countries relative to mid-2011 – the worst polluting countries that must cease GHG pollution within 10 years relative to mid-2011 are Belize (1.3 years), Qatar (2.3), Guyana (2.4), Malaysia (3.4), United Arab Emirates (3.4), Kuwait (4.1), Papua New Guinea (4.3), Brunei (4.8), Australia (4.8), Antigua & Barbuda (4.9), Zambia (5.1), Canada (5.1), Bahrain (5.2), United States (5.5), Trinidad & Tobago (6.4), Luxembourg (5.9), Panama (6.3), New Zealand (6.5), Estonia (6.9), Botswana (7.0), Ireland (7.4), Saudi Arabia (7.6), Venezuela (7.9), Indonesia (8.4), Equatorial Guinea (8.6), Belgium (8.7), Turkmenistan (8.8), Singapore (8.9), Czech Republic (9.0), Liberia (9.0), Netherlands (9.3), Russia (9.3), Nicaragua (9.3), Finland (9.5), Oman (9.7), Palau (9.8), Brazil (9.8), Uruguay (9.8), Denmark (10.0). If one considers Australia’s Domestic plus Exported GHG pollution, Australia used up its “fair share” of the World’s Terminal Carbon Budget in 2011 (3 years ago) [26].
Zero Emissions (see Years Left To Zero Emissions). The world must finally reach zero emissions in about 2050 but many highly polluting countries will have already exceeded their “fair share” of the World’s Terminal Carbon Budget in the lst decade of the 20th century [26]. If one considers Australia’s Domestic plus Exported GHG pollution, Australia used up its “fair share” of the World’s Terminal Carbon Budget in 2011 (9 years ago) [1] and is now stealing the entitlement of all other countries on Earth – climate criminality and climate injustice. The World used up this budget in 2020.
References.
[1]. Gideon Polya, “2011 Climate Change Course”: https://sites.google.com/site/300orgsite/2011-climate-change-course .
[2]. Gideon Polya, “Body Count. Global avoidable mortality since 1950”, that includes an avoidable mortality-related history of every country since Neolithic times and is now available for free perusal on the web: http://globalbodycount.blogspot.com.au/ .
[3]. Gideon Polya, “Forest biomass-derived Biochar can profitably reduce global warming and bushfire risk”, Yarra Valley Climate Action Group: http://sites.google.com/site/yarravalleyclimateactiongroup/forest-biomass-derived-biochar-can-profitably-reduce-global-warming-and-bushfire-risk .
[4]. 300.org: . https://sites.google.com/site/300orgsite/300-org .
[5]. “300.org – return atmosphere CO2 to 300 ppm”: https://sites.google.com/site/300orgsite/300-org---return-atmosphere-co2-to-300-ppm .
[6]. 350.org: http://350.org/ .
[7]. “Boycott Murdoch Media”: https://sites.google.com/site/boycottmurdochmedia/ .
[8]. “Boycott Apartheid Israel”: https://sites.google.com/site/boycottapartheidisrael/ .
[9]. Gideon Polya, “Australian carbon burning-related deaths and carbon burning subsidies => minimum Carbon Price of A$555 per tonne carbon (C) or A$150 per tonne CO2-e ”, Yarra Valley Climate Action Group: http://sites.google.com/site/yarravalleyclimateactiongroup/2011-carbon-burning.
[10]. DARA, “Climate Vulnerability Monitor. A guide to the cold calculus of a hot planet”, 2012, Executive Summary pp2-3: http://daraint.org/climate-vulnerability-monitor/climate-vulnerability-monitor-2012/ .
[11]. DARA report quoted by Reuters, ”100 mln to die by 2030 if world fails to act on climate”, 28 September 2012: http://in.reuters.com/article/2012/09/26/climate-inaction-idINDEE88P05P20120926 .
[12]. Gideon Polya, “Expert Witness Testimony To Stop Gas-Fired Power Plant Installation”, Countercurrents, 14 June, 2013: http://www.countercurrents.org/polya140613.htm .
