Below is a numerically- and alphabetically-organized compendium of quotes about the worsening Climate Genocide.
300.org. Developing nations must urgently defend themselves from Australia-, US- and First World-imposed climate genocide
300.org (exists to inform people about the Climate Emergency and the need to reduce atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2 ) concentration to a safe and sustainable level of about 300 ppm): The fundamental position of 300.org is that “There must be a safe and sustainable existence for all peoples and all species on our warming-threatened Planet and this requires a rapid reduction of atmospheric carbon dioxide concentration to about 300 parts per million” (see: http://sites.google.com/site/300orgsite/Home ).
For a 300.org compendium of quotations of top climate scientists and analysts arguing for a rapid return of atmospheric CO2 to 300-350 ppm see: http://sites.google.com/site/300orgsite/300-org---return-atmosphere-co2-to-300-ppm .
300.org Letter to Island Nations and Developing Nations re the December 2009 Copenhagen COP15 Climate Conference failure, the worsening, First World-imposed climate genocide of non-European peoples and the worsening climate emergency for all peoples (Humanity) and all species (the Biosphere) (December 2009): "Developing Nations must urgently defend themselves from Australia-, US- and First World-imposed climate genocide.Top climate scientists, including the UK Royal Society Coral Working Party, say that we must urgently return the atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2) concentration from a current, dangerous 390 parts per million (ppm) to a safe and sustainable level of 300-350 ppm for a safe planet for all people and all species. This means doing everything we can immediately to avoid more than a 1.5 degree C temperature rise – rapid implementation of renewable energy, geothermal energy, re-afforestation and return of carbon to the soil as biochar coupled with progressive cessation of fossil fuel burning, deforestation, methanogenic livestock production and population growth."
350.org. Global 2C increase means over 3C for Africa: "No to climate genocide"
350.org (founded by US environmental journalist Bill McKibben and, informed by climate scientists, argues for a return of atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2) concentration to no more than 350 parts per million (ppm): “350.org is an international campaign dedicated to building a movement to unite the world around solutions to the climate crisis--the solutions that science and justice demand. Our focus is on the number 350--as in parts per million, the level scientists have identified as the safe upper limit for CO2 in our atmosphere. But 350 is more than a number--it's a symbol of where we need to head as a planet.” (see: http://www.350.org/mission )
350.org report about African response to the secret, US-, EU- and Australia-backed “Danish text” at Copenhagen and the deadly effects on Africa of its proposed “2 degree C” temperature increase target (December 2009): “Outraged by the content of the text and the fact that the Danish Presidency is abusing its role as Chair of the Conference, the Africans launched a spontaneous march and protest through the middle of the Climate Conference at the Bella Centre. Negotiations are still on-going at the Climate Change Conference, and the Danish text pre-judges their outcome. The “Danish text” includes provision to aim to limit the rise in global temperatures to two degrees, which would mean massive levels of harm to Africa. According to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change a two degree increase in the global mean temperature will mean a three or more degree increase for temperatures in Africa. Such an increase in temperature would lead to widespread devastation including predictions of a 50% reduction in crop yields in some areas, cutting food outputs in half, more than 600 million people left without adequate water supplies, and massive damage to coastlines, rural communities and cities. Marching through the Conference Center African groups chanted: “Two degrees is suicide” “One Africa, One Degree” and “No to Climate Colonialism, No to Climate Genocide” in response to the proposal” ( Jamie, “Africa “Refuses to die quietly””, 350.org, “8 December 2009: http://www.350.org/about/blogs/africa-refuses-die-quietly .)
AFRICAN DELEGATES TO 2009 COPENHAGEN CLIMATE CHANGE CONFERENCE: climate change inaction "tantamount to genocide"
African delegates to the 2009 Copenhagen Climate Change Conference as reported by the BBC (2009): “African delegates have made a desperate plea to the UN Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen, claiming that ignoring the continent's anticipated problems with climate change could be tantamount to genocide” (“Africa’s plea over greenhouse gases”, BBC News, 19 December 2009: http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p03s8c92 ).
