"Punish climate crime", "punish climate criminals", "retribution for climate crime", "retribution for climate criminals", "punishment for climate crime", "punishment for climate criminals", "humanity must promise retribution for climate criminals"... This website is an alphabetically organized compendium of opinions about climate justice, intergenerational equity, and the associated matters of intergenerational justice, climate inaction, climate crime, climate injustice, climate criminality, intergenerational theft, intergenerational injustice, and intergenerational inequity.
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 .
The continuing illegal use of the one common atmosphere and one common ocean of all nations and all peoples as a repository for carbon burning pollutants - notably CO2 and other greenhouse gases (GHGs) - constitutes illegal theft and depraved indifference that already kills about 5 million people annually [1, 2], threatens to kill 10 billion people this century in a worsening climate genocide [3] , threatens the Biosphere as well as Humanity [4, 5], and illegally imposes a remorselessly increasing Carbon Debt on future generations through a process of Intergenerational Injustice, Intergenerational Inequity, Climate Injustice and Climate Criminality [6-11]. Thanks to climate criminals the Carbon Debt cost for future generations to restore a safe planet for all peoples and all species - by reducing atmospheric CO2 concentration from the current dangerous and deadly 400 ppm CO2 to the previous safe 300 ppm CO2 maximum for the pre-Industrial Revolution last 1 million years (see 300.org) - is now estimated to be 350 Gt C x (3.67 Gt CO2/Gt C) x $150 per tonne CO2 = $192 trillion and increasing by about $10 trillion each year.
This alphabetically-organized website is dedicated to educating the world via the expert opinions of scientists and activists about the need for Climate Justice to stop and punish climate criminality by climate criminal countries, climate criminal governments and climate criminal corporations.
At current rates of pollution the World may only have FOUR (4) years left before it exceeds the terminal carbon pollution budget of 600 Gt (billion) tonne CO2 that must not be exceeded if we are to have a 75% chance of avoiding a catastrophic 2C temperature rise [12] - ergo, Climate Justice Now, before it is too late.
The World is facing a climate emergency due to global warming from man-derived greenhouse gas (GHG) pollution. The atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2) concentration is now 400 parts per million (ppm) and increasing at 2.4 ppm per year. Until recently the atmospheric CO2 concentration was in the range of 180-300 ppm for the last 800,000 years, fluctuations in this range giving rise to successive glacial and inter-glacial periods that imposed selection pressures upon evolving humanity. The average surface temperature is now +0.8C above that in 1900 and this has already been associated with major climate, weather and biological disruptions. Indeed the species extinction rate is now 100-1,000 times greater than normal. [4, 13, 14].
Both Dr James Lovelock FRS (Gaia hypothesis) and Professor Kevin Anderson ( Director, Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research, University of Manchester, 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 (UN Population Division) , these estimates 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. [3].
Collective, national responsibility for this already commenced 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 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 30 (Australia; or 54 if Australia’s huge Exported CO2 pollution is included). [3].
Basically we know what the problem is (man-made GHG pollution) and how to solve it. Fundamentally, as enunciated by 300.org, we need to reduce atmospheric CO2 concentration to about 300 ppm for a safe planet for all peoples and all species. [3].
To achieve 300 ppm CO2 we must achieve the following [15]:
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.
3. Rapid switch to the best non-carbon and renewable energy (solar, wind, geothermal, wave, tide and hydro options that are currently roughly the same market price as coal burning-based power) and to energy efficiency, public transport, needs-based production, re-afforestation and return of carbon as biochar to soils coupled with correspondingly rapid cessation of fossil fuel burning, deforestation, methanogenic livestock production and population growth.
Crucially, Humanity must promise retribution for climate criminals. As of 2016, it is now too late to avoid a catastrophic plus 2C temperature rise and the Paris ideal limit of plus 1.5C will be exceeded in about 4-10 years. However we are obliged to do everything we can to make the world "less bad" for future generations. Life imprisonment with hard labour for the worst climate criminals will be of small comfort to our devastated descendants, but promising such future legislated and retrospective punishment now will prompt more action now to make the world "less bad"for our children, grandchildren and as yet unborn generations. Millions are already dying from climate change (17 million avoidable deaths annually from deprivation are variously impacted by climate change) or dying from air pollution from carbon fuel burning (7 million per year) but the homicidally greedy, neoliberal climate criminals, carbon criminals, climate terrorists and carbon terrorists will not be put up against walls and shot - shackled by indignant Humanity, convicted climate criminals will be building walls to prevent the rising seas from inundating coastal cities. Humanity must promise retribution for climate criminals (see “Stop climate crime”: https://sites.google.com/site/300orgsite/stop-climate-crime and “Climate Justice & Intergenerational Equity”: https://sites.google.com/site/300orgsite/climate-justice ).
Eminent US climate scientist Professor James Hansen from 96-Nobel laureate Columbia University has just published (December 2018) a must-read, 55-page summary of the worsening climate emergency. In short, to correct the Earth’s presently disastrous energy imbalance we must urgently reduce the atmospheric CO2 to 342-373 ppm CO2 from the present disastrous 407 ppm CO2 that is increasing at 2.5 ppm CO2 per year. The cost of extracting 1 ppm of CO2 from the atmosphere is $878-1803 billion but continuing inaction is not an option – the Paris commitments mean a 3C temperature rise and eventual inundation of coastal areas by a 15-25 meters sea level rise. However hope is not lost – resolutely promised prosecutions of politician, corporate and media climate criminals may finally force urgent climate action.
In the face of a worsening climate genocide most notably already impacting Island Nations and megadelta coastal nations there needs to be a new, globally-endorsed social contract to the effect that significant, present-day climate criminals will be inescapably held to account with judicially-imposed penalties ranging up to life imprisonment with confiscation of all assets. Please tell everyone you can – there still is realistic hope that Humanity can stop the present slide to disaster (see Gideon Polya, “Resolutely promised prosecutions of climate criminals may force urgent climate action”, Countercurrents, 5 January 2019: https://countercurrents.org/2019/01/05/resolutely-promised-prosecutions-of-climate-criminals-may-force-urgent-climate-action/ ; James Hansen, “Climate change in a nutshell: the gathering storm”, Columbia University, 18 December 2018: http://www.columbia.edu/~jeh1/mailings/2018/20181206_Nutshell.pdf ).
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/ .
"Too late to avoid global warming catastrophe": https://sites.google.com/site/300orgsite/too-late-to-avoid-global-warming .
“Nuclear weapons ban, end poverty and reverse climate change”: https://sites.google.com/site/drgideonpolya/nuclear-weapons-ban .
“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 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.
“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 ).
We understand the problem and have the technological solutions – the impending catastrophe simply does not have to happen. Are we going to be able to overcome the current political stasis and act before it is too late for Humanity and the Biosphere? Is it too late? Are we doomed? [10].
[On the optimistic side from the perspective of survival of self-repairing , self-replicating but non-human sentience, according to Ray Kurzweil, Google's director of engineering, in 15 years' time computers will be more intelligent than we are and will be able to understand what we say, learn from experience, make jokes, tell stories and even flirt [16]. According to the Australian Climate Commission (now sacked by the climate criminal, pro-pollution, anti-science, terracidal Australian Coalition Government) the world has only 15 years left at current rates of pollution before it exceeds the terminal carbon pollution 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 [17]. Indeed the smart robots might evolve just in time to save their makers, Humanity. (nfotunatley, I hav eestmated that the World has only 4 years left [12])]..
DETAILED EXPLANATIONS OF SOME KEY TERMS RELATING TO URGING & ACHIEVING OF CLIMATE JUSTICE ARE ADDED AS AN APPENDIX TO THIS WEBSITE (SCROLL RIGHT DOWN).
[1]. 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/
[2]. 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 .
[3]. “Climate Genocide”: https://sites.google.com/site/climategenocide/ .
[4]. Dr Gideon Polya ,“2011 Climate change course”: https://sites.google.com/site/300orgsite/2011-climate-change-course .
[5]. Phillip Levin, Donald Levin, “The real biodiversity crisis”, American Scientist, January-February 2002: http://www.americanscientist.org/issues/pub/the-real-biodiversity-crisis .
[6]. "Climate Debt, Climate Credit": https://sites.google.com/site/climatedebtclimatecredit/home.
[7]. Gideon Polya, “Australia 's Huge Coal, Gas & Iron Ore Exports Threaten Planet”, Countercurrents, 15 May 2012: http://www.countercurrents.org/polya150512.htm .
[8]. . 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 .
[9]. WBGU, “Solving the climate dilemma: the budget approach”: http://www.ecoequity.org/2009/10/solving-the-climate-dilemma-the-budget-approach/ .
[10]. . "Are we doomed? Too late to save earth?", 300.org: https://sites.google.com/site/300orgsite/are-we-doomed .
[11]. 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 .
[12]. 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 .
[13]. 300.org: https://sites.google.com/site/300orgsite/ .
[14]. “300.org – return atmosphere CO2 to 300 ppm”, 300.org: http://sites.google.com/site/300orgsite/300-org---return-atmosphere-co2-to-300-ppm.
[15]. “Climate crisis facts and required actions”, Yarra Valley Climate Action Group: https://sites.google.com/site/yarravalleyclimateactiongroup/climate-crisis-facts-required-actions .
[16]. Nadia Khomani, “2029: the year that robots will have the power to outsmart their makers”, Guardian, 23 February 2014: http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2014/feb/22/computers-cleverer-than-humans-15-years).
[17]. 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 .
THIS ALPHABETICALLY-ORGANIZED WEBSITE RECORDS THE OPINIONS OF LEADING SCIENTISTS, WRITERS, ORGANIZATIONS, LEADERS AND WEBSITES ON THE URGENT NEED FOR CLIMATE CHANGE ACTION AND CLIMATE JUSTICE FOR HUMANITY. IT IS ORGANIZED INTO (A) INDIVIDUALS & (B) ORGANIZATIONS
(A) INDIVIDUALS
81 AUSTRALIAN RESEARCH COUNCIL LAUREATES.
81 Australian Research Council Laureates signed an open letter re Australian bushfires and global warming threat (2020): “The tragedy of this summer’s bushfires commands our attention, and after aiding and supporting the victims it is important to learn from the event. The scale and ferocity of the recent fires are unprecedented since European settlement of this country. They arrived at the end of a year with the lowest average rainfall and the highest average temperatures ever recorded across Australia. Climate change has arrived, and without significant action greater impacts on Australia are inevitable. While many factors have contributed to the bushfire crisis, the role of exceptional heat and dryness cannot be ignored. Temperatures nearly everywhere on Earth have been rising for decades, a clear result of the buildup of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere from fossil fuel use and other human activities. The increasing variability of rainfall across Australia, bringing more dry years, is a consequence. These outcomes were predicted decades ago…
The current impacts are happening with just 1 Celsius of global temperature increase, but we are set for the best part of another degree even if very strong international action is taken to reduce emissions. This means further increases in extreme fire risk, heat waves and flooding rains; ecosystems degraded and wild species forced to migrate or vanish; agricultural activities moved or abandoned, challenging our food security; and so on. If strong action is not taken, environmental degradation and social disruption will be much greater and in many cases adaptation will no longer be achievable. It would be naive to assume that such a world will still support human societies in their current form and maintain human well-being. This dire outlook demands stronger mitigation of carbon emissions…
A transition to lower, and eventually net zero emissions, is a huge task but is achievable and far less risky and irresponsible than allowing unmitigated warming…
Much research has already been done to identify the policies and technologies that can move us to where we need to go. What is lacking is the courage to implement them on the required scale. We call on all governments to acknowledge the gravity of the threat posed by climate change driven by human activities, and to support and implement evidence-based policy responses to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in time to safeguard against catastrophe. We owe this to younger generations and those who come after them, who will bear the brunt of our decisions” (81 Australian Research Council Laureates, “Laureates Open Letter. An open latter on Australian bushfires and climate: urgent needs for deep cuts in carbon emissions”, 2020: https://laureatebushfiresclimate.wordpress.com/ .
AIKEN. Ann Aiken (U.S. District Judge): “Exercising my ‘reasoned judgment,’ I have no doubt that the right to a climate system capable of sustaining human life is fundamental to a free and ordered society” (Judge Ann Aiken quoted by Our Children’s Trust, “Juliana v. United States”, 2019: https://www.ourchildrenstrust.org/juliana-v-us ).
GALICHE. Humanitarian aid worker Rodne Galicha on Typhoon Haiyan (2013) and climate crime, climate justice, climate inaction, climate injustice, climate apathy and climate irresponsibility.