[13]. Natural gas.org, “Natural gas and the environment”: http://www.naturalgas.org/environment/naturalgas.asp .
[14]. WHO, “Air quality and health”: http://www.who.int/mediacentre/factsheets/fs313/en/ .
[15]. “Carbon Debt Carbon Credit”: https://sites.google.com/site/carbondebtcarboncredit/ .
[16]. James Hansen, “Letter to PM Kevin Rudd by Dr James Hansen”, 2008: http://www.aussmc.org.au/documents/Hansen2008LetterToKevinRudd_000.pdf .
[17]. Dr Chris Hope, “How high should climate change taxes be?”, Working Paper Series, Judge Business School, University of Cambridge, 9.2011: http://www.jbs.cam.ac.uk/media/assets/wp1109.pdf.
[18]. Gideon Polya, “Australian Coalition Government Sacrifices Key Industries While Committing Hundreds Of Billions Of Dollars To Carbon Pollution & War”, Countercurrents, 10 February 2014: http://www.countercurrents.org/polya100214.htm .
[19]. James Hansen, “Global warming twenty years later: tipping points near”, Address to the US Congress, 2008: http://www.columbia.edu/~jeh1/2008/TwentyYearsLater_20080623.pdf .
[20]. 2009 Report of the German Advisory Council on Global Change (WBGU, Wissenshaftlicher Beirat der Bundesregierung Globale Umweltveränderungen) was entitled “Solving the climate dilemma: the budget approach”: http://www.wbgu.de/fileadmin/templates/dateien/veroeffentlichungen/sondergutachten/sn2009/wbgu_sn2009_en.pdf .
[21]. Australian Climate Commission, “The critical decade 2013: a summary of climate change science, risks and responses”, 2013, p7: http://climatecommission.gov.au/wp-content/uploads/The-Critical-Decade-2013-Summary_lowres.pdf .
[22]. Gideon Polya, " Doha climate change inaction. Only 5 years left to act", MWC News, 9 December 2012: http://mwcnews.net/focus/analysis/23373-gideonpolya-climate-change.html .
[23]. “Cut carbon emissions 80% by 2020”: https://sites.google.com/site/cutcarbonemissions80by2020/ ..
[24]. Bill McKibben, “Global warming’s terrifying new math”, Rolling Stone, 19 July 2012: http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/news/global-warmings-terrifying-new-math-20120719 .
[25]. Gideon Polya, “Australia 's Huge Coal, Gas & Iron Ore Exports Threaten Planet”, Countercurrents, 15 May 2012: http://www.countercurrents.org/polya150512.htm .
[26]. Gideon Polya, “Country By Country Analysis Of Years Left Until Science-demanded Zero Greenhouse Gas Emissions”, Countercurrents, 11 June 2011: http://www.countercurrents.org/polya110611.htm .
[27]. 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: http://www.worldwatch.org/files/pdf/Livestock%20and%20Climate%20Change.pdf .
[28]. “Are we doomed? Too late to save earth?", 300.org: https://sites.google.com/site/300orgsite/are-we-doomed .
[29]. Gideon Polya, “Expert Witness Testimony To Stop Gas-Fired Power Plant Installation”, Countercurrents, 14 June 2013: http://www.countercurrents.org/polya140613.htm .
[30]. John Kerry, “Remarks on climate change”, US Department of State, 16 February 2014: http://www.state.gov/secretary/remarks/2014/02/221704.htm .
[31]. Synthesis Report from the March 2009 Copenhagen Climate Change Conference, Climate Change, Global risks, challenges & decisions”, Copenhagen 10-12 March, 2009, University of Copenhagen, Denmark: http://lyceum.anu.edu.au/wp-content/blogs/3/uploads//Synthesis%20Report%20Web.pdf .
[32]. 2010 Open Letter by 255 members of the US National Academy of Sciences, “Open Letter: climate change and the integrity of science”, Guardian, 6 May 2010: http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2010/may/06/climate-science-open-letter .