ANDERSON, Kevin: 0.5 billion climate holocaust survivors
Professor Kevin Anderson is the Director, Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research, University of Manchester, UK. Professor Anderson, together with Dr Alice Bows wrote an extremely important paper describing 6-8% annual GHG emissions reductions needed for 450 ppm CO2-equivalent (CO2-e): “According to the analysis conducted in this paper, stabilizing at 450 ppmv [carbon dioxide equivalent = CO2-e, atmospheric concentration measured in parts per million by volume] requires, at least, global energy related emissions to peak by 2015, rapidly decline at 6-8% per year between 2020 and 2040, and for full decarbonization sometime soon after 2050 …Unless economic growth can be reconciled with unprecedented rates of decarbonization (in excess of 6% per year), it is difficult to envisage anything other than a planned economic recession being compatible with stabilization at or below 650 ppmv CO2-e ... Ultimately, the latest scientific understanding of climate change allied with current emissions trends and a commitment to “limiting average global temperature increases to below 4oC above pre-industrial levels”, demands a radical reframing of both the climate change agenda, and the economic characterization of contemporary society” (see: Kevin Anderson & Alice Bows, “Reframing the climate change challenge in light of post-2000 emission trends”, Proc. Trans. Roy. Soc, A, 2008: http://www.tyndall.ac.uk/publications/journal_papers/fulltext.pdf ; Gideon Polya, “Good and bad climate news”, Green Blog, 2009: http://www.green-blog.org/2009/01/13/good-and-bad-climate-news/ ; and George Monbiot, “One shot left”, Monbiot.com (also published in the UK Guardian, 2008): http://www.monbiot.com/archives/2008/11/25/one-shot-left/ ).
Professor Kevin Anderson (2011): “A [plus] 4°C future [relative to pre-industrial levels] is incompatible with an organized global community, is likely to be beyond ‘adaptation’, is devastating to the majority of ecosystems, and has a high probability of not being stable” (Anderson, K. (2011) “Going beyond dangerous climate change: Exploring the void between rhetoric and reality in reducing carbon emissions”, LSE presentation, 11 July 2011, http://www.slideshare.net/DFID/professor-kevin-anderson-climate-change-going-beyond-dangerous ).
Professor Kevin Anderson (2009): ““If you have got a population of nine billion by 2050 and you hit 4°C, 5°C or 6°C, you might have half a billion people surviving” (Kevin Anderson quoted in J. Fyall, “Warming will ‘wipe out billions”, The Scotsman, 29 November 2009, archived at http://www.webcitation.org/5ul6K9Jmt?url=http://news.scotsman.com/latestnews/Warming-will-39wipe-out-billions39.5867379.jp and in Ian Dunlop and David Spratt, “Disaster Alley climate change conflict & risk”, Breakthrough, 2017: https://uploads.guim.co.uk/2017/06/20/ACFrOgDkCYAvFeJ9d4YxhOlZiOHNkTOnWbkhlY_dX8kl_O3ChbGcEmWsbUNrOnJUwE4SNWFvzB7RM6w4GsF0pDwdnREIip-k5J-03TQc0Op4FWrsNcZpjXAuy7NNJ_Y=.pdf ).
Professor Kevin Anderson on how many will survive the century in a “terrifying prospect” (November 2009): “For humanity it's a matter of life or death. 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… The worst possible result at Copenhagen is a bad deal where the world leaders have to come home and say it's a good deal when its rubbish. That's the real danger – that they will feel under pressure to sign up to anything. That could lock us into something bad for the next ten years." (Professor Kevin Anderson quoted by Jenny Fyall, “Warming “will wipe out billions””, The Scotsman, 29 November 2009: http://news.scotsman.com/latestnews/Warming-will-39wipe-out-billions39.5867379.jp .)
Kevin Anderson (Tyndall Centre, University of Manchester, UK) predicting climate famine (2011): “[Slide 21] There is a widespread view that a 4oC future is incompatible with an organised global community, is likely to be beyond “adaptation”, is devastating to the majority of ecosystems & has a high probability of not being stable (i.e. 4oC would be an interim temperature [rise] on the way to a much higher equilibrium level). Consequently… 4oC should be avoided at “all’ costs… [Slide 28] In low latitudes 4oC gives a 40% reduction in maize and rice as population heads toward 9 billion by 2050… [Slide 60] 2oC stabilization is virtually impossible … 4oC by 2050-2070 looks “likely” (could be earlier & on the way to 6oC +)… [Slide 61] So where does this leave us? Manchester Mandate: mitigate for 2oC, plan for 4oC, Bows’ reflection: mitigate for 4oC, plan for 2oC… we’re heading for the worst of all worlds” (Kevin Anderson, “Climate change: going beyond dangerous ,,, brutal numbers & tenuous hope or cognitive dissonance?”, 11 July 2011: https://www.slideshare.net/DFID/professor-kevin-anderson-climate-change-going-beyond-dangerous ).