Rodne Galiche is a district manager in the Philippines for The Climate Reality Project, overseen in Asia by the Australian Conservation Foundation. He is currently based at a disaster relief centre on Romblon, one of the smaller Philippine islands devastated by Typhoon Haiyan (also known as Typhoon Yolanda in the Philippines, one of the strongest tropical cyclones ever recorded, and which devastated parts of Southeast Asia, particularly the Philippines, on November 8, 2013 where it killed 6,268 people) (see http://www.smh.com.au/comment/typhoon-haiyan-this-is-a-climate-crime-20131115-2xkif.html and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Typhoon_Haiyan )
Rodne Galiche on Typhoon Haiyan (2013): “Typhoon Haiyan speaks to us of climate inaction, injustice, apathy and irresponsibility. Enough with all the suffering, enough with this madness. When will they listen? When there will be no people to listen to? When our voices are buried with the rubble left by storm surges and strong winds?As help from different parts of the globe arrives, we are thankful for the the sympathy - but what we need most is empathy. After global assistance has been delivered, states emitting large amount of carbon dioxide may still remain business as usual…
Attorney Christina Barroga is exploring how to raise the recent cyclonic event at the International Criminal Court. You see, for us this a crime - a climate crime - and we will be seeking climate justice. With this catastrophic reality, human beings here in the Philippines have now become an endangered species.” [1].
[1]. Rodne Galiche, “Typhoon Haiyan: this is a climate crime”, Sydney Morning Herald, 15 November 2013: http://www.smh.com.au/comment/typhoon-haiyan-this-is-a-climate-crime-20131115-2xkif.html .
GLIKSON. Andrew Glikson (Australian Earth and Paleoclimate scientist) on looming climate catastrophe, climate genocide and “existential calamity for civilization and nature”(2016): “Little mention is made of the existential threats posed by the climate and nuclear issues in the context of the current elections in the US and Australia. According to the world’s climate research institutions and the bulk of the peer reviewed scientific literature, the Earth has now entered a critical stage at which amplifying feedback effects to global warming transcend points of no return. Manifestations of a shift in state of the climate include; current rise in CO2 at 3.3 parts per million per year, the fastest recorded for the last 65 million years; extreme rises in Arctic temperatures; a plethora of extreme weather events such as cyclones, floods and fires; demise of habitats such as the Great Barrier Reef where corals die due to high water temperatures and coral bleaching; and other developments. The extreme rise of atmospheric carbon dioxide since the onset of the industrial age, and the corresponding rise in mean global temperatures as a direct result of the rise in carbon gases, pose an existential risk to the future of nature and civilization. The consequences of further burning of the vast carbon reserves buried in sediments and in permafrost and bogs can only result in a mass extinction of species which rivals that of the five great mass extinctions in Earth history… It follows that, where and when the majority of authoritative scientific institutions (NASA, NOAA, NSIDC, Hadley-Met, Tyndale, Potsdam, CSIRO, World Academy of Science, IPCC and so on), based on the bulk of the evidence, indicate beyond reasonable doubt that open-ended emissions of greenhouse gases inevitably lead to a major shift in the terrestrial climate, and thereby the demise of humans and of species, a toleration and/or condoning of continuing emissions by governments contravenes at the very least the spirit of international laws… 1. Since the mid-1980s an abrupt rise in the temperature levels of the atmosphere, driven by an increase in concentration of greenhouse gases arising from release of >600billion ton of carbon (GtC) to the atmosphere is leading to an extreme shift in state of the atmosphere-ocean system, such has no precedence in the recorded geological history, with the exception of events which resulted in the mass extinction of species, including massive volcanism, extra-terrestrial impacts and large-scale release of methane. 2. As a direct consequence of the above, as well as reduction of the transient protection by industrial sulphur dioxide since mid-1980s, mean global temperatures have risen since about 1970 by more than 0.6o Currently, had it not been for the aerosols, mean global temperature would have been higher by an additional near to 1oC. 3. Allowing for the masking effect of sulphur aerosols, the total rise in temperature since the onset of the industrial age ~1750 is reaching levels similar to those of the Pliocene period (~2.6 – 5.3 million years ago). The shift is occurring at the fastest rate recorded by paleoclimate studies. Whereas many species can adapt to gradual environmental changes, the current temperature rise rate resulting from ~2-3 parts per million (ppm) CO2/year may not be sustained. 4. The current change is manifested by an increase in the rate of melting of the major ice sheets, accelerating sea level rise and a rise in the frequency and intensity of extreme weather events, reflecting elevated energy level of the atmosphere-ocean system. 5.The consequences of continuing carbon emissions and consequent rise of mean global temperatures would render large parts of the Earth’s land surfaces uninhabitable due to temperature rise, droughts, storms and flooding of coastal, deltas and lower river regions by sea level rise – estimated as about 25+/-12 meters under Pliocene conditions, constituting an existential calamity for civilization and nature. 6. Excepting injection of transient short residence-time sulphur aerosols, the arrest of current climate trend would require (A) a meaningful reduction in current rate of carbon emission(~9 GtC/year) and (B) development of new methodologies for draw-down of atmospheric CO2, by at least 50 ppm, requiring research efforts on a global scale” (Andrew Glikson, “The climate Titanic and the melting icebergs”, Countercurrents, 30 June 2016: http://www.countercurrents.org/2016/06/30/the-climate-titanic-and-the-melting-icebergs/ ).
HANSEN. Dr James Hansen (NASA) to US Congress: “CEOs of fossil fuel .companies know what they are doing … CEOs should be tried for high crimes against humanity and nature”
Dr James Hansen addressing the US Congress in 2008: “My presentation today is exactly 20 years after my 23 June 1998 testimony to Congress, which I alerted the public that global warming was underway. There are striking similarities between then and now, but one big difference. Again a wide gap has developed between what is understood about global warming by the relevant scientific community and what is known by policymakers and the public,. Now, as then, frank assessment of scientific data yields conclusions that are shocking to the body politic. Now, as then, I can assert that these conclusions have a certainty exceeding 99%. The difference is that now we have used up all slack in the schedule for actions needed to defuse the global warming time bomb. The next President and Congress and must define a coursed next year in which the United States exerts leadership commensurate with our responsibility for the present dangerous situation…
CEOs of fossil energy companies know what they are doing. And are aware of long-term consequences of business as usual. In my opinion, these CEOs should be tried for high crimes against humanity and nature. Conviction of ExxonMobil and Peabody Coal CEOs will be no consolation, if we pass on a runaway climate to our children. Humanity would be impoverished by ravages of continually shifting shorelines and intensification of regional climate extremes. Loss of countless species would leave a more desolate planet. If politicians remain at loggerheads, citizens must lead. We must demand a moratorium on new coal-fired power plants. We must block fossil fuel interests whop aim to squeeze every last drop of oil from public lands, off-shore and wilderness areas. Those last drops are no solution. They yield continued exorbitant profits for short-sighted self-serving industry, but no alleviation of our addiction or long-term energy source.
Moving from fossil fuels to clean energy is challenging, transformative in ways that will be welcomed. Cheap subsidized fossil fuels engendered bad habits. We import food from halfway around the world, for example, even with healthier products available from nearby fields. Local produce would be competitive if not for fossil fuel subsidies and the fact that climate change damages and costs, due to fossil fuels, are also borne by the public. 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”. .[1].
Dr James Hansen on Intergenerational Inequity (2009): “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?” [2].
James Hansen - more complete quote (2009): “Absolutely. It [requisite action] is possible – if we give politicians a cold, hard slap in the face. The fraudulence of the Copenhagen approach – "goals" for emission reductions, "offsets" that render ironclad goals almost meaningless, the ineffectual "cap-and-trade" mechanism – must be exposed. We must rebel against such politics as usual. Science reveals that climate is close to tipping points. It is a dead certainty that continued high emissions will create a chaotic dynamic situation for young people, with deteriorating climate conditions out of their control. Science also reveals what is needed to stabilise atmospheric composition and climate. Geophysical data on the carbon amounts in oil, gas and coal show that the problem is solvable, if we phase out global coal emissions within 20 years and prohibit emissions from unconventional fossil fuels such as tar sands and oil shale… 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?” (James Hansen, “It’s possible to avert the climate crisis”, Countercurrents, 29 November 2009: https://www.countercurrents.org/hansen291109.htm ; James Hansen, “Copenhagen Summit: Is there any real chance of averting the climate crisis?”, Guardian, 29 November 2009: https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2009/nov/29/copenhagen-summit-climate-change ).
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 (top climate scientists) (2013): “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…
It is distressing that, despite the clarity and imminence of the danger of continued high fossil fuel emissions, governments continue to allow and even encourage pursuit of ever more fossil fuels. Recognition of this reality and perceptions of what is “politically feasible” may partially account for acceptance of targets for global warming and carbon emissions that are well into the range of “dangerous human-made interference” with climate. Although there is merit in simply chronicling what is happening, there is still opportunity for humanity to exercise free will. Thus our objective is to define what the science indicates is needed, not to assess political feasibility. Further, it is not obvious to us that there are physical or economic limitations that prohibit fossil fuel emission targets far lower than 1000 GtC, even targets closer to 500 GtC. Indeed, we suggest that rapid transition off fossil fuels would have numerous near-term and long-term social benefits, including improved human health and outstanding potential for job creation. A world summit on climate change will be held at United Nations Headquarters in September 2014 as a preliminary to negotiation of a new climate treaty in Paris in late 2015. If this treaty is analogous to the 1997 Kyoto Protocol [257], based on national targets for emission reductions and cap-and-trade-with-offsets emissions trading mechanisms, climate deterioration and gross intergenerational injustice will be practically guaranteed. The palpable danger that such an approach is conceivable is suggested by examination of proposed climate policies of even the most forward-looking of nations. Norway, which along with the other Scandinavian countries has been among the most ambitious and successful of all nations in reducing its emissions, nevertheless approves expanded oil drilling in the Arctic and development of tar sands as a majority owner of Statoil [258]–[259]. Emissions foreseen by the Energy Perspectives of Statoil [259], if they occur, would approach or exceed 1000 GtC and cause dramatic climate change that would run out of control of future generations. If, in contrast, leading nations agree in 2015 to have internal rising fees on carbon with border duties on products from nations without a carbon fee, a foundation would be established for phaseover to carbon free energies and stable climate” [3].
[1]. 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 .
[2]. James Hansen, “It's Possible To Avert The Climate Crisis”, Countercurrents, 29 November, 2009: http://www.countercurrents.org/hansen291109.htm .
[3]. see 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, 3 December 2013: http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0081648 and Figures: Global fossil-fuels CO2 annual emissions: http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0081648 , [Historical] fossil fuel emissions : http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0081648 , Global surface temperature: http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0081648 ).
James Hansen et al, (2016): “The rapid rise of global temperature that began about 1975 continues at a mean rate of about 0.18 °C/decade, with the current annual temperature exceeding +1.25 °C relative to 1880–1920. Global temperature has just reached a level similar to the mean level in the prior interglacial (Eemian) period, when sea level was several meters higher than today, and, if it long remains at this level, slow amplifying feedbacks will lead to greater climate change and consequences. The growth rate of climate forcing due to human-caused greenhouse gases (GHGs) increased over 20 % in the past decade mainly due to resurging growth of atmospheric CH4, thus making it increasingly difficult to achieve targets such as limiting global warming to 1.5 °C or reducing atmospheric CO2 below 350 ppm. Such targets now require "negative emissions", i.e., extraction of CO2 from the atmosphere. If rapid phasedown of fossil fuel emissions begins soon, most of the necessary CO2 extraction can take place via improved agricultural and forestry practices, including reforestation and steps to improve soil fertility and increase its carbon content. In this case, the magnitude and duration of global temperature excursion above the natural range of the current interglacial (Holocene) could be limited and irreversible climate impacts could be minimized. In contrast, continued high fossil fuel emissions by the current generation would place a burden on young people to undertake massive technological CO2 extraction, if they are to limit climate change. Proposed methods of extraction such as bioenergy with carbon capture and storage (BECCS) or air capture of CO2 imply minimal estimated costs of 104–570 trillion dollars this century, with large risks and uncertain feasibility. Continued high fossil fuel emissions unarguably sentences young people to either a massive, possibly implausible cleanup or growing deleterious climate impacts or both, scenarios that should provide both incentive and obligation for governments to alter energy policies without further delay” (Hansen, J., Sato, M., Kharecha, P., von Schuckmann, K., Beerling, D. J., Cao, J., Marcott, S., Masson-Delmotte, V., Prather, M. J., Rohling, E. J., Shakun, J., and Smith, P.: Young People's Burden: Requirement of Negative CO2 Emissions, Earth Syst. Dynam., 2016: http://www.earth-syst-dynam-discuss.net/esd-2016-42/ ).