[33]. Phillip Levin, Donald Levin, “The real biodiversity crisis”, American Scientist, January-February 2002: http://www.americanscientist.org/issues/pub/the-real-biodiversity-crisis .
[34]. Selina Ward, Ove Hoegh-Guldberg [preface by Anna Rose], “Lights out for the reef”, prepared for Earth Hour, 8.30 pm Australian EST, Saturday 22 March 2014 [Saturday 29 March], WWF: http://earthhour.org.au/LIGHTS_OUT_FOR_THE_REEF_Earth_Hour_2014.pdf .
[35]. Climate Genocide: https://sites.google.com/site/climategenocide/ .
[36]. US EIA, “Energy-related carbon dioxide emissions”, Table A10: http://www.eia.gov/forecasts/ieo/emissions.cfm .
[37]. Intergovernmental Panel of Climate Change (IPCC) Fourth Assessment report: Climate Change 2007 (AR4): http://www.ipcc.ch/publications_and_data/publications_and_data_reports.shtml#.T-ZXUZHiK9K .
[38].. IPCC Fourth Assessment report: Climate Change 2007: Synthesis report for Policy Makers (2007): http://www.ipcc.ch/publications_and_data/ar4/syr/en/spm.html .
[39]. Professor Peter Wadhams quoted in Julia Horton, “Arctic sea ice will vanish within three years, says expert ”, Scotsman, 29 August 2012: http://www.scotsman.com/news/environment/arctic-sea-ice-will-vanish-within-three-years-says-expert-1-2493681
[40]. Gail Whiteman, Chris Hope and Peter Wadhams, “Vast costs of Arctic change”, Nature, 499, 25 July 2013: http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v499/n7459/pdf/499401a.pdf and http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v499/n7459/full/499401a.html .
[41]. “Trends in Atmospheric Carbon Dioxide”: http://www.esrl.noaa.gov/gmd/ccgg/trends/ .
[42]. Jorgen Randers, “Systematic short-termism: Climate, capitalism and democracy”, Climate Code red, 2012: http://www.climatecodered.org/2012/11/systematic-short-termism-climate.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+ClimateCodeRed+%28climate+code+red%29 .
[43]. David Spratt and Phillip Sutton. “Climate Code Red. Thje case for emergency action”: http://scribepublications.com.au/books-authors/title/climate-code-red/ .
[44]. UN Genocide Convention: http://www.edwebproject.org/sideshow/genocide/convention.html .
[45]. Javier Sethness-Castro, “Imperiled life: revolution against climate catastrophe”, AK Press, 2012: http://www.amazon.com/Imperiled-Life-Revolution-Catastrophe-Interventions/dp/1849351058 .
[46]. Gideon Polya, 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: http://climateemergency.blogspot.com/2008_02_01_archive.html .
[47]. James Hansen, Pushker Kharecha, Makiko Sato, Valerie Masson-Delmotte, Frank Ackerman, David J. Beerling, Paul J. Hearty, Ove Hoegh-Guldberg, Shi-Ling Hsu, Camille Parmesan, Johan Rockstrom, Eelco J. Rohling, Jeffrey Sachs, Pete Smith, Konrad Steffen, Lise Van Susteren, Karina von Schuckmann, James C. Zachos, “Assessing “dangerous climate change”: required reduction of carbon emissions to protect young people, future generations and Nature”, PLOS One, 8 (12), 3 December 2013: http://www.plosone.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0081648 .
[48]. “Biofuel Genocide”: https://sites.google.com/site/biofuelgenocide/
[49]. Timothy Searchinger et al., “Use of U.S. Croplands for Biofuels Increases Greenhouse Gases Through Emissions from Land-Use Change”, Science 29 February 2008, Vol. 319. no. 5867, pp. 1238 – 1240: http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/abstract/1151861 .