Kevin Anderson (2009): "For humanity it's a matter of life or death. 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" (Kevin Anderson quoted in Jenny Fyall “Warming will wipe out billions”, Conservative Underground, 20 November 2009: http://www.conservativeunderground.com/forum505/showthread.php?22139-Warming-will-wipe-out-billions and in Renfrey Clarke, “Climate change: when scientists become revolutionaries”, Green Left Weekly, 17 January 2014: https://www.greenleft.org.au/content/climate-change-when-scientists-become-revolutionaries ).
Professor Kevin Anderson (director of the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change) (2009): “For humanity it’s a matter of life or death. 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 4°C. If you have got a population of nine billion by 2050 and you hit 4°C, 5°C or 6°C, you might have half a billion people surviving” (Kevin Anderson quoted in Jenny Fyal, “Warming will “wipe out billions””, The Scotsman, 29 November 2009: https://www.webcitation.org/5ul6K9Jmt?url=http://news.scotsman.com/latestnews/Warming-will-39wipe-out-billions39.5867379.jp ).
Will Anderson (author of “This is Hope: Green Vegans and the New Human Ecology”) on the long term sustainable human population for the Earth (2013): “What is our sustainable human population from this biocentric perspective? Estimates vary. Somewhere near the middle is anthropologist Jeffrey K. McKee’s opinion. After stating that human population is the leading cause of extinctions, he asked what “… would it take before every country in our database demonstrated a reduction in threats to at least one or more species if mammals and birds? The answer is … approximately 3.4 billion [people] would accomplish this goal.” [77] Anthropologist J. Kenneth Smail believes the Earth’s long term sustainable population is 2 to 3 billion. [78] Some feel the sustainable population is much higher, though there is little said about what Earth would lose in the process. Opinions go as low as 500 million. [79]. … The organization “How Many People” estimates that “Every year about 135 million people are born and 55 million people die… “ [81]. If there were no births at all anywhere on Earth, the annual natural attrition would be 55 million fewer people per year. But of course we are still choosing to add nearly 80 million every year”” (Will Anderson, “This is Hope: Green Vegans and the New Human Ecology”, Earth Books, 2013, pages 23-24) [Editor: the Earth's population in 2019 is 7.6 billion and is predicted to rise to about 10 billion by 2050].
ASLAM, Mohamed. Maldives Minister, COP17, Durban, 2011: "a path to four degrees of warming. This will definitely wipe my country and many other islands off the map"
Mohamed Aslam, Minister of Housing and Environment, Maldives, at the COP17 UN Climate Conference in Durban, December 2011 “We wanted a legally binding deal to guarantee our survival. It’s the only viable solutions. Current pledges are not concurrent with what parties agreed in Cancun. These pledges have us on a path to four degrees of warming. This will definitely wipe my country and many other islands off the map. It’s time to act decisively… We cannot accept once again to redefine what we have already concluded. Redefining and reinventing building blocks will only delay the progress we have achieved so far [sic]. Some people think time is on their side. For my country it is extremely important to get action todal”( John Parnell, “Island states appeal for COP17 Ministers to avert “climate genocide”, RTCC, 7 December 2011: http://www.rtcc.org/policy/island-states-appeal-for-cop17-ministers-to-avert-%E2%80%9Cclimate-genocide%E2%80%9D/ .
John Scales Avery (theoretical chemist in quantum chemistry, thermodynamics, evolution, and history of science and notable for his peace activism associated with the Pugwash Conferences on Science ) (2017): “8.1 Climate change as genocide. Climate change does not affect all parts of the world equally. The harshest effects of the extreme weather that we are already experiencing are disproportionately felt by the poorest people of the world. In March, 2017. the Security Council was informed [1] that 20 million people in four countries, Nigeria, Somalia, South Sudan and Yemen, were in danger of dying unless provided with immediate help. The cost of the necessary aid was estimated to be $4.4 billion. The developed world’s response has been a shrug of indifference. By the midsummer. 2017 only a tenth of the amount needed had been raised. Conflicts and famine are interlinked. The struggle for food produces conflicts; and famine is often used as an instrument of war. Food aid, when available, is often deliberately blocked or destroyed by warring factions. Boko Haram in Nigeria, al-Shabaab in Somalia, assorted militias and the government in South Sudan, and Saudi-backed forces in Yemen all interfered with the delivery of aid supplies. In the future, the effects of rising temperatures and reduced rainfall will disproportionately affect poor farmers of Africa, the Middle East, South Asia, and Latin America. If the more affluent parts of the world continue to produce greenhouse gasses in a business-as-usual scenario, and if they continue to ignore calls for help from starving people, these actions will amount to genocide ([1] by Stephen O’Brian, UN Under Secretary General for Humanitarian Affairs) (John Scales Avery, “The Climate Emergency: Two time scales”, 2017: http://www.fredsakademiet.dk/library/climate.pdf ).