Professor James Hansen (leading climate scientist) (2016): “Our Children’s Trust lawsuit against the U.S. government, which argues that climate change jeopardizes the next generation’s inalienable rights under the U.S. Constitution to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.… Technically, it is still possible to solve the climate problem, but there are two essential requirements: (1) a simple across-the-board rising carbon fee collected from fossil fuel companies at the source, and (2) government support for RD&D (research, development and demonstration) of clean energy technologies, including advanced generation, safe nuclear power… Courts are crucial to solution of the climate problem. The climate “problem” was and is an opportunity for transformation to a clean energy future. However, the heavy hand of the fossil fuel industry works mostly in legal ways such as the “I’m an Energy Voter” campaign in the U.S. Failure of executive and legislative branches to deal with climate change makes it essential for courts, less subject to pressure and bribery from special financial interests, to step in and protect young people, as they did minorities in the case of civil rights” (James Hansen, “4 reasons the Paris Agreement won’t solve climate change”, Countercurrents, 7 October 2016: https://countercurrents.org/2016/10/4-reasons-the-paris-agreement-wont-solve-climate-change ).
HAYES, Christopher. MSNBC host compares the $10 trillion cost of abolishing slavery in 1865 with the $10 trillion cost of keeping 88% of fossil fuel reserves in the ground.
Christopher Hayes, according to Wikipedia: “Christopher L. "Chris" Hayes (born February 28, 1979)[1] is an American political commentator. Hayes hosts All In with Chris Hayes, a weekday news and opinion television show on MSNBC. Hayes formerly hosted a weekend MSNBC show, Up with Chris Hayes” (see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chris_Hayes_%28journalist%29 ).
Christopher Hayes on forcing fossil fuel companies to keep 88% their resources in the ground and comparing this $10 trillion cost with the $10 trillion worth of slaves in 1865: “The Carbon Tracker Initiative, a consortium of financial analysts and environmentalists, set out to tally the amount of carbon contained in the proven fossil fuel reserves of the world’s energy companies and major fossil fuel–producing countries. That is, the total amount of carbon we know is in the ground that we can, with present technology, extract, burn and put into the atmosphere. The number that the Carbon Tracker Initiative came up with is… 2,795 gigatons. Which means the total amount of known, proven extractable fossil fuel in the ground at this very moment is almost five times the amount we can safely burn.Proceeding from this fact, McKibben leads us inexorably to the staggering conclusion that the work of the climate movement is to find a way to force the powers that be, from the government of Saudi Arabia to the board and shareholders of ExxonMobil, to leave 80 percent of the carbon they have claims on in the ground. That stuff you own, that property you’re counting on and pricing into your stocks? You can’t have it. Given the fluctuations of fuel prices, it’s a bit tricky to put an exact price tag on how much money all that unexcavated carbon would be worth, but one financial analyst puts the price at somewhere in the ballpark of $20 trillion. So in order to preserve a roughly habitable planet, we somehow need to convince or coerce the world’s most profitable corporations and the nations that partner with them to walk away from $20 trillion of wealth. Since all of these numbers are fairly complex estimates, let’s just say, for the sake of argument, that we’ve overestimated the total amount of carbon and attendant cost by a factor of 2. Let’s say that it’s just $10 trillion. The last time in American history that some powerful set of interests relinquished its claim on $10 trillion of wealth was in 1865—and then only after four years and more than 600,000 lives lost in the bloodiest, most horrific war we’ve ever fought… In fact, in certain climate and investment circles, people have begun to talk about “stranded assets”—that is, the risk that either national or global carbon-pricing regimes will make the extraction of some of the current reserves uneconomical. Recently, shareholders pushed ExxonMobil to start reporting on its exposure to the risk of stranded assets, which was a crucial first step, though the report itself was best summarized by McKibben as saying, basically, “We plan on overheating the planet, we don’t think any government will stop us, we dare you to try.” That is the current stance of the fossil fuel companies: “It’s our property, and we’re gonna extract, sell and burn all of it. What are you gonna do about it?” Those people you see getting arrested outside the White House protesting Keystone XL, showing up at shareholder meetings and sitting in on campuses to get their schools to divest are doing something about it. They are attacking the one weak link in the chain of doom that is our fossil fuel economy. As the great abolitionist Frederick Douglass said, “Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and it never will.” What the climate justice movement is demanding is the ultimate abolition of fossil fuels. And our fates all depend on whether they succeed.”
Christopher Hayes, “The New Abolitionism. Averting planetary disaster will mean forcing fossil fuel companies to give up at least $10 trillion in wealth”, The Nation: http://www.thenation.com/article/179461/new-abolitionism?page=full# .
HOEGH-GULDBERG. Professor Ove Hoegh-Guldberg, eminent coral scientist , says that not to rapidly reduce use of fossil fuels "would be to discard the future for many of today’s young people".
Professor Ove Hoegh-Guldberg is an eminent scientist and Director of the Global Change Institute, University of Queensland, Brisbane, Queensland, Australia (see http://www.uq.edu.au/news/article/2013/12/scientists-warn-climate-change-inaction-betrays-young ). .
Professor Ove Hoegh-Guldberg commenting on a report co-authored by 18 scientists from around the world, including hiimself and stating that most of the Earth’s remaining fossil fuels must be left in the ground to avoid disastrous consequences for today’s young people and for future generations (2013): “Given that the evidence is unambiguous about the role of fossil fuel emissions in pushing our planet beyond a safe climate, there is no other option left but to rapidly reduce our use of fossil fuels. Not to, would be to discard the future for many of today’s young people – and those unborn – who have not been party to the decisions that are being currently made about their future” [1].
[1]. Professor Ove Hoegh-Guldberg quoted in “Sceintists warn: climate change inaction betrays the young”, University of Queensland News, 4 December 2013: http://www.uq.edu.au/news/article/2013/12/scientists-warn-climate-change-inaction-betrays-young .
HUQ. Saleemul Huq (leading climate expert and a co-author of a number of Inter-Governmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) reports) on Australia’s “criminal government” and the “the catastrophic 2019-2020 Australian bushfires [2020): This is not contrasted at all, in the first place. We the scientists of Inter-Governmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) have been warning over and over again about this fallout. It fell into deaf ears. The Australian government walked the opposite way. They went into a spree of coal mines, and burning fossil fuels. And they stopped donating money to the global climate fund. Now, this is what is happening. Australia is facing the consequences in January of 2020. This is a criminal government. The prime minister of Australia, Scott Morrison is responsible for all this… We are one of the most climate-vulnerable countries. We will have to face huge floods, mighty cyclonic storms. Not the southern parts only, the whole country will be affected. Our north-eastern haors [NE Bangladesh wetland depression ecosystems] will be flooded, while the Barendra area will endure severe drought… But after Donald Trump became US president, he pulled out of the agreement, followed by Australia, Brazil, and others. When we last met in Madrid, they said they don't want to remain inside the agreement. Now Modi is also following their footsteps. China is not with them, thankfully… There is no denying that we have crossed the 2 degrees Celsius rise in temperature above the pre-industrial level and we are heading towards 3 degrees Celsius. It's kind of irreversible. But again, my answer is, not enough is not an option. You have to do it anyway. An increase of 4 degrees Celsius temperature will be catastrophic for the Earth. What we are seeing in Australia is a reckoning of a 3-degree increase catastrophe. Everything is happening as predicted 20 years back. In fact, things are happening faster than it was predicted. We cannot sit idle” (Saleemul Huq in interview in Shibabrata Barman, “”Climate change is happening faster than it was predicted””, Business Standard, 22 January 2020: https://tbsnews.net/interviews/climate-change-happening-faster-it-was-predicted-38381?fbclid=IwAR35vpoLFdwzOT6dserVNDga9e0Pn0vrDvY_8BKXfHQ3FwE0MVfgVNqjLmI ).
JULIANA. Kelsey Juliana (climate activist and a plaintiff in the Juliana versus the United States legal action): “I believe that climate change is the most pressing issue my generation will ever face, indeed that the world has ever faced. This is an environmental issue and it is also a human rights issue” (Kelsey Juliana quoted in Our Children’s Trust, “Kelsey Cascadia Rose Juliana”: https://www.ourchildrenstrust.org/kelsey ).
KERBER. Uruguayan theologian Dr Guillermo Kerber argues for climate justice.
Dr Guillermo Kerber, from Uruguay, co-ordinates the work on Care for Creation and Climate Justice at the World Council of Churches, based in Geneva (see http://www.churchtimes.co.uk/articles/2014/21-march/comment/opinion/time-to-convert-to-climate-justice ). .
Dr Guillermo Kerber on climate justice (2014): “The latest [IPCC] report will present examples to show how climate change is affecting different regions. In an early draft, for example, a section on Mali states that nearly six million people there may experience under-nutrition because of changes in climate, livelihood, and demography: somewhere between three-quarters to one million of this number will be children under five. Also, severe child stunting (which leads to a higher mortality risk) is projected to increase by at least 31 per cent across sub-Saharan Africa by 2050, because of climate change. Although climate change is a global phenomenon, it is not affecting all countries in the same way. Some communities and nations are more vulnerable than others. Low-lying islands, arid parts of Africa and Asia, and particular communities of indigenous people, among others, are especially at risk. The ecological crisis has challenged theology, and pushed for a renewed understanding of creation, where the human being should be seen not so much as the master, but as a creature among others, with a special responsibility: to take care of the garden of Eden, as set out in the second creation story (Genesis 2.15). A theology of climate change has also emphasised that God is not only transcendent, but present in creation through the Spirit. Furthermore, given the human-induced character of climate change, human behaviour is critical to reverse the trend, and is thus the responsibility of human beings.From such an ethical perspective, the idea of climate justice is increasingly at the core of ecumenical campaigning. For Christians, God is a God of justice, and asks his people to act justly in taking care of the orphan, the widow, the stranger (Deuteronomy 10.18, Isaiah 1.17). Among the modern-day equivalents of these are the victims of climate change. It is a an issue of justice because those who suffer now, and will suffer the most in future, are those who have contributed least to its causes” [1].
[1]. Dr Guillermo Kerber, “Time to convert to climate justice”, Church Times, 21 March 2014: http://www.churchtimes.co.uk/articles/2014/21-march/comment/opinion/time-to-convert-to-climate-justice .
KLEIN. Naomi Klein exposes climate genocide and demands economci justice and climate justice.
Naomi Klein is a famous Jewish Canadian journalist, author and activist who is very well known for her books and critiques of corporate globalization (for biography see Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Naomi_Klein; see also Naomi Klein website: http://www.naomiklein.org/main ).
Naomi Klein on climate genocide and climate justice (2012): “Copenhagen was so transformative for me, on many levels, both because it was a disappointment and also because, when you spend time with people representing the island nations and sub-Saharan Africa, you know, they're using words like "genocide" to describe climate change. And it makes the American delegates very, very uncomfortable. We don't have language to describe what it means to knowingly allow a nation to disappear because it's not convenient for us to stop it. So we can say it's not genocide, because genocide is the willful destruction of culture. We don't want your culture to disappear, we just don't care enough to stop it. Our goal is not for you to lose your country, our goal is just for us to be able to continue doing what we're doing. But we know that in doing what we're doing, it will have this effect, and we're going to do it anyway. What is that? We can't plead ignorance. We're making a decision. What do you call that? It certainly feels like genocide to the people who are experiencing it.,,,
The world's governments came together in Copenhagen and agreed to keep the global temperature from rising more than 2 degrees [C], and we know that X amount of carbon can go into the atmosphere to give us a chance of meeting that goal, we all agree on this, and yet, if you look at what these companies are doing, if you look at the reserves these companies have, the carbon they already have in reserve, then we're five times over that amount. So you have a problem, regulator. This can't happen, obviously. This bubble's going to burst… What's actually happening is these fossil fuel companies have looked at that 2-degree target, with their lawyers, and decided it's bullshit. They looked at the fact that the deal in Copenhagen wasn't binding -- that these governments have no intention of keeping carbon levels below what it would take to stay below 2 degrees -- and they've come to the conclusion that they can get away with this. They've decided to go ahead and destroy the planet. And their shareholders agree…
Well, there certainly can't be climate action, real climate solutions, without economic justice. Because if we look at it on the international level, what has bogged down every round of UN negotiations on climate, it's the issue of "common but differentiated responsibility," the basic principle of equity -- that the people who are most responsible for creating this crisis should take the lead and bear a heavier burden, and there should be a right to develop a certain amount, to pull oneself out of poverty. Not the right to live a life of excess, but the right to have clean water and food and shelter, and meet somewhere in the middle. And that has been the issue over and over and over again, which has created the impasse and led the US to walk away in the first place, in that unprecedented vote in Congress against the Kyoto Protocol, where there was an absolutely unanimous rejection. So the refusal to accept the importance of economic justice is the reason we have had no climate action. It's just that simple. And it happens every time countries get together and negotiate, because the developing world is not going to move on this issue, on the right to pull themselves out of poverty.” [1, 2].