[50]. Joseph Fargione and colleagues (“Land Clearing and the Biofuel Carbon Debt”, Science 29 February 2008, Vol. 319. no. 5867, pp. 1235 – 1238: http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/abstract/1152747 .
[51]. John Holdren, “The Science of climatic disruption”: http://www.usclimateaction.org/userfiles/JohnHoldren.pdf .
[52]. Brendan Mackey, Heather Keith, Sandra Berry, David Lindenmeyer (ANU), “Green Carbon. The role of natural forests in carbon storage”: http://epress.anu.edu.au/green_carbon/pdf/whole_book.pdf .
[53]. Carbon Tracker, “Unburnable carbon 2013: Wasted capital and stranded asserts”: http://www.carbontracker.org/wastedcapital .
[54]. “Divest from fossil fuels”: https://sites.google.com/site/300orgsite/divest-from-fossil-fuels .
[55]. Drew T. Shindell , Greg Faluvegi, Dorothy M. Koch , Gavin A. Schmidt , Nadine Unger and Susanne E. Bauer , “Improved Attribution of Climate Forcing to Emissions”, Science, 30 October 2009:
Vol. 326 no. 5953 pp. 716-718: http://www.sciencemag.org/content/326/5953/716 .
[56]. Shindell et al (2009), Fig.2: http://www.sciencemag.org/content/326/5953/716.figures-only .
[57]. Science and economics experts: Carbon tax needed Not Carbon Trading”, 300.org: https://sites.google.com/site/300orgsite/sciennce-economics-experts-carbon-tax-needed-not-carbon-trading .
[58]. James Hansen, “It's Possible To Avert The Climate Crisis”, Counterurrents, 29 November, 2009: http://www.countercurrents.org/hansen291109.htm .
[59]. “List of countries by greenhouse gas emissions per capita”: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_greenhouse_gas_emissions_per_capita .
[60]. Gideon Polya, "Why PM Julia Gillard Must Go: 66,000 Preventable Australian Deaths Annually", Countercurrents: http://www.countercurrents.org/polya210212.htm .
[61]. Gideon Polya, “ Ongoing Aboriginal Genocide And Aboriginal Ethnocide By Politically Correct Racist Apartheid Australia ”, Countercurrents, 16 February 2014: http://www.countercurrents.org/polya160214.htm .
[62]. Gideon Polya, “One million Americans die preventably annually in USA ”, Countercurrents: http://www.countercurrents.org/polya180212.htm .
[63]. Gideon Polya, “American Holocaust, millions of untimely American deaths and the $40 trillion cost of Israel to Americans”, Countercurrents, 27 August 2013: http://www.countercurrents.org/polya270813.htm .
[64]. “100% renewable energy by 2020”: https://sites.google.com/site/100renewableenergyby2020/ .
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[71]. Jan Burck, Franziska Marten, Christoph Bals, The Climate Change Performance Index – Results 2014: https://germanwatch.org/en/download/8599.pdf
War is the penultimate in racism and genocide the ultimate in racism. It is very powerful to quote expert opinion. Thus eminent physicist Stephen Hawking on the key existential threats facing Humanity (2018): “We see great peril if governments and societies do not take action now to render nuclear weapons obsolete and to prevent further climate change” (Stephen Hawking, “Brief Answers to the Big Questions”, John Murray, 2018, Chapter 7). Most of the following websites alphabetically list expert opinions in 4 inter-connected key areas, namely “Reverse climate change”, “Stop lying and censorship”, “End war and genocide”, and “Free Palestine”, Everyone is invited to make use of this substantial resource and to feel free to disseminate this list to everyone they can.
REVERSE CLIMATE CHANGE
“1% on 1%: one percent annual wealth tax on One Percenters”: https://sites.google.com/site/300orgsite/1-on-1 .
“2 degrees C”: https://sites.google.com/site/300orgsite/2-degrees-c .
“100% renewable energy by 2020”: https://sites.google.com/site/100renewableenergyby2020/ .