BAINIMARAMA, Frank. "Let's be clear, the costs of climate change to our industries, our people, our potential, are crippling. This climate crisis kills. [It] destroys the lands we love"
Frank Bainimarama (Fiji PM) commenting on Australian politicians saying that Pacific Islanders could move to higher ground or migrate to Australia (2019): “Despite the enormous difficulties of these decisions, Fiji is lucky we even have the higher ground to allow for relocation at all. I'm keen to hear what the honourable member believes the people of Kiribati should do in the face of rising seas, when the highest point in their country sits at just 1.8 metres above sea level… In a time when we must be future-facing we can hardly tolerate such insensitive, neo-colonial prescriptions. I implore leaders of Australia to visit these communities and see them firsthand before they propose solutions that are so blatantly out of touch with the reality that Pacific Islanders live with on the ground, day in and day out… Let's be clear, the costs of climate change to our industries, our people, our potential, are crippling. This climate crisis kills. [It] destroys the lands we love” (Stephen Dziedzic, “Fiji leader slams Liberal MP John Alexander’s climate change advice”, ABC News, 8 May 2019: https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-05-08/fiji-leader-slams-liberal-mps-useless-climate-change-advice/11091370 ).
BANGLADESH CIVIL SOCIETY ORGANIZATIONS (CSOs) say Doha failure means first world is threatening "climate genocide in poor countries"
Bangladesh Civil Society Organizations (CSOs) have joined to express concern over failure of the international community to act on man-made climate change (see: http://www.energybangla.com/2012/12/11/2440.html#.UPTSY_Juzlc ).
Energy Bangla Report of Bangladesh Civil Society Organizations (CSOs) Press Release at the Doha Climate Change Conferencee (Doha, 6th December 2012): “ Today Bangladeshi CSO climate networks namely BAPA, BIPNetCCBD, CCDF, CSRL, CFGN, EquityBD and NCCB conducted a press conference in QNCC, Doha where CoP 18 UNFCCC Climate Conference are happening, there are only one day remain to conclude the conference. The civil societies expressed frustration and condemned the attitude of developed countries especially of USA, they urged global leaders to make a deal based on science and consider due compensation as repaying of climate debt, they have also expressed worried as if there are no deals means some how a collapse of multilateralism, meaning accepting climate genocide in poor countries.
The press conference was moderated by Rezaul Karim Chowdhury of EquityBD, other speakers are Dr. Ahsan Uddin Ahmed of CGC/CSRL, Dr. Abdul Matin of BAPA. Md. Golam Rabbani of CCDF/BCAS read out the press statement on behalf of the group. The group’s press statement title “Polluters, You Can Not Eat Money”. In the statement the group condemned the selfish attitude of developed countries, who repeatedly failed to fulfill commitment. They urged that there should not be any adhoc approach of financing for the period of 2013 to 2020. The group has also urged for decision on drastic emission cut following science based forecast and with the principles of equity and justice, common but differentiate responsibilities and capabilities, not only applicable to developed countries only, should also be applicable to advance developed country too, e.g., to the BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa) countries.
In respect of loss and damage discourse in the negotiation process Dr. Ahsan Uddin Ahmed condemned the approach of Developed countries, especially USA who are showing obstinate to accept the proposal of International Compensatory Mechanism. It should be noted that least develop countries trying and arguing for inclusion of climate forced displacement issue too in the process.
Rezaul Karim Chowhdury has mentioned that if there is compromise deal which might be going to be happened in fact, means developed countries strengthening of their own right to giving fire on the houses of poor people in the global south. In fact it will be condemned by everybody in the history" (Energy Bangla, “No Doha deal means accepting climate genocide in poor countries”, Energy Bangla, 11 December 2012: http://www.energybangla.com/2012/12/11/2440.html#.UPTSY_Juzlc . )
BASSEY, Nnimmo. Rich sentence poorest millions to climate death
Nnimmo Bassey, prominent Nigerian environmentalist and chair of Friends of the Earth International, has described Copenhagen COP15 as "an abject failure". [1].