KLEIN. Naomi Klein (anti-racist Jewish Canadian writer, activist, columnist and author of “No Logo: Taking Aim at the Brand Bullies” (1999), “The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism” (2007) and“This Changes Everything: Capitalism vs the Climate” ( 2014) (2015) :” Direct action. I’m in favour of direct action on climate change, too. I’m in favour of the people in the Bentley blockade, the people who have successfully stopped, so far, the Carmichael mine. I think direction is great, especially when our politicians fail to act, but I’m referring to a different kind of direct action than your Prime Minister and I should say, you know, being a Canadian I live in a very large glass house. Our government rivals the Abbott Government in terms of climate criminality. We’re hoping to vote our government out soon, which might mean that Abbott will be quite isolated at the UN talks at the end of the year” [3].
[Editor's note: Australia is a world leader in annual per capita greenhouse gas (GHG) pollution (see “Climate Genocide”: https://sites.google.com/site/climategenocide/) , climate change inaction, and coal, gas and iron ore exports. Each year about 10,000 Australians die from carbon fuel burning pollutants and a further circa 100,000 people die worldwide from pollutants from the burning of exported Australian fossil fuels; see “Stop air pollution deaths”: https://sites.google.com/site/300orgsite/stop-air-pollution-deaths ].
[1]. Naomi Klein interviewed by Wen Stephenson, “Interview: Naomi Klein on motherhood, climate justice, and the failures of the environmental movement”, Naomi Klein, 15 December 2012: http://www.naomiklein.org/articles/2012/12/interview-naomi-klein-motherhood-climate-justice-and-failures-environmental-movemen .
[2]. Naomi Klein interviewed by Wen Stephenson, “Interview: Naomi Klein on motherhood, climate justice, and the failures of the environmental movement”, The Phoenix, 15 December 2012: http://blog.thephoenix.com/BLOGS/phlog/archive/2012/12/14/interview-naomi-klein-on-motherhood-climate-justice-the-failures-of-the-environmental-movement.aspx .
[3]. Naomi Klein on Q&A, ABC TV, 31 August 2015: http://www.abc.net.au/tv/qanda/txt/s4277313.htm .
LOVELOCK. Dr James Lovelock FRS (leading atmospheric gas expert) re Paris Climate Change Conference (2015): “What I am hearing is that the heads of state are planning to clap each other on the back and say this is a very successful conference. If that is what happens, we are screwing the next generation, because we are doing the same as before. [A rise of ] 2C is definitely dangerous. We are at the point now where temperatures are hitting the 1C mark and are on a path above 1C. Even if we reduce emissions 6% a year we will still get 1C. Instead we hear the same old thing as Kyoto [in 1997]. We are asking each country to cap emissions, or reduce emissions. In science when you do a well conducted experiment you expect to get the same result. So why are we talking about doing the same again? This is half-arsed and half-baked… [re historical emissions] “For that the US is responsible for 25%, and the EU about 25%, China only 10%. Per capita, the UK, US and Germany are by far the most responsible. China [per capita] is by an order of magnitude smaller… “The problem is fossil fuels are cheap and as long as they remain so they will be burned. They do not include the effects of warming and air pollution on human health. Studies show that if you added $10 a tonne to the price you would reduce [fossil fuel] energy use by 20% in 10 years, and 50% in 20 years. This is the only viable international approach. You cannot ask 190 countries to individually limit their emissions. The price of fossil fuels must be honest. That just needs a few of the major players. It would rapidly move us off fossil fuels. It’s not too complicated. It’s not that the problem cannot be solved but that it is not being solved. We need an honest, simple rising carbon fee” (James Lovelock, quoted in John Vidal, :”UN on wrong track to limit warming to 2C, says top scientist”, Guardian, 3 December 2015: http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2015/dec/03/un-wrong-track-plans-limit-global-warming-2c-top-scientist-climate-change?utm_source=esp&utm_medium=Email&utm_campaign=KIITG_PCC_Day5_041215&utm_term=141665&subid=10385929&CMP=ema-60 ).
MILNE. Australian Greens Leaders Senator Christine Milne declares “[Australian Coalition PM] Tony Abbott is a climate criminal”.
Tasmanian Greens Senator Christine Milne succeeded Senator Bob Brown as Australian Greens Leader in 2012 (see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christine_Milne ).
Australian Greens Leader Senator Christine Milne arguing that the newly-elected Australian Coalition PM Tony Abbott is a “climate criminal” (2013) : ."The Climate Change Authority was set up to de-politicise the process of setting greenhouse emission reduction targets. Everyone knows that a 5% emission reduction target is woefully inadequate. Shutting down the Climate Change Authority, ahead of its first report on fair and science based emission reduction targets for Australia, is cowardly and an attack on current and future generations. Tony Abbott is a climate criminal. Shooting the messenger does not alter the fact that Australia has to do a lot better than 5% in order to contribute fairly to the global challenge of constraining global warming to two degrees.In the context of global warming this action is a crime against humanity.Tony Abbott should also respect the law and end his heavy handed tactics in trying to undermine the work of the Clean Energy Finance Corporation (CEFC). It was disgraceful when in opposition, Tony Abbott wrote to the board of the CEFC and told them to act illegally and not fulfil their legislative responsibilities. It is completely untenable for Tony Abbott to behave this way in government. The CEFC was set up by an Act of Parliament and it is an independent statutory authority charged with investing in clean energy projects. The advice the Australian Greens released during the election campaign has now been backed up by further legal advice from the Australian Conservation Foundation this afternoon. It says the CEFC is obliged by law to continue investing in renewable energy until the parliament decides otherwise. Tony Abbott cannot bully independent statutory authorities. It is one thing to run around Australia and misleadingly announce that Whyalla will be wiped off the face of the map because of carbon pricing, but it is quite another to instruct a statutory authority to behave illegally. Tony Abbott is creating enormous uncertainty in the renewable energy sector and this has to stop. Having set up the CEFC as part of the Clean Energy Package to roll out large scale renewable energy projects to address the climate crisis, the Australian Greens will stand up strongly against any attempt to repeal the CEFC and will hold Tony Abbott to account for his bullying behaviour." [1].
[1]. Christine Milne quoted in “Abbott’s crimes against the climate”, Australian Greens, September 2013: http://greensmps.org.au/content/media-releases/abbotts-crimes-against-climate .
OUR CHILDREN'S TRUST. Our Children’s Trust (leads “ a game-changing legal campaign seeking systemic, science-based emissions reductions and climate recovery policy at all levels of government”) (2019): “Youth filed their constitutional climate lawsuit, called Juliana v. U.S., against the U.S. government in the U.S. District Court for the District of Oregon in 2015. Earth Guardians is also an organizational plaintiff in the case. Their complaint asserts that, through the government's affirmative actions that cause climate change, it has violated the youngest generation’s constitutional rights to life, liberty, and property, as well as failed to protect essential public trust resources. The fossil fuel industry initially intervened in the case as defendants, joining the U.S. government in trying to have the case dismissed. In April 2016, U.S. Magistrate Judge Thomas Coffin recommended denial of both motions to dismiss. U.S. District Court Judge Ann Aiken upheld Judge Coffin's recommendation, with the issuance of an historic November 10, 2016 opinion and order denying the motions. When the defendants sought an interlocutory appeal of that order, Judge Aiken denied their motions in June 2017” (Our Children’s Trust, “Juliana v. United States”, 2019: https://www.ourchildrenstrust.org/juliana-v-us ).
POLYA. Dr Gideon Polya, Australian biochemist, exposes Australian Government commitment to climate injustice & demands Boycotts, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) against climate criminals from individuals to countries.
Dr Gideon Polya is an Australian, scientist, writer, artist and climate change activist (see: http://www.countercurrents.org/polya100813.htm ).
Dr Gideon Polya on Australian Government commitment to climate injustice (2009): “We are all familiar with the great assertion of the American Declaration of Independence that “all men are created equal and have an unalienable right to life,, liberty and the pursuit of happiness”. Climate Justice demands that “annual per capita GHG emissions” should be the same for “all men” on the way to zero emissions and thence a requisite urgent return of the atmospheric CO2 concentration (or the greenhouse gas (GHG) CO2-e concentration) from the current 390 ppm CO2 (corresponding to 475 ppm CO2-e) to a safe and sustainable pre-industrial level of 300 ppm CO2 (corresponding to circa 350 ppm CO2-e) (for detailed assessments see 300.org: http://sites.google.com/site/300orgsite/300-org .). As explained carefully below, the Australian Government's latest demands mean that it will only agree to “annual per capita GHG emissions” of 17.2 (Domestic ) and 44.8 (Domestic plus Exported) tonnes CO2-e per person per year in 2020 provided the Developed World achieves 8.9 and the Developing World 3.0 - this is clearly Climate Injustice.” [1].
Dr Gideon Polya on how to oppose fossil fuel exploitation, destruction of other biosphere and climate injustice (2013): “Cessation of species extinction, unsustainable deforestation and fossil fuel burning means climate activists should urge and apply where practicable Boycotts, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) against all people, politicians, parties, candidates, corporations and countries involved in destruction of the Biosphere – indeed, anything less makes one complicit in ecocide and terracide… 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, countries and corporations accountable by boycotts, divestment, sanctions, exposure and scorn, (B) wearing a badge at all times (e.g., as I do, “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”.” [2].
Dr Gideon Polya on climate crimes of climate criminal Australian Coalition Governments (2014): “Climate change inaction, Climate criminality, Climate Genocide. The climate criminal policy of both the Coalition and Labor is one of a derisory “5% off 2000 greenhouse gas (GHG) pollution by 2020” coupled with unlimited coal, gas and iron ore exports. This means that Australia's Domestic plus Exported GHG pollution will increase from 1,512 Mt CO2-e in 2009 to 2,578 Mt CO2-e in 2020 and that Australia will exceed by a factor of three (3) the whole world's terminal greenhouse gas (GHG) pollution budget (terminal carbon budget) of 600 Gt CO2 that must not be exceeded if the world is to have a 75% chance of avoiding a catastrophic 2C temperature rise. Australia has already exceeded its “fair share” of the world's terminal carbon budget and is one of the world's worst countries for annual; per capita GHG pollution and climate change inaction. It is estimated that climate change inaction may result in the avoidable deaths of 10 billion people this century of whom 6 billion will be under-5 year old infants. On gaining office the climate criminal Coalition Government immediately set about dismantling the climate change action initiatives of the previous Labor Government, abolishing the expert Climate Commission and adumbrating removal of the Clean Energy Finance Corporation and the Department of Climate Change.” [3].
Dr Gideon Polya on Australian carbon burning-related deaths: “How many Australians die each year from the effects of pollutants from vehicles, coal burning for electricity and other carbon burning? Answer: about 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 of $23 per tonne CO2-e.” [4].
Dr Gideon Polya, editor of "Climate Justice & Intergenerational Equity" (2014): “The continuing illegal use of the one common atmosphere and one common ocean of all nations and all peoples as a repository for carbon burning pollutants - notably CO2 and other greenhouse gases (GHGs) - constitutes illegal theft and depraved indifference that already kills about 5 million people annually , threatens to kill 10 billion people this century in a worsening climate genocide, threatens the Biosphere as well as Humanity, and illegally imposes a remorselessly increasing Carbon Debt on future generations through a process of Intergenerational Injustice, Intergenerational Inequity, Climate Injustice and 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… The world must finally reach zero emissions in about 2050 but many highly polluting countries will have already exceeded their “fair share” of the Worlds’ Terminal Carbon Budget or will be morally obliged to cease emissions in the next few years. 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) and is now stealing the entitlement of all other countries on Earth – climate criminality and climate injustice” [5].
Dr Gideon Polya on 5 years left in 2012 (i.e. 2 years left in 2015) (2012): “Our warming world is badly running out of time to deal with man-made climate change and keep temperature rise to within 2 degrees Centigrade (2oC) - but how much time have we left? Answer: 5.3 years. The basis for this appalling conclusion is set out below. The 2009 United Nations Climate Change Conference, commonly known as the Copenhagen Summit, included the 15th Conference of the Parties (COP 15) to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. Most countries subsequently signed up to the Copenhagen Accord that recognized that climate change is one of the greatest challenges to Humanity and that actions should be taken to keep any temperature increases to below 2 °C (see “2009 United Nations Climate Change Conference”, Wikipedia). In a 2009 report entitled "Solving the climate dilemma: a budget approach" the WBGU, that advises the German Government on climate change, estimated that for a 75% chance of avoiding a 2C (2oC, 2 degree Centigrade, 2 degree Celsius) temperature rise (EU policy and majority global policy since the 2009 Copenhagen Climate Change Conference) the world can emit no more than 600 billion tonnes CO2 (carbon dioxide) (600 Gt CO2) between 2010 and zero emissions in 2050 (see WBGU, “Solving the climate dilemma: the budget approach”). Since CO2 is the most important greenhouse gas (GHG) we could roughly set the world’s terminal GHG pollution budget at 600 Gt CO2-e (CO2-equivalent, this term including other GHGs). Relative to commencement in 2010, how many years have we left before we exceed this terminal CO2 pollution budget of 600 Gt CO2-e?...