“300 ppm CO2 ASAP: https://sites.google.com/site/300orgsite/300-ppm-co2-asap .
“2011 climate change course”: https://sites.google.com/site/300orgsite/2011-climate-change-course .
“300.org”: . https://sites.google.com/site/300orgsite/300-org .
“300.org climate crisis glossary”: https://sites.google.com/site/climategenocide/300-org-climate-crisis
“300.org – return atmosphere CO2 to 300 ppm CO2”: https://sites.google.com/site/300orgsite/300-org---return-atmosphere-co2-to-300-ppm .
“Are we doomed?”: https://sites.google.com/site/300orgsite/are-we-doomed .
“Banyule Climate Action Now”: https://sites.google.com/site/banyuleclimateactionnow/ .
“Biofuel Genocide”: https://sites.google.com/site/biofuelgenocide/ .
“Carbon Debt Carbon Credit”: https://sites.google.com/site/carbondebtcarboncredit/ .
“Climate crisis articles”: https://sites.google.com/site/climatecrisisarticles/home .
“Climate Genocide”: https://sites.google.com/site/climategenocide/ .
“Climate Justice & Intergenerational Equity”: https://sites.google.com/site/300orgsite/climate-justice .
"Climate Revolution Now": https://sites.google.com/site/300orgsite/climate-revolution .
“Cut carbon emissions 80% by 2020”: https://sites.google.com/site/cutcarbonemissions80by2020/ .
“Divest from fossil fuels”: https://sites.google.com/site/300orgsite/divest-from-fossil-fuels .
“Eco-socialism, green socialism”: https://sites.google.com/site/ecosocialismgreensocialism/
“Gas is not clean energy”: https://sites.google.com/site/gasisnotcleanenergy/ .
“Methane bomb threat”: https://sites.google.com/site/methanebombthreat/ .
“Nuclear weapons ban, end poverty & reverse climate change”: https://sites.google.com/site/300orgsite/nuclear-weapons-ban .
“Older people and climate change”: https://sites.google.com/site/olderpeopleandclimatechange/home .
“Science and economics experts: carbon tax needed and not carbon trading”, 300.org: https://sites.google.com/site/300orgsite/sciennce-economics-experts-carbon-tax-needed-not-carbon-trading .
“Stop air pollution deaths”: https://sites.google.com/site/300orgsite/stop-air-pollution-deaths .
“Stop climate crime”: https://sites.google.com/site/300orgsite/stop-climate-crime .
"Too late to avoid global warming catastrophe": https://sites.google.com/site/300orgsite/too-late-to-avoid-global-warming .
“Yarra Valley Climate Action Group”: https://sites.google.com/site/yarravalleyclimateactiongroup/Home .
STOP LYING & CENSORSHIP
“ABC censorship”: https://sites.google.com/site/abccensorship/abc-censorship .
“ABC fact-checking unit & incorrect reportage by the ABC (Australia’s BBC)”: https://sites.google.com/site/mainstreammediacensorship/abc-fact-checking-unit .
“Boycott Murdoch media”: https://sites.google.com/site/boycottmurdochmedia/ .
“Censorship by ABC Late Night Live”: https://sites.google.com/site/censorshipbyabclatenightlive/ .
"Censorship by ABC Saturday Extra": https://sites.google.com/site/censorshipbyabclatenightlive/censorship-by-abc-sat .
“Censorship by the ABC”: https://sites.google.com/site/censorshipbytheabc/ .
“Censorship by Crikey (Australia)”: https://sites.google.com/site/mainstreammediacensorship/censorship-by-crikey .
“Censorship by SBS (Australia)”: https://sites.google.com/site/mainstreammediacensorship/censorship-by-sbs-australia .
“Censorship by The Age”: https://sites.google.com/site/mainstreammediacensorship/censorship-by-the-age .
“Censorship by the BBC”: https://sites.google.com/site/censorshipbythebbc/ .
“Censorship by The Conversation”: https://sites.google.com/site/mainstreammediacensorship/censorship-by .