Nnimmo Bassey re the US-proposed Copenhagen Accord "noted" by COP15 (December 2009): "Justice has not been done. By delaying action, rich countries have condemned millions of the world’s poorest people to hunger, suffering and loss of life as climate change accelerates. The blame for this disastrous outcome is squarely on the developed nations. We are disgusted by the failure of rich countries to commit to the emissions reductions they know are needed, especially the US, which is the world's largest historical emitter of greenhouse gases. In contrast African nations, China and others in the developing world deserve praise for their progressive positions and constructive approach. Major developing countries cannot be blamed for the failure of rich industrialised countries. Instead of committing to deep cuts in emissions and putting new, public money on the table to help solve the climate crisis, rich countries have bullied developing nations to accept far less. Those most responsible for putting the planet in this mess have not shown the guts required to fix it and have instead acted to protect short-term political interests. The only real leadership at the conference has come from the hundreds of thousands of ordinary people who’ve come together to demand strong action to prevent climate catastrophe. Their voices are loud and growing – and Friends of the Earth International will continue to be part of the fight for climate justice" ( Nnimmo Bassey, quoted in “Copenhagen: “Imperial” climate deal rejected by poor-country delegates”, LINKS, 19 December 2009: http://links.org.au/node/1418 .)
BRADSHAW, Corey: " In the absence of catastrophe or large fertility reductions (to fewer than two children per female worldwide)... Africa and South Asia will experience the greatest human pressures on future ecosystems... 2 billion people"
Corey Bradshaw and Barry Brook on 2 billion people by 2153 if only one child per woman on average by 2100 (2014) : https://www.pnas.org/content/early/2014/10/23/1410465111 The inexorable demographic momentum of the global human population is rapidly eroding Earth’s life-support system. There are consequently more frequent calls to address environmental problems by advocating further reductions in human fertility. To examine how quickly this could lead to a smaller human population, we used scenario-based matrix modeling to project the global population to the year 2100. Assuming a continuation of current trends in mortality reduction, even a rapid transition to a worldwide one-child policy leads to a population similar to today’s by 2100. Even a catastrophic mass mortality event of 2 billion deaths over a hypothetical 5-y window in the mid-21st century would still yield around 8.5 billion people by 2100. In the absence of catastrophe or large fertility reductions (to fewer than two children per female worldwide), the greatest threats to ecosystems—as measured by regional projections within the 35 global Biodiversity Hotspots—indicate that Africa and South Asia will experience the greatest human pressures on future ecosystems” (Corey Bradshaw and Barry Brook, “Human population is not a quick fix for environmental problems”, ”, PNAS, 27 October 2014: https://www.pnas.org/content/early/2014/10/23/1410465111 ).
BRING CLIMATE CRIMINALS TO JUSTICE (BCCJ). Climate Genocide Criminal Prosecutions Bill
Bring Climate Criminals to Justice (BCCJ) is a UK organization that 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”. BCCJ acts in relation to 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“ and also engages with 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. “(see: http://www.climatecriminals.co.uk/ ).
Bring Climate Criminals to Justice (BCCJ) on Climate Genocide Criminal Prosecutions Bill: “We seek the introduction of a Bill to Parliament that will facilitate the retrospective prosecution of key Climate Criminals. These are Government Ministers and others who, through their policies and activities, have made significant contribution to the mass loss of life.The Bill will permit the prosecution for the deaths that have occurred and those that will be caused in the future. The Bill will permit the introduction of unprecedented penalties which are proportionate to the scale of the crime (Penalties: Upon prosecution and conviction.) The current and next administrations will not support such legislation but we want Government Ministers and key business players to know that retrospective legislation will be introduced in the future. As public opinion hardens and campaigners demand justice, new politicians will be elected who will deliver legislation that will tackle those who are guilty of the most bestial of all crimes against humanity. We are hopeful that prompt action in Bangladesh to introduce such legislation will encourage other nations to follow suit" ( Bring Climate Criminals to Justice (BCCJ): http://www.climatecriminals.co.uk/ .)
BROWN, James. Professor of Biology at the University of New Mexico puts the odds of sustaining human civilization at 1 percent
James Brown (ecologist, and a Distinguished Professor of Biology at the University of New Mexico) quoted by Professor Paul Ehrlich (2013): “Can humanity avoid a starvation-driven collapse? Yes, we can – though we currently put the odds at just 10 percent. As dismal as that sounds, we believe that, for the benefit of future generations, it is worth struggling to make it 11 percent. One of our most distinguished colleagues, biogeographer and energy expert James Brown of the University of New Mexico, disagrees. He puts the odds of sustaining human civilization at 1 percent, but thinks that it’s worth trying to increase it to 1.1 percent” (Paul R. Ehrlich “Famine threatens the very survival of human civilization” , The Daily Star, Lebanon, 16 March 2013: http://mahb.stanford.edu/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/Famine-Threatens-the-Very-Survival-of-Human-Civilization.pdf ).