In 2009 World Bank analysts used an estimate of a GWP of 72 for CH4 on a 20 year time frame to re-assess the contribution of livestock to man-made GHG pollution as over 32.564 Gt CO2-e/year of which 5.047 GT CO2-e/year is due to undercounted methane. This re-assessment lifts the annual GHG pollution from 41.744 Gt CO2-e to 63.803 Gt CO2-e. Assuming that live-stock-related GHG pollution increases in direct proportion ion to energy-related CO2 emissions, one can estimate that the world will reach 551.738 Gt CO2-e in 2017 and 624.363 Gt CO2-e in 2018 i.e. the World has 5.8 years at present rates before it exceeds the terminal CO2-e budget. However one can re-assess the World Bank re-assessment by consider that CH4 has a GWP relative to CO2 of 105. This re-assessment indicates that the World will reach 573.167 Gt CO2-e in 2017 and 648.547 Gt CO2-e in 2018 i.e. the World has 5.3 years at present rates before it exceeds the terminal CO2-e budget. of 600 Gt CO2-e” [6].
[1]. 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 .
[2]. Gideon Polya, “Climate Justice and Climate justice. Australia wants a 2002 per capita GHG pollution 15 times greater than Developing World’s”, Yarra Valley Climate Action Group, 2009: https://sites.google.com/site/yarravalleyclimateactiongroup/climate-justice .
[3]. Gideon Polya, “Horrendous Child Abuse By Pro-war, Pro-Zionist, Climate Criminal Australian Coalition Governments”, Countercurrents, 4 December 2013: http://www.countercurrents.org/polya041213.htm .
[4]. 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.
[5]. Climate Justice & Intergenerational Equity (2014): https://sites.google.com/site/300orgsite/climate-justice .
[6]. 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 (2019): “Eminent climate scientist Professor James Hansen has published a must-read, 55-page summary of the worsening climate emergency. In short, to correct the Earth’s presently disastrous energy imbalance we must urgently reduce the atmospheric CO2 to 342-373 ppm CO2 from the present disastrous 407 ppm CO2. The cost of extracting 1 ppm of CO2 from the atmosphere is $878-1803 billion but continuing inaction is not an option – the Paris commitments mean a 3C temperature rise and eventual inundation of coastal areas by a 15-25 meters sea level rise. Hope is not lost - resolutely promised prosecutions of politician, corporate and media climate criminals may finally force urgent climate action.. .
There is a real prospect of Climate Justice involving resolutely promised prosecutions of climate criminals and confiscation of their assets (as presently happens to traders in illicit drugs). There is no legislative retrospectivity required in this – climate murder, climate homicide and climate genocide are presently just as deadly as “conventional” murder, homicide and genocide. Something of the order of 1 million people die climate-related deaths annually, with this set to soar to an average of 100 million such deaths per year this century if man-made climate change is not requisitely addressed [26]. Of course such punishments will be scant comfort to the loved ones of those who have died. However most importantly it is the resolute threat of prosecutions of climate criminals that may finally force urgent climate action. There needs to be a new globally-endorsed social contract to the effect that significant, present-day climate criminals will be inescapably held to account with judicially-imposed penalties ranging up to life imprisonment with confiscation of all assets. Please tell everyone you can – there still is realistic hope that we can stop the present slide to disaster” (see Gideon Polya, “Resolutely promised prosecutions of climate criminals may force urgent climate action”, Countercurrents, 5 January 2019: https://countercurrents.org/2019/01/05/resolutely-promised-prosecutions-of-climate-criminals-may-force-urgent-climate-action/ ; James Hansen, “Climate change in a nutshell: the gathering storm”, Columbia University, 18 December 2018: http://www.columbia.edu/~jeh1/mailings/2018/20181206_Nutshell.pdf ).
Dr Gideon Polya (2019): "Carbon Debt is simply the damage-related cost of greenhouse gas (GHG) pollution that if not addressed now will inescapably have to be paid by future generations. However GHG emissions continue to rise inexorably and there is no global program to draw down CO2 and other GHGs from the atmosphere. While young people are now vociferously demanding massive climate action, inescapable global Carbon Debt is $200- $250 trillion and increasing by $16 trillion each year.... Australia, that is among world leaders in 14 GHG pollution-related areas, has a Carbon Debt of US$5.1 trillion (A$7 trillion) that is increasing at US$400 billion (A$556 billion) per year and at US$40,000 (A$56,000) per head per year for under-30 year old Australians... Decent people must oppose the neoliberal Gadarene rush to global suicide by (a) informing everyone they can, and (b) urging and applying Boycotts, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) against all people, politicians, parties, collectives, corporations and countries disproportionately involved in the worsening climate emergency, climate genocide and Biosphere destruction... The young have no choice but to revolt (non-violently of course) - as exampled by the present Extinction Rebellion by young people in London - against the destruction of the Biosphere (speciescide, ecocide, omnicide, and terracide)... There is no Planet B and there must be zero tolerance for the neoliberal, genocidal and terracidal climate criminals. In climate criminal Australia that is among world leaders in GHG pollution, Biosphere destruction and climate change inaction, decent people will utterly reject the climate criminal Coalition Government, vote 1 Green and put the Coalition and its extremist associates last (see Gideon Polya, “Inescapable $200-$250 trillion global Carbon Debt increasing by $16 trillion annually”, Countercurrents, 27 April 2019: https://countercurrents.org/2019/04/27/inescapable-200-250-trillion-global-carbon-debt-increasing-by-16-trillion-annually-gideon-polya/ ).
Gideon Polya (2019): "An International Monetary Fund (IMF) report on climate change mitigation advocates a Carbon Tax of $75 per ton of CO2 by 2030 that, if progressively implemented in the G20 countries alone, would prevent an estimated 4 million air pollution deaths by 2030. However the effective climate change denialist Coalition Government of Australia, a G20 country that is among world leaders in 15 areas of climate criminality, has flatly rejected a global Carbon Tax. If all G20 countries followed Australia’s rejection of a global Carbon Tax then they would be complicit in an unconscionable Climate Genocide and Climate Holocaust killing 4 million people over the next decade" (Gideon Polya, “Australia rejects IMF Carbon Tax & preventing 4 million pollution deaths by 2030”, Countercurrents, 15 October 2019: https://countercurrents.org/2019/10/australia-rejects-imf-carbon-tax-preventing-4-million-pollution-deaths-by-2030 ).
POPE BENEDICT XVI on climate justice for future generations.
Pope Benedict XVI in his Encyclical Letter "Caritas in Veritate" on climate justice for future generations (2009): “This responsibility is a global one, for it is concerned not just with energy but with the whole of creation, which must not be bequeathed to future generations depleted of its resources. Human beings legitimately exercise a responsible stewardship over nature, in order to protect it, to enjoy its fruits and to cultivate it in new ways, with the assistance of advanced technologies, so that it can worthily accommodate and feed the world's population. On this earth there is room for everyone: here the entire human family must find the resources to live with dignity, through the help of nature itself — God's gift to his children — and through hard work and creativity. At the same time we must recognize our grave duty to hand the earth on to future generations in such a condition that they too can worthily inhabit it and continue to cultivate it. This means being committed to making joint decisions “after pondering responsibly the road to be taken, decisions aimed at strengthening that covenant between human beings and the environment, which should mirror the creative love of God, from whom we come and towards whom we are journeying”[120]. Let us hope that the international community and individual governments will succeed in countering harmful ways of treating the environment. It is likewise incumbent upon the competent authorities to make every effort to ensure that the economic and social costs of using up shared environmental resources are recognized with transparency and fully borne by those who incur them, not by other peoples or future generations: the protection of the environment, of resources and of the climate obliges all international leaders to act jointly and to show a readiness to work in good faith, respecting the law and promoting solidarity with the weakest regions of the planet [121]. One of the greatest challenges facing the economy is to achieve the most efficient use — not abuse — of natural resources, based on a realization that the notion of “efficiency” is not value-free” (Section 50,Pope Benedict XVI, Encyclical Letter “Caritas in Veritate”, 29 June 2009: http://w2.vatican.va/content/benedict-xvi/en/encyclicals/documents/hf_ben-xvi_enc_20090629_caritas-in-veritate.html ).
POPE FRANCIS on climate justice for future generations.
Pope Francis in his on climate justice for future generations in his Encyclical Letter “Laudato si” (2015): “The principle of the maximization of profits, frequently isolated from other considerations, reflects a misunderstanding of the very concept of the economy. As long as production is increased, little concern is given to whether it is at the cost of future resources or the health of the environment; as long as the clearing of a forest increases production, no one calculates the losses entailed in the desertification of the land, the harm done to biodiversity, or the increased pollution. In a word, businesses profit by calculating and paying only a fraction of the costs involved. ‘Yet only when the economic and social costs of using up shared environmental resources are recognized with transparency and fully borne by those who incur them, not by other peoples or future generations,’ [Benedict XVI] can those actions be considered ethical. An instrumental way of reasoning, which provides a purely static analysis of realities in the service of present needs, is at work whether resources are allocated by the market or by state central planning” (Section 195, Pope Francis , Encyclical Letter “Laudato si”, 2015: http://w2.vatican.va/content/francesco/en/encyclicals/documents/papa-francesco_20150524_enciclica-laudato-si.html ).
[Editor's note: climate change economist Dr Chris Hope from 90-Nobel–Laureate University of Cambridge has estimated a damage-related Carbon Price of US$150-$250 per tonne CO2-e (CO2-equivalent) depending on location. Based on a Carbon Price of $100 per tonne CO2-e, the World now has a Carbon Debt (in US dollars) from historical CO2 pollution (mostly from European countries) of $270 trillion that is increasing at $10 trillion each year, and Australia (a world leader in annual per capita greenhouse gas (GHG) pollution) has a Carbon Debt of $5.6 trillion that is increasing at $300 billion per year (increasing at about $30,000 each year per head for under-30 year old Australians). Based on a Carbon Price of $200 per tonne CO2-e [3], the World now has a Carbon Debt (in US dollars) of $540 trillion that is increasing at $20 trillion each year and Australia has a Carbon Debt of $11 trillion that is increasing at $600 billion per year (increasing at about $60,000 each year per head for under-30 year old Australians) (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 and “Carbon Debt Carbon Credit”: https://sites.google.com/site/carbondebtcarboncredit/ ).
ROBINSON. Mary Robinson is a former President of Ireland and President of the Mary Robinson Foundation – Climate Justice (MRFCJ).
Mary Robinson is a former President of Ireland and President of the Mary Robinson Foundation – Climate Justice (see http://www.mrfcj.org/news/2013/declaration-climate-justice.html ). .
The Mary Robinson Foundation - Climate Justice (MRFCJ) in its own words: “[MRFCJ] is a centre for thought leadership, education and advocacy on the struggle to secure global justice for those people vulnerable to the impacts of climate change who are usually forgotten - the poor, the disempowered and the marginalised across the world. It is a platform for solidarity, partnership and shared engagement for all who care about global justice, whether as individuals and communities suffering injustice or as advocates for fairness in resource-rich societies. The Foundation provides a space for facilitating action on climate justice to empower the poorest people and countries in their efforts to achieve sustainable and people-centred development (see: http://www.mrfcj.org/ )..
Mary Robinson on climate justice: “The time for radical leadership on climate change is now. With 2015 set as the deadline for both a new climate agreement and the post-2015 development agenda, we are at the point in human development when we need to act to protect,” said Mary Robinson, former President of Ireland and President of the Mary Robinson Foundation – Climate Justice. “The rights of the most vulnerable in society are already undermined by climate change and this injustice must be addressed now. Equally for the sake of generations to come, it is our duty, as citizens of the world, to realise a new model of sustainable growth and development that is supported by strong legal frameworks” [1].
[1]. Mary Robinson quoted in “Declaration on Climate Justice”, MRFCJ: http://www.mrfcj.org/news/2013/declaration-climate-justice.html .
SAMSON. Dr Jason Samson's Map of Human Vulnerability documents Climate Change Injustice.
Dr Jason Samson gained his PhD from McGill, Montreal, Canada (2011). Occupied Position: Biodiversity Specialist, Ouranos Consortium (see: http://nrs-staff.mcgill.ca/humphries/jason.html ).
Jason ‘s Map of human vulnerability to climate change reveals Climate Change Injustice – the most serious consequences of climate change will be experienced in the sub-tropical and tropical world i.e. in the Developing World [1-3].
Jason Samson on the global disparities Map and climate injustice (2011): “Take Somalia for instance. Because it’s so hot there, it’s already very difficult to grow things, and it will only become more difficult if the temperature rises. It’s also clear that Somalia is not a big contributor of greenhouse gas to the atmosphere. Now thanks to this map, we have concrete quantitative evidence of the disparity between the causes and the consequences of climate change at a national level” [2].