"Censorship by The Guardian Australia": https://sites.google.com/site/mainstreammediacensorship/home/censorship-by-the-guardian-a .
"Censorship by The Guardian UK": https://sites.google.com/site/mainstreammediacensorship/censorship-by-the-guardian-uk .
“Educational apartheid”: https://sites.google.com/site/educationalapartheid/ .
“Experts: US did 9/11”: https://sites.google.com/site/expertsusdid911/ .
“Expose holocaust denial & ignoring”: https://sites.google.com/site/exposeholocaustdenialignoring/Home .
“Exposing Australia”: https://sites.google.com/site/exposingaustralia/home .
“Free university education” : https://sites.google.com/site/freeuniversityeducation/home
“Lying by omission”: https://sites.google.com/site/mainstreammedialying/lying-by-omission .
“Mainstream media censorship”: https://sites.google.com/site/mainstreammediacensorship/home .
“Mainstream media lying”: https://sites.google.com/site/mainstreammedialying/ .
“Questions Q&A won’t ask”: https://sites.google.com/site/questionsqawontask/home .
“Subversion of Australia”: https://sites.google.com/site/subversionofaustralia/home .
END WAR AND GENOCIDE
“Aboriginal Genocide”: https://sites.google.com/site/aboriginalgenocide/ .
“Afghan Holocaust, Afghan Genocide”: https://sites.google.com/site/afghanholocaustafghangenocide/ .
“Iraqi Holocaust, Iraqi Genocide”: https://sites.google.com/site/iraqiholocaustiraqigenocide/ .
“Afghanistan Genocide essays”: https://sites.google.com/site/afghanistangenocideessays/ .
“Art for peace, planet, mother & child”: https://sites.google.com/site/artforpeaceplanetmotherchild/ .
“Bengali Holocaust (WW2 Bengal Famine) writings of Gideon Polya”: https://sites.google.com/site/drgideonpolya/bengali-holocaust .
“Gideon Polya”: https://sites.google.com/site/drgideonpolya/home .
“Gideon Polya writing”: https://sites.google.com/site/gideonpolyawriting/ .
“Iraq Genocide essays”: https://sites.google.com/site/iraqgenocideessays/ .
“Muslim Holocaust Muslim Genocide”: http://sites.google.com/site/muslimholocaustmuslimgenocide/ .
“Poetry reviews by Gideon Polya”: https://sites.google.com/site/poetryreviewsbygideonpolya/ .
“Report genocide”: https://sites.google.com/site/reportgenocide/ .
"State crime and non-state terrorism": https://sites.google.com/site/statecrimeandnonstateterrorism/ .
“Stop state terrorism”: https://sites.google.com/site/stopstateterrorism/ .
FREE PALESTINE
Apartheid Israeli state terrorism: (A) individuals exposing Apartheid Israeli state terrorism, and (B) countries subject to Apartheid Israeli state terrorism”: https://sites.google.com/site/palestiniangenocide/apartheid-israeli-state-terrorism .
“Boycott Apartheid Israel”: https://sites.google.com/site/boycottapartheidisrael/.
“Gaza Concentration Camp”: https://sites.google.com/site/palestiniangenocide/gaza-concentration .
“Jews Against Racist Zionism”: https://sites.google.com/site/jewsagainstracistzionism/ .
“Non-Jews Against Racist Zionism”: https://sites.google.com/site/nonjewsagainstracistzionism/ .
“One-state solution, unitary state, bi-national state for a democratic, equal rights, post-apartheid Palestine: https://sites.google.com/site/boycottapartheidisrael/one-state-solution .
“Palestinian Genocide”: https://sites.google.com/site/palestiniangenocide/ .
“Palestinian Genocide essays”: https://sites.google.com/site/palestinegenocideessays/ .
"Zionist quotes re racism and Palestinian Genocide": https://sites.google.com/site/palestiniangenocide/zionist-quotes .