BROWN, Lester. Worldwatch Institute founder warns of Environmental Genocide due to increasing Food Demand & Food Supply constraints
Lester Russel Brown (born March 28, 1934 in Bridgeton, New Jersey) is a US environmentalist, founder of the Worldwatch Institute, founder and president of the Earth Policy Institute, a nonprofit research organization based in Washington DC and the author or co-author of over 50 books on global environmental issues and his works have been translated into more than forty languages. His most recent book is Plan B 4.0: Mobilizing to Save Civilization (see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lester_R._Brown ).
Lester Brown, videoed lecture on food supply and demand constraints, commencing with the collapse of Sumerian agriculture (deforestation, salinization) and dealing with demand constraints (population growth, rising affluence and conversion of grain to fuel) and supply side constraints (notably water, ice melting, water table lowering , over-pumping and aquifer depletion) (2011)( Lester Brown, “Averting Environmental Genocide- Plan B 4.0”, You-Tube, 21 April 2011: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8_Y_ue6km20 .)
BUTTON, James: "Between 2030 and 2050 climate change will cause an additional 250,000 deaths per year from heat stress, malaria, malnutrition and diarrhea"
James Button et al (Monash University Sustainable Development Institute) reviewing health impacts of climate change (2019): “[World Health Organization opines] For example, between 2030 and 2050 climate change will cause an additional 250,000 deaths per year from heat stress, malaria, malnutrition and diarrhea, according to some estimates. To summarise, “there is a widespread scientific consensus that the world’s climate is changing [and] addressing these occurrences is a pressing challenge for public health”” (James Button Monash Sustainable Development Institute (editor), “From Townsville to Tuvalu. Health and climate change in Australia and the Asia Pacific region”, Global Health Alliance, Australia, July 2019: http://glham.org/wp-content/uploads/GLHAA_TownsvilleTuvalu-08.pdf ).
CASTRO, Fidel. The very survival of humanity threatened by First World-imposed global warming
Fidel Castro (born August 13, 1926) was one of the primary leaders of the Cuban Revolution, Prime Minister of Cuba from February 1959 to December 1976, and then the President until his resignation from the office in February 2008. He is currently the First Secretary of the Communist Party of Cuba. Despite cruel US Sanctions, infant mortality in Cuba under Fidel Castro in 2003 was about the same as in the US (see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fidel_Castro ).
Fidel Castro on the very survival of human society threatened by First World-imposed global warming (Copenhagen, 2009): “The youth is more interested than anyone else in the future. Until very recently, the discussion revolved around the kind of society we would have. Today, the discussion centers on whether human society will survive.These are not dramatic phrases. We must get used to the true facts. Hope is the last thing human beings can relinquish. With truthful arguments, men and women of all ages, especially young people, have waged an exemplary battle at the Summit and taught the world a great lesson" (Fidel Castro, “The truth of what happened at Copenhagen Summit “, Countercurrents, 21 December 2009: http://www.countercurrents.org/castro211209.htm .)
CHOMSKY, Noam. "Humanity faces two imminent existential threats: environmental catastrophe and nuclear war"
Professor Noam Chomsky (anti-racist Jewish American linguist, philosopher, cognitive scientist, historian, political activist, author of over 100 books, social critic, and Professor Emeritus at the 93-Nobel-Laureate Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT)) (2018): “The most striking features [2018 US mid-term elections] are brutally clear. Humanity faces two imminent existential threats: environmental catastrophe and nuclear war. These were virtually ignored in the campaign rhetoric and general coverage. There was plenty of criticism of the Trump administration, but scarcely a word about by far the most ominous positions the administration has taken: increasing the already dire threat of nuclear war, and racing to destroy the physical environment that organized human society needs in order to survive. These are the most critical and urgent questions that have arisen in all of human history. The fact that they scarcely arose in the campaign is truly stunning — and carries some important, if unpleasant, lessons about our moral and intellectual culture… Several states had important ballot initiatives addressing the impending environmental catastrophe. The fossil fuel industry spent huge, sometimes record-breaking, sums to defeat the initiatives — including a carbon tax in the mostly Democratic state of Washington — and mostly succeeded. We should recognize that these are extraordinary crimes against humanity. They proceed with little notice… The concentration of wealth and enhancement of corporate power translate automatically to decline of democracy. Research in academic political science has revealed that a large majority of voters are literally disenfranchised, in that their own representatives pay no attention to their wishes but listen to the voices of the donor class…” (C.J. Polychroniou, “Moral depravity defines U.S. politics”, Truthout, 21 November 2018: https://truthout.org/articles/noam-chomsky-moral-depravity-defines-us-politics/
[Editor: Famed theoretical physicist and cosmologist Professor Stephen Hawking of the 118-Nobel-Laureate University of Cambridge, and a member of board of sponsors of The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists (2007): “We foresee great peril if governments and societies do not take action now to render nuclear weapons obsolete and to prevent further climate change” ( Will Dunham, “Nuclear, climate perils push Doomsday Clock ahead”, Reuters, 22 January 2007: https://www.reuters.com/article/idUSN17314370 ) ].