[1]. Samson, J., Berteaux, D., McGill, B., and M.M. Humphries. 2011. Geographic disparities and moral hazards in the predicted impacts of climate change on human populations. Global Ecology and Biogeography, DOI: 10.1111/j.1466-8238.2010.00632.x .
[2]. Jason Sampson quoted in Tim Wall, “Map reveals climate change injustice”, D News, 6 March 2011: http://news.discovery.com/earth/global-warming/mapping-human-vulnerability-to-climate-change.htm .
[3]. Jason Samson: http://nrs-staff.mcgill.ca/humphries/jason.html .
SINGER. Professor Peter Singer (leading bioethicist and philosopher, Princeton University and the University of Melbourne) (2019): “The ethical issue is not difficult to adjudicate. For affluent countries, which are responsible for most of the CO2 that is now in the atmosphere, there can be no ethical justification for continuing to emit greenhouse gases at far higher per capita levels than the people in low-income countries who will suffer most from climate change. To impose on them a one in three chance of warming beyond 1.5ºC is playing a kind of Russian roulette… The failure of governments to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions is no less wrong than British rule in India, the denial of equal rights to African-Americans, or the war in Vietnam – and it is likely to cause harm on a far larger scale. So, civil disobedience also would be right if it can persuade governments to follow the science and do what is necessary to avert catastrophic climate change. There may be other effective forms of nonviolent protest that no one has yet tried. Thunberg first became known for standing alone outside Sweden’s parliament holding a sign saying, in Swedish, “School Strike for Climate.” No one could have predicted that this then-15-year-old girl would start a movement supported by millions of young people and gain a platform from which to address the world’s leaders. We need more innovative ideas about how best to convey the urgency of the situation and the need for a sharp change of course” (Peter Singer, “Greta Thunberg’s moment”, Project Syndicate, 7 October 2019: https://www.project-syndicate.org/commentary/thunberg-speech-civil-disobedience-climate-truth-by-peter-singer-2019-10 .)
THUNBERG. Greta Thunberg (outstanding Swedish climate action activist as a spokesperson for the children’s School Striker movement) (2019): “Now we probably don’t even have a future any more. Because that future was sold so that a small number of people could make unimaginable amounts of money. It was stolen from us every time you said that the sky was the limit, and that you only live once…
But perhaps the most dangerous misconception about the climate crisis is that we have to “lower” our emissions. Because that is far from enough. Our emissions have to stop if we are to stay below 1.5-2C of warming. The “lowering of emissions” is of course necessary but it is only the beginning of a fast process that must lead to a stop within a couple of decades, or less. And by “stop” I mean net zero – and then quickly on to negative figures. That rules out most of today’s politics…
This ongoing irresponsible behaviour will no doubt be remembered in history as one of the greatest failures of humankind. People always tell me and the other millions of school strikers that we should be proud of ourselves for what we have accomplished. But the only thing that we need to look at is the emission curve. And I’m sorry, but it’s still rising. That curve is the only thing we should look at…
The climate crisis is both the easiest and the hardest issue we have ever faced. The easiest because we know what we must do. We must stop the emissions of greenhouse gases. The hardest because our current economics are still totally dependent on burning fossil fuels, and thereby destroying ecosystems in order to create everlasting economic growth” (Greta Thunberg, “You did not act in time”: Greta Thunberg’s full speech to MPs”, Guardian, 23 April 2019: https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/apr/23/greta-thunberg-full-speech-to-mps-you-did-not-act-in-time ).
Greta Thunberg (Climate activist, 16) addressing the UN Climate Action Summit in New York City on 23 September 2019 ( the full transcript of Thunberg's speech, beginning with her response to a question about the message she has for world leaders): "My message is that we'll be watching you. This is all wrong. I shouldn't be up here. I should be back in school on the other side of the ocean. Yet you all come to us young people for hope. How dare you! You have stolen my dreams and my childhood with your empty words. And yet I'm one of the lucky ones. People are suffering. People are dying. Entire ecosystems are collapsing. We are in the beginning of a mass extinction, and all you can talk about is money and fairy tales of eternal economic growth. How dare you! For more than 30 years, the science has been crystal clear. How dare you continue to look away and come here saying that you're doing enough, when the politics and solutions needed are still nowhere in sight. You say you hear us and that you understand the urgency. But no matter how sad and angry I am, I do not want to believe that. Because if you really understood the situation and still kept on failing to act, then you would be evil. And that I refuse to believe. The popular idea of cutting our emissions in half in 10 years only gives us a 50% chance of staying below 1.5 degrees [Celsius], and the risk of setting off irreversible chain reactions beyond human control. Fifty percent may be acceptable to you. But those numbers do not include tipping points, most feedback loops, additional warming hidden by toxic air pollution or the aspects of equity and climate justice. They also rely on my generation sucking hundreds of billions of tons of your CO2 out of the air with technologies that barely exist. So a 50% risk is simply not acceptable to us — we who have to live with the consequences. To have a 67% chance of staying below a 1.5 degrees global temperature rise – the best odds given by the [Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change] – the world had 420 gigatons of CO2 left to emit back on Jan. 1st, 2018. Today that figure is already down to less than 350 gigatons. How dare you pretend that this can be solved with just 'business as usual' and some technical solutions? With today's emissions levels, that remaining CO2 budget will be entirely gone within less than 8 1/2 years. There will not be any solutions or plans presented in line with these figures here today, because these numbers are too uncomfortable. And you are still not mature enough to tell it like it is. You are failing us. But the young people are starting to understand your betrayal. The eyes of all future generations are upon you. And if you choose to fail us, I say: We will never forgive you. We will not let you get away with this. Right here, right now is where we draw the line. The world is waking up. And change is coming, whether you like it or not. Thank you" (see “Transcript: Greta Thunberg’s speech at the UN Climate Action Summit”, NPR, 23 September 2019: https://www.npr.org/2019/09/23/763452863/transcript-greta-thunbergs-speech-at-the-u-n-climate-action-summit .)
TOPFER. Klaus Töpfer, Executive Director of the United Nations Environment Programme, on Climate Justice.
Klaus Töpfer is Executive Director of the United Nations Environment Programme (see: http://www.climatelaw.org/ ).
Klaus Töpfer, on the adoption of the Judges’ Johannesburg Principles on the Role of Law and Sustainable Development, August 2002: “The field of law has, in many ways, been the poor relation in the world-wide effort to deliver a cleaner, healthier and ultimately fairer world. We have over 500 international and regional agreements, treaties and deals covering everything from the protection of the ozone layer to the conservation of the oceans and seas. Almost all, if not all, countries have national environmental laws too. But unless these are complied with, unless they are enforced, then they are little more than symbols, tokens, paper tigers. This is an issue affecting billions of people who are effectively being denied their rights and one of not only national but regional and global concern. We are increasingly aware that what happens in one part of the world can affect (sic) in another part of the globe – be it toxic pollutants from Asia, Europe and North America contaminating the Arctic or the greenhouse gases of the industrialised regions triggering droughts or the melting of glaciers in the less industrialised ones.” [1].
[1]. Klaus Töpfer quoted in Climate Justice Programme, “Climate Justice: enforcing climate change law”: http://www.climatelaw.org/ .
(B) ORGANIZATIONS
AUSTRALIAN GREENS decry “[Australian Coalition PM] Abbott’s crimes against the climate… Tony Abbott is a climate criminal”
The Australian Greens are Australia’s leading pro-environment, pro-climate change action, pro-science, pro-education, pro-equity and pro-human rights and pro-equity party (see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Australian_Greens ).
The Australian Greens decrying “Abbott’s crimes against the climate… Tony Abbott is a climate criminal” (2013): “Abbott’s crimes against the climate … Australian Greens Leader Senator Christine Milne said issuing instructions to axe the Climate Change Authority was totally irresponsible in the face of a global climate emergency."The Climate Change Authority was set up to de-politicise the process of setting greenhouse emission reduction targets," Senator Milne said."Everyone knows that a 5% emission reduction target is woefully inadequate. "Shutting down the Climate Change Authority, ahead of its first report on fair and science based emission reduction targets for Australia, is cowardly and an attack on current and future generations. "Tony Abbott is a climate criminal. Shooting the messenger does not alter the fact that Australia has to do a lot better than 5% in order to contribute fairly to the global challenge of constraining global warming to two degrees."In the context of global warming this action is a crime against humanity. "Tony Abbott should also respect the law and end his heavy handed tactics in trying to undermine the work of the Clean Energy Finance Corporation (CEFC).” [1].
[1]. “Abbott’s crimes against the climate”, Australian Greens, September 2013: http://greensmps.org.au/content/media-releases/abbotts-crimes-against-climate .
BIOFUEL GENOCIDE. “Biofuel Genocide”: https://sites.google.com/site/biofuelgenocide/ .
BOLIVIA. Bolivia’s Intended Nationally Determined Contribution (INDC) for the 2015 COP21 Paris Climate Change Conference (2015): "The capitalist system promotes consumerism, warmongering and commercialism, causing the destruction of Mother Earth and humanity. The capitalist system is a system of death. Hence, capitalism is leading humanity towards a horizon of destruction that sentences nature and life itself to death. In this regard, for a lasting solution to the climate crisis we must destroy capitalism" and further set out a 10-point plan:
“1. Adoption of a new model of civilisation in the world without consumerism, war-mongering, and mercantilism, a world without capitalism; build and consolidate a world order of Living Well that defends and promotes the integral rights of our peoples, undertaking the path of harmony with nature and respect for life.
2. Construction of a climate system based on responsibility to Mother Earth, the culture of life and the full realization of humanity in their holistic development, humanising the economy, surpassing the simplistic approach to decarbonisation of the economy.
3. Protection of the Rights of Mother Earth in an articulated and complementary manner to the rights of peoples to their development.
4. Defense of universal common goods such as the seas and oceans, water, atmospheric space, as well as the technological monopoly, promoting people's access to the common heritage.
5. Elimination of patents on technologies and recognition of the human right to science and technology of life.
6. Effective implementation by governments of the human right to water.
7. Establishment of the International Court of Justice Climate and Mother Earth to enable countries to fulfill their international commitments to climate change in a context of respect for the rights of peoples and of Mother Earth.
8. Allocate the resources of the military machinery of the imperial powers and the war-mongers to finance the activities of the peoples against climate change.
9. Eradication of commodification of nature and carbon markets promoting business climate millionaires, which do not solve the problem of the climate crisis.
BRING CLIMATE CRIMINALS TO JUSTICE (BCCJ) demands exposure, trial and punishment of climate criminals.
Bring Climate Criminals to Justice (BCCJ) exists to establish a legal process in the UK and abroad to facilitate the criminal prosecution of Government Ministers and key business leaders whose policies and activities contribute to the mass loss of life which Climate Change is certain to now cause (see: http://www.climatecriminals.co.uk/ ).
Bring Climate Criminals to Justice (BCCJ): “[aims] to establish a legal process in the UK and abroad to facilitate the criminal prosecution of Government Ministers and key business leaders whose policies and activities contribute to the mass loss of life which Climate Change is certain to now cause…
[re Bangladesh] working with Bangladeshi political and environmental groups to seek the introduction of legislation to prosecute foreign nationals who have contributed to the Climate Change process that will result in the mass murder of Bangladeshi nationals.As the one nation expected to suffer the most this century (over 90 million people to be displaced by rising sea levels and more extreme weather events) with millions of people murdered by the key Climate Criminals, we are working to ensure the nation is the first to bring the main culprits to justice…
[re UK environmental campaigns] Working to ensure UK environmental campaign groups re-focus campaigning, uniting to call for the criminal prosecution and imprisonment of the worst offenders…
[re penalties upon prosecution and conviction] The penalties must be proportionate, reflecting the unprecedented scale of death and human misery the Climate Criminals will cause. The evidence from the world’s leading scientific bodies is now conclusive – we know that if the Climate Criminals do not stop their activities they will be responsible for the murder of at least 500 million people this century. But, there is a high probability that the deaths will exceed 1 billion people by 2100 with world population collapsing by the year 2200. This crime is so unique, so extreme, so bestial, both in terms of its callous disregard for life and the unprecedented numbers that will be killed, that it warrants exceptional penalties for those convicted. Different nations should decide their own penalties but in the UK we advocate: - Mandatory life imprisonment; Confiscation Orders of all personal assets; Confiscation Orders permitting the seizure of all assets transferred/bequeathed to others; Retrospective legislation which permits the seizure of all assets bequeathed to others after the death of a Climate Criminal. It is important that those carrying out their crimes today know that all personal wealth accumulated and passed on to others after their death will be traced and forfeited. The seizure of personal assets is important because so many Climate Criminals are motivated by greed and money…
[re the crime] Many years ago it was possible for government ministers, those in business and the general public to argue that the science was not sufficiently certain to warrant the introduction of polices which banned polluting activities. For the past two decades, however, the science has been sufficiently strong to warrant a precautionary approach – the scale of the potential threat was so great, that action had to be taken to stop as many polluting activities as was possible. For the past 10 years, however, the scientific community has been producing hard evidence pointing to the appalling scale of death policies and activities would cause. Government Ministers and many in business knew the dangers and yet took two steps: -Vigorously pursuing the growth in polluting activities (e.g. aviation expansion); and Resolutely maintaining existing policies which caused unnecessary pollution (e.g. the determination not to reform building regulations to require the construction of carbon neutral homes and other buildings).
Despite knowing the deaths their activities would cause, key Climate Criminals in business have: - Lobbied Government for permission to increase polluting activities (e.g. airport expansion); and Manufactured new products which are more polluting than those before (e.g. bringing to market new models of car which consume more fuel – the “gas guzzlers”).
Government Ministers knew their policies would accelerate the pace of Climate Change and contribute to greater loss of life. They can claim that it was never their intention to kill anyone but they knew that death of unprecedented numbers was certain. They can claim the deaths that have occurred, and will occur in appalling numbers in the future, can only partly be attributed to their polices, but the fact remains they contributed to unprecedented human misery and death through the decisions they took. No one individual will have delivered the fatal blow that kills another person – this is a shared crime. Government Ministers and key business leaders have acted in common purpose with others in such a way that they know they will help to cause the mass killing of others. This crime is unique in its selfish, callous disregard for others and its devastating consequences. It is not manslaughter (killing through negligence) - it is murder. There was no intention to kill, but they knew with absolute certainty they would contribute to appalling loss of life.” [1].
[1]. Bring Climate Criminals to Justice (BCCJ): http://www.climatecriminals.co.uk/ .
CLIMATE CRIME. Website resource against climate crime and in support of the climate justice movement.
Climate Crime in its own words: “ This site is being developed as a resource for the use of the growing climate justice movement and as a record of the crime of all time.
It is being developed out of respect to the most basic human rights human rights of today's most climate change vulnerable populations and of all future generations.
This is a site that has to be developed for all today's children and for all generations after them. The case against today's world powers, and of course the climate denial campaign, must at least documented.
Top world climate change expert James Hansen is right in implying that global climate change will be recognized as a crime against humanity. The sooner it is, the better for us all.
If our civilization is challenged with the reality of what continuing to emit greenhouse gases - and at an increasing rate!- means, surely there would have to be a change of heart.
World leaders and those leading institutions that are permitting this crime to continue must be held accountable for their inactions.” [1].
Climate Crime on climate crime as the crime of all time: “Global warming, climate change and ocean acidification, are 'for ever' (many thousands of years), which makes continued and increasing emissions of greenhouse gases, the crime of all time.
Already in 2009 an estimated 300,000 people a year were being killed by climate change, by the the Global Humanitarian Forum's Human Impact Report.
In the 2012 the humanitarian organization DARA's Climate Vulnerability Monitor estimated 400,00 are killed by global climate change every years, in a study independent of the Human Impact Report.
Due to unavoidable inertias all future generations are already committed to a global warming temperature increase triple today's (0.8C), and the combined national UN pledges on emissions is a committed warming of 4.5C (five times today's) by 2100.
This condemns billions of people to devastating losses of water, food, and health. UNEP in its 2009 4th Global Environmental Outlook made worldwide headlines, saying global climate change impacting on top of other ongoing unmitigated global environmental degradations threatens the very survival of humanity .” [2].
[1]. Climate Crime: http://www.climatecrime.org/about.html
[2]. Climate Crime: http://www.climatecrime.org/ .
CLIMATE GENOCIDE
[Climate Genocide] this Website documents authoritative opinions of leading climate scientists, climate economists, climate analysts and world figures who predict a massive death toll from unaddressed, man-made global warming.
Both Dr James Lovelock FRS (Gaia hypothesis) and Professor Kevin Anderson ( Deputy Director, Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research, University of Manchester, UK) have recently estimated that only about 0.5 billion people will survive this century due to unaddressed, man-made global warming.
Thus just before the 2009 Copenhagen summit, the Scotsman reported on Professor Anderson’s estimates of “only half a billion surviving”: "Current Met Office projections reveal that the lack of action in the intervening 17 years – in which emissions of climate changing gases such as carbon dioxide have soared – has set the world on a path towards potential 4C rises as early as 2060, and 6C rises by the end of the century. Anderson, who advises the government on climate change, said the consequences were 'terrifying'. 'For humanity it's a matter of life or death,' he said. 'We will not make all human beings extinct as a few people with the right sort of resources may put themselves in the right parts of the world and survive. But I think it's extremely unlikely that we wouldn't have mass death at 4C. If you have got a population of nine billion by 2050 and you hit 4C, 5C or 6C, you might have half a billion people surviving'." [1].
Dr James Lovelock FRS (top UK climate scientist, Fellow of the prestigious Royal Society, famous for his Gaia Hypothesis and atmospheric research): “If we can keep civilization alive through this century perhaps there is a chance that our descendants will one day serve Gaia and assist her in the fine-tuned self-regulation of the climate and composition of our planet. We have enjoyed 12,000 years of climate peace since the last shift from a glacial age to an interglacial one. Before long, we may face planet-wide devastation worse even than unrestricted nuclear war between superpowers. The climate war could kill nearly all of us and leave the few survivors living a Stone Age existence. But in several places in the world, including the U.K., we have a chance of surviving and even of living well. For that to be possible, we have to make our lifeboats seaworthy now ” [2].
Noting that the world population is expected to reach 9.5 billion by 2050 (UN Population Division) , these estimates 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. [3, 4].
16 million people (about 9.5 million of them under-5 year old infants) died avoidably every year due to deprivation and deprivation-exacerbated disease (2003 data) [5] – and man-made global warming is already clearly worsening this global avoidable mortality holocaust. However 10 billion avoidable deaths due to global warming this century yields an average annual avoidable death rate of 100 million per year.
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. [5].
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.” [6].
“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.” [7].
Dr Gideon Polya has made a Formal Complaint to the International Criminal Court over Australian involvement in Climate Genocide and other genocidal atrocities (2008). [8].
[1]. Professor Kevin Anderson quoted in “Kevin Anderson:, Wikipedia: (see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kevin_Anderson_%28scientist%29 )
[2]. James Lovelock, “Climate war could kill nearly all of us, leaving survivors on the Stone Age”, Guardian, 29 June 2009: http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/
2009/jun/29/climate-war-lovelock .
[3]. Gideon Polya, “Climate Genocide”: https://sites.google.com/site/climategenocide/ .
[4]. “Climate racism, climate injustice & climate genocide – Australia, US and EU sabotage Copenhagen COP15”: http://bellaciao.org/en/spip.php?article19422 .
[5]. Gideon Polya, “Body Count. Global avoidable mortality since 1950”, G.M. Polya, Melbourne, 2007; see: http://mwcnews.net/Gideon-Polya and http://globalbodycount.blogspot.com/ ).
[6]. UN Genocide Convention: http://www.edwebproject.org/sideshow/genocide/convention.html .
[7]. Javier Sethness-Castro, “Imperiled life: revolution against climate catastrophe”, AK Press, 2012: http://www.amazon.com/Imperiled-Life-Revolution-Catastrophe-Interventions/dp/1849351058 .
[8]. 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 .
CLIMATE GENOCIDE ACT NOW.
“Climate Genocide Act Now (2016): “Over ten years ago the Trade Union movement fought for the introduction of legislation to tackle the number of employees being killed at work. Employer’s groups worked hard to delay and undermine the legislation but the Corporate Manslaughter and Corporate Homicide Act 2007 was enacted. When they knew what was coming, directors decided they didn’t want to end up in prison and suffer heavy fines so they transformed safety procedures at work, saving lives on building sites, down tunnels, etc. The legislation was a success. We are working to bring forward a private member's Bill in 2017, “The Climate Genocide Bill”. Business leaders will fight this hard but we will win. We will enact legislation to criminalise those who kill others by expanding polluting activities and industries. The legislation will include provisions for the seizure of the proceeds of “climate crime” – those profits that are derived from industries that kill” (“Climate Genocide Act Now”, Facebook, 15 April 2016: https://www.facebook.com/ClimateGenocideAct/ ).
CLIMATE JUSTICE & INTERGENERATIONAL EQUITY.
Climate Justice & Intergenerational Equity (2014): “The continuing illegal use of the one common atmosphere and one common ocean of all nations and all peoples as a repository for carbon burning pollutants - notably CO2 and other greenhouse gases (GHGs) - constitutes illegal theft and depraved indifference that already kills about 5 million people annually , threatens to kill 10 billion people this century in a worsening climate genocide, threatens the Biosphere as well as Humanity, and illegally imposes a remorselessly increasing Carbon Debt on future generations through a process of Intergenerational Injustice, Intergenerational Inequity, Climate Injustice and 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… The world must finally reach zero emissions in about 2050 but many highly polluting countries will have already exceeded their “fair share” of the Worlds’ Terminal Carbon Budget or will be morally obliged to cease emissions in the next few years. 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) and is now stealing the entitlement of all other countries on Earth – climate criminality and climate injustice.” [1].
[1]. Climate Justice & Intergenerational Equity (2014): https://sites.google.com/site/300orgsite/climate-justice .
CLIMATE JUSTICE: PROGRAMME. Lawyers and campaigners around the world encouraging, supporting, and tracking enforcement of the law to combat climate change.
The Climate Justice Programme (CJP) in its own words: “The Climate Justice Programme (CJP) is an independent non-profit program that uses the law to expose environmental and human rights issues relating to climate change. We are a group of lawyers, academics and campaigners who support the development and execution of strategic initiatives to address global climate change. We seek to raise awareness and engagement in climate law through long standing global networks of lawyers and international organisations. The CJP is the only program globally that has been established with the sole purpose to work collaboratively with lawyers, campaigners and scientists in this innovative field” (see: http://www.climatejustice.org.au/ ).
Climate Justice Programme: “Climate change impacts are already affecting people and the planet. And the science shows it will get far, far worse. The biggest impacts will be on the lives and livelihoods of the poor and developing countries, especially small island states. The biggest culprits are the rich and the developed countries. Progress has been made: we have international agreements; more resources for scientific research, leading to stronger evidence; some policy advances; a change in industry rhetoric; and a certain increase in public awareness. But all this falls far short of what is needed. At the heart of the problem is the production and use of fossil fuel – particularly the emissions of carbon dioxide from the burning of coal, oil and gas. Developed countries have now accepted legally-binding emissions targets in the Kyoto Protocol, but these are widely recognised to be seriously inadequate, and the US has opted out. As Klaus Töpfer says, there are laws in place now that can address this. And over the last few years, many kinds of legal action have been taken around the world to enforce the law to combat climate change. A range of national and international legal theories have been invoked by dozens of different organisations, communities and individuals, such as human rights law, constitutional law, emission control regulation, endangered species protection, freedom of information and international legal obligations. Judgments and administrative decisions have begun to come through” The Climate Justice Programme seeks to encourage enforcement of the law to combat climate change and on this website we aim to provide information and materials on the legal actions we are aware of, and on other aspects of climate change law” [1].
[1]. Climate Justice Programme, “Climate Justice: enforcing climate change law”: http://www.climatelaw.org/ .
CLIMATE REVOLUTION NOW. "Climate Revolution Now": https://sites.google.com/site/300orgsite/climate-revolution .
DARA estimates 5 million annual deaths from climate change & carbon burning & 100 million may die before 2030 due to unaddressed, man-made climate change & carbon burning.
DARA in its own words: “Founded in 2003 by Silvia Hidalgo, DARA is an independent organisation committed to improving the quality and effectiveness of aid for vulnerable populations suffering from conflict, disasters and climate change. DARA has recognised expertise in providing support in the field of humanitarian aid as well as climate change, disaster and risk reduction. We have conducted evaluations of humanitarian operations in over 40 countries across five continents for a variety of government, United Nations and European Union agencies as well as major international organisations, including the Red Cross/Red Crescent Movement. Working with partners, DARA actively promotes humanitarian principles and best practice; provides quality analysis and evaluation of humanitarian interventions and monitors the human impact of climate change around the world. By evaluating impact and providing policy guidance and solutions, DARA works to improve aid effectiveness” (see: http://daraint.org/about-us/ ).
DARA 2012 Report commissioned by 20 countries: “This report estimates that climate change causes 400,000 on average each year today, mainly due to hunger and communicable diseases that affect above all children in developing countries. Our present carbon-intensive energy system and related activities cause an estimates 4.5 million deaths each year linked to air pollution , hazardous occupations and cancer. Climate changed caused economic losses estimated close to 1% of global GDP for the year 2010, or 700 billion dollars (2010, PPP).. The carbon-intensive economy cost the world another 0.7% of GDP in that year, independent of any climate change losses. Together, carbon economy- and climate change-related losses amounted to over 1.2 billion dollars.