CHÁVEZ, Hugo. Call for climate justice to stop disappearance of mankind
Hugo Chávez (born 28 July 1954) has been the president of Venezuela since 1999. He is the leader of the Bolivarian Revolution and promotes a political doctrine of participatory democracy, socialism and Latin American and Caribbean cooperation (see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hugo_Ch%C3%A1vez ).
Hugo Chávez at the 2009 Copenhagen Climate Conference (COP15) pleading for World to save Mankind from global warming (December 2009): “The total income of the 500 richest people in the world is greater than the 450 million poorest living on $2 a day. We have to change direction. How long are we going to tolerate the current international economic order, and allow the hungry not to have food? Let's eradicate poverty and bring in climate justice. If capitalism resists we have to do battle with it. If we do not, then mankind, the greatest creation in the universe, will disappear" ( John Vidal, “Evo Morales stuns Copenhagen with demand to limit temperature rise to 1C. Bolivian president warns of climate 'holocaust' in Africa as Hugo Chávez blames capitalism for climate change”, Guardian, 16 December 2009: http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2009/dec/16/evo-morales-hugo-chavez .)
CONNOR, Paul. 44 day fast for COP15 but "Scientists ignored ... our irreplaceable planet was sacrificed for meaningless profits"
Paul Connor is a 29 year old climate activist and university student currently studying Philosophy and Psychology at the University of Melbourne. He fasted for 44 days as part of the international Climate Justice Fast for Copenhagen COP15 action (see: http://www.climatejusticefast.com/about-us/ ).
Paul Connor on the end of a 44 day fast as part of the international, November-December 2009 Climate Justice Fast to bring attention to the need for effective world action at the December 2009 Copenhagen COP15 Climate Conference against climate catastrophe (December 2009): “Today, my only prayer is that one day we will look back upon the current period of history and we will remember a time when the threat of climate change rendered our future uncertain. We will remember feeling fear as we watched the desperate warnings of scientists ignored by our leaders at COP15, and disbelief as our irreplaceable planet was sacrificed for meaningless profits. And we will remember our frustration as we worked to awaken a world that often seemed willfully ignorant of the enormous danger it faced. But this will not be all. I believe that one day, when we look back, we will also remember something incredible. We will remember how our generation made a collective decision to rise as one, all across the globe, and refused to let shortsightedness and greed destroy our future. We will remember that even when the situation seemed hopeless we never gave up, for there was just too much at stake. And we will remember how finally, our movement, once a whisper, grew before our eyes into a roar so deafening that it could no longer be ignored. On that day, our children and grandchildren will look to us with gratitude. Just as young Westerners pay their respects to the enormous sacrifices made during the great wars, one day we too will be thanked, for doing whatever it took to ensure that our descendants on this earth could have prayers of their own" (Paul Connor, “Day 44 –One Day (fast ends)”, Climate Justice Fast,20 December 2009: http://www.climatejusticefast.com/blog/entry/day-44-one-day-fast-ends/ .)
DARA 2012 Report: "climate change causes 400,000 deaths on average each year... 4.5 million deaths each year linked to air pollution... combined climate-carbon crisis is estimated to claim 100 million lives between now and the end of the next decade"
The DARA 2012 Report commissioned by 20 countries states: “This report estimates that climate change causes 400,000 deaths 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… 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” (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/ and 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 ).