The world is already committed to a substantial increase in global temperatures – at least another 0.5oC (1oF) due to a combination of the inertia of the world’s oceans, the slow response of the carbon cycle to reduced CO2 emission and limitation on how fast emissions can actually be reduced. The world economy therefore faces an increase in pressures that are estimated to lead to more than a doubling in the costs of climate change by 2030 to an estimated 2.5% of global GDP. Carbon economy costs also increase over this same period so that global GDP in 2030 is estimated to be well over 3% lower than it would have been in the absence of climate change and harmful carbon-intensive energy practices. Continuing today’s patterns of carbon-intensive energy use is estimated, together with climate change, to cause 5 million deaths per year by 2030, close to 700,000 of which would be due to climate change. This implies that a combined climate-carbon crisis is estimated to claim 100 million lives between now and the end of the next decade. A significant share of the global population would be directly affected by inaction on climate change” [1, 2].
[1]. 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/ .
[2]. 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 .
FRIENDS OF THE EARTH (FOE). Friends of the Earth (FOE) Australia works for climate justice.
Friends of the Earth (FOE) Australia in its own words: “We are the world's largest grassroots environmental network, uniting 76 national member groups and some 5,000 local activist groups on every continent. With over 2 million members and supporters around the world, we campaign on today's most urgent environmental and social issues. We challenge the current model of economic and corporate globalization, and promote solutions that will help to create environmentally sustainable and socially just societies” (see: http://foe.org.au/about ).
Friends of the Earth (FOE) Australia about climate justice (2013): “For many years our climate justice campaign has forged the agenda on the human rights dimensions of climate change, from supporting the rights of those at risk of climate-induced displacement to exposing the social impacts of carbon offsets in Southern countries. We are also building campaigns relating to Australia's greenhouse gas emissions and the impacts of the fossil fuel industries on communities. We participate in the Lock the Gate alliance against coal-seam gas, we are involved in campaigns against the expansion of the domestic and export coal industries, and we have started a pro-renewable energy campaign that highlights the benefits for communities in taking up renewable energy to reduce emissions” [1].
[1]. Friends of the Earth (FOE) Australia, “Climate Justice. Our climate campaign in 2013”: http://foe.org.au/climate-justice .
GLOBAL CAMPAIGN TO DEMAND CLIMATE JUSTICE.
Global Campaign to Demand Climate Justice: “We are movements and organizations engaged in many struggles for a new world - a world in which the needs, interests, rights and aspirations of peoples everywhere have priority over the profit of corporations and the excess of elites. In the years ahead, our solidarity and collective action is extremely crucial. Climate change is already having devastating impacts globally and is accelerating. The window for preventing the breach of tipping points and stopping climate catastrophe is rapidly closing. Climate change is more than multiplying the sufferings of people already burdened by the global injustices of hunger, dispossession and violation of human rights. It is a crisis that also threatens to wipe out vast populations and profoundly change life on Earth. We must act with clarity, cohesion and courage if we are to stabilize the Earth’s climate system and secure a just and sustainable world.” [1].
[1]. Global Campaign to Demand Climate Justice,” Our platform and strategy”: http://climatejusticecampaign.org/ .
GLOBAL GREENS. Global Greens demand action at Paris COP21 to prevent dangerous climate change.
Global Greens (Global Greens is a partnership of the world's Green parties and political movements. The Green Party of the United States is one of more than 90 members of Global Greens ) (2015):
Global Greens Declaration. Paris climate conference - failure is not an option
The Global Greens call upon the governments of the world, assembled at Paris next week, to fulfill their collective responsibility for preventing dangerous climate change.
Unity and resolve are vital, not least as a counter to the fear and disunity that horrific terrorist attacks, like those recently in Mali, Paris and Beirut, aim to inspire. Failure is not an option.
We call on all the peoples of the world, marching this weekend, to demand this of their governments and hold them electorally to account.
Specifically, the Global Greens call on governments in Paris to negotiate a legally binding agreement that demonstrates
1. Ambition. Intended Nationally Determined Contributions (INDCs) fall well short of preventing dangerous climate change (if implemented they may hold global warming to 2.7℃ above pre-industrial levels). The Global Greens re-affirm our commitment to limit global warming to no more than 1.5℃ above pre-industrial levels and call for a rigorous transparent process to review and tighten INDCs every year at the UNFCCC annual conference of parties.
2. Justice. The developed world must honour its pledge to mobilise $USD100 billion per annum climate finance from 2020. This is a precondition for the success of the Paris climate summit. Climate finance must be complemented with a 'loss and damage' mechanism to compensate and support the most vulnerable countries already being disastrously impacted by climate change.
3. Clean energy commitment. The world's energy supplies should be 'decarbonised' no later than 2050, replacing fossil fuels with renewable energy sources and energy efficiency, and providing clean affordable energy for all. Nuclear power is not an alternative because it is unsafe, expensive and a terrorism risk.
4. Forest protection commitment. Climate finance must be available for the protection of biodiverse natural forests and ecosystems which are a vital buffer against climate change. There must be full respect for the rights of local communities and Indigenous peoples in this process.
The climate crisis is both the greatest challenge facing the global community and the greatest opportunity for humanity to rethink how we live, in a way that is socially just and within the Earth's ecological limits.
We look to the 21st meeting of parties to the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change to boost dramatically the momentum of global climate action and set the world on the path to a safe climate.
Global Greens Statement, November 2015 (Global Greens Declaration. Paris climate conference - failure is not an option
, Global Greens US, 27 November 2015: http://www.gp.org/global_greens_statement_on_climate_summit ).
INTERNATIONAL MONETARY FUND (IMF). The International Monetary Fund (IMF) mitigation of climate change report (September 2019): “Limiting global warming to 2°C or less requires policy measures on an ambitious scale, such as an immediate global carbon tax that will rise rapidly to $75 a ton of CO2 in 2030… The shift from fossil fuels will not only transform an economy but also profoundly change the lives of households, businesses, and communities. Importantly, the shift would generate additional and immediate domestic environmental benefits, such as lower mortality from air pollution (725,000 fewer premature deaths in 2030 for a $75 a ton tax for G20 countries alone)… The average price on global emissions is currently $2 a ton, a tiny fraction of what is needed for the 2°C target” (International Monetary Fund (IMF), “Fiscal Monitor: how to mitigate climate change”. Executive Summary”, September 2019: file:///C:/Users/Gideon/AppData/Local/Temp/execsum-6.pdf .
[Editor: Assuming such a Carbon Tax could be rapidly implemented by all the G20 countries, lives saved in the period 2020-2030 would average 362,000 per year and thus total 4.0 million. However in response to the Australian ABC query “Would Australia accept a global Carbon Tax?” the Australian Coalition Government simply and emphatically replied “No” . If all of the G20 followed Australia’s example then they would be complicit in a Climate Genocide in which 4 million people would die prematurely from carbon pollution in 2020-2030. Presently each year 7 million people die from air pollution (World Health Organization, WHO), this including about 10,000 Australians and 75,000 dying from the effects of pollutants from the burning of Australia’s world leading coal exports.
The 4 million Climate Genocide carnage is of the same order as the carnage of the WW2 Jewish Holocaust (5-6 million deaths from violence or imposed deprivation) and the WW2 Bengali Holocaust (6-7 million Indians starved to death for strategic reasons by the British with Australian complicity) but about 10 times less than deaths in the WW2 European Holocaust (30 million Slavs, Jews and Roma killed), the WW2 Chinese Holocaust (35 million Chinese killed under the Japanese, 1937-1945), and 40 million Asian deaths from violence or imposed deprivation in Australian Coalition-backed, post-1950 US Asian wars (see “ Stop air pollution deaths”: https://sites.google.com/site/300orgsite/stop-air-pollution-deaths and “Climate Genocide”: https://sites.google.com/site/climategenocide/ ).]
MOBILIZATION FOR CLIMATE JUSTICE demands "effective and just solutions to the climate crisis".
Mobilization for Climate Justice is a North America-based network of organizations and activists “who have joined together to build a North American climate justice movement that emphasizes non-violent direct action and public education to mobilize for effective and just solutions to the climate crisis. The Mobilization for Climate Justice invites communities, organizations and activists across North America to join us in organizing mass action on climate change on November 30, 2009 (N30). N30 is significant because it both immediately precedes the upcoming UN Climate Conference in Copenhagen (COP-15) and is the ten-year anniversary of the successful shut down of the WTO in Seattle, when activists worldwide came together to demonstrate the power of collective action. The Copenhagen climate meetings will be a major focus for international mass actions this November and December, and the MCJ is linked to these efforts as well” (see: http://www.actforclimatejustice.org/about/ ).
Mobilization for Climate Justice on the global imperative to return to 300 ppm CO2 (2010): “Before COP15, during COP15 and POST COP15, there has been a global 350.org campaign. At COP15, states such as Bolivia, and the ALBA group, and some scientists and activists were calling for parts per million (ppm) of carbon dioxide to return to 300 ppm. When people from the 350.org campaign were asked why they did not respond to the lower demands, their response was ‘350.org is our campaign’. However, more and more, leading climate activists and leading world scientists are advocating the necessity of returning to 300 ppm [numerous examples and quotations given]” [1].
NATIONAL ASSOCIATION FOR THE ADVANCEMENT OF COLORED PEOPLE (NAACP) CLIMATE JUSTICE INITIATIVE.
NAACP Climate Justice Initiative: “Global climate change has a disproportionate impact on communities of color in the United States and around the world. The NAACP Climate Justice Initiative was created to educate and mobilize communities to address this human and civil rights issue… When folks think about climate change, the first things some people think of are melting ice caps and suffering polar bears. However, many fail to make the connection in terms of the direct impact on our own lives, families, and communities. Climate Change is about Katrina, Rita, and Ike devastating communities in Mississippi, Louisiana, Florida, and Texas, Climate Change is about our sisters and brothers in the Bahamas who will be losing their homes to rising sea levels in the coming few years. Climate Change is about people in Detroit, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and elsewhere who have died and are dying of exposure to toxins from coal fired power plants. Climate Change is about sisters and brothers in West Virginia who are breathing toxic ash from blasting for mountain top removal. Climate Change is about our folks in Thibodeaux, Louisiana who are being forced to move within the next 10 years because rising sea levels will result in the submersion of the coastal land that is their home currently. It's about the fact that race--over class--is the number one indicator for the placement of toxic facilities in this country. Climate change is about the fact that in our communities it is far easier to find a bag of Cheetos than a carton of strawberries. Climate Change is about us” [1].
[1]. NAACP Climate Justice Initiative: http://www.naacp.org/programs/entry/climate-justice .
STOP CLIMATE CRIME. “Stop climate crime”: https://sites.google.com/site/300orgsite/stop-climate-crime .
CLIMATE JUSTICE GLOSSARY
CLIMATE JUSTICE GLOSSARY - 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 + ((3n +4)/2)O2 -> (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] ). Returning atmospheric CO2 from the current 400 ppm CO2 to a safe and sustainable, pre-Industrial Revolution level of circa 300 ppm CO2 could be done by converting 1/4 of the atmospheric CO2 (1/4 of 2,800 billion tonnes CO2 = 700 Gt billion tonnes CO2 to cellulosic biomass (woody and straw waste) by photosynthesis and thence converting biomass to biochar (carbon, charcoal) through anaerobic pyrolysis. At $150 per tonne CO2-e (an expert estimate of the Carbon Price needed for effective climate action) this would cost $150 per tonne CO2-e x 0.7 trillion tonnes CO2-e = $105 trillion. At $100 per tonne CO2-e (a rough estimate of the cost of generating and safely storing biochar) this would cost $100 per tonne CO2-e x 0.7 trillion tonnes CO2-e = $70 trillion (the World's annual GDP is about $85 trillion) [1]. (Note that these estimates mankind -generated CO2 dissolvved in the ocean).
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 Bengal Famine in which 6-7 million people died 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 against 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 + ((3n +4)/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 + ((3n +4)/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 $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. (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 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. (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 5 million people who die annually from climate change and carbon burning [10, 11] to get a Climate Change Cost estimate of $37 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) $9.6 trillion (from non-application of a Carbon Price), (B) $13-53 trillion (the cheapest cost of biochar-based return of atmospheric CO2 to a safe 300 ppm, and (C) $37 trillion (from a US VOSL applied to 5 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 $192 trillion and increasing by about $10 trillion each year.
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 companies 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 from 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 + ((3n +4)/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 4-15 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 Worlds’ Terminal Carbon Budget or will be morally obliged to cease emissions in the next few years [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 (3 years ago) [1] and is now stealing the entitlement of all other countries on Earth – climate criminality and climate injustice.
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.
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[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 .
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[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.
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[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 .
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[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/ ..
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[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 .
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[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 .
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[54]. “Divest from fossil fuels”: https://sites.google.com/site/300orgsite/divest-from-fossil-fuels .
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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 .