DE ABREU, Alcinda. Mozambique Minister for Coordination of Environmental Affairs condemns "those that did nothing to keep the planet safe, and as promoters of climate genocide"
Alcinda António de Abreu (Minister for Coordination of Environmental Affairs, Mozambique) statement at the Lima Climate Conference, Lima, December 2014 (2014): “Mozambique wants to express its full alignment with the statement made by the representatives of African group, G77 and China and LDCS Countries. Excellencies The world is being witnessing the impacts of climate change almost every day with people dying or displaced and communities losing their livelihood and properties resulting in more people becoming vulnerable and poorest. The science has been telling us that if we continue to increase emissions, in the near future no single country will stand safe from the negative impact of climate change. Today we have the honor and privilege to revert this trend by adopting and implementing decisions that will stabilize and revert the current trend. None of us would like to be appointed by the present and the future generations as part of those that did nothing to keep the planet safe, and as promoters of climate genocide” (Alcinda António de Abreu, Mozambique statement at the Lima Climate Conference, Lima, December 2014: https://unfccc.int/files/meetings/lima_dec_2014/statements/application/pdf/cop20_hls_mozambique.pdf ).
DE BRUM, Tony: "Displacements of populations and destruction of cultural language and tradition is equivalent in our minds to genocide… People must know that climate change can be reversed if we do it now"
Tony De Brum (Marshall Islands Foreign Minister) on climate genocide (2015): “Displacements of populations and destruction of cultural language and tradition is equivalent in our minds to genocide… People must know that climate change can be reversed if we do it now” (Alex Pashley, “Climate change migration is “genocide”, says Marshall Islands minister”, Climate Home News, 5 October 2015: https://www.climatechangenews.com/2015/10/05/climate-change-migration-is-genocide-says-marshall-islands-minister/ ).
DERER, Patricia: "[To] keep a comfortable European average per capita GWP level ($11,000), we should reduce our population to 3.1 billion. If we wish to keep population at 7 billion, the per capita product must be radically reduced to $4,950, from the current $16,100"
Patrícia Dérer (2018): “ Targets chosen in the well-known study of Daily et al.3 [Daily, G. C., Ehrlich, A. H. & Ehrlich, P. R. Optimum human population size. Popul. Environ. A J. Interdiscip. Stud. 15, 469–475 (1994)] include sufficient wealth, access to resources, universal human rights, preservation of biodiversity and cultural diversity, and support for intellectual, artistic and technological creativity. Estimating the amount of energy to satisfy these human needs while keeping ecosystems and resources intact, they calculated the optimal population size in the vicinity of 1.5 – 2 billion people… Pimentel et al. considered a comfortable consumption based on European living standard and a sustainable use of natural resources, suggesting only 2 billion people as appropriate size5 [Pimentel, D. et al. Will Limited Land, Water, and Energy Control Human Population Numbers in the Future? Hum. Ecol. 38, 599–611 (2010)]… Lianos and Pseiridis attempt to estimate optimal population size using an objective criterion designed to assure that human resource use does not deplete Earth’s natural capital. This is the unitary value of the ecological footprint-biocapacity ratio (L). The ecological footprint measures the demand that human consumption places on the biosphere. Biocapacity represents the biosphere’s regenerative capacity; i.e., it measures the productivity of various ecosystems. Between 1961–2009, their ratio L increased dramatically [quasi-linearly versus time from 0.7 to 1.5]. In the beginning of this period, the world had a substantial ecological reserve. That disappeared after about 10 years and since then we have been operating in deficit mode. Today the demand for resources exceeds the available supply by 50 % (L=1.5). (Fig.1)… The authors calculate the maximum gross world product (GWP, the combined gross national product of all the countries in the world), the production of which would leave the natural capital of the Earth and other species’ populations intact (L=1). In order not to exceed this maximum GWP, but keep a comfortable European average per capita GWP level ($11,000), we should reduce our population to 3.1 billion. If we wish to keep population at 7 billion, the per capita product must be radically reduced to $4,950, from the current $16,1007. From this it is clear that the current situation cannot be sustained in the long run, and one way or another, further decline in the ecological footprint-biocapacity ratio is needed. (Fig. 2) [Lianos, T. P. & Pseiridis, A. Sustainable welfare and optimum population size. Environ. Dev. Sustain. 18, 1679–1699 (2016)]” (Patrícia Dérer, “What is the optimal, sustainable population size for humans?”, The Overpopulation Project, 25 April 2018: https://overpopulation-project.com/what-is-the-optimal-sustainable-population-size-of-humans/ ).
[Editor’s note: If we address the disaster of the steadily increasing value of the ecological footprint-biocapacity ratio (L) by returning 50% of arable land to wilderness, then the sustainable carrying capacity reduces to about 1 billion. Further the calculation ignores increasing loss of arable land through desertification, salinization, urbanization and drought. The GDP per capita in the Occupied Palestinian Territories is about $3,200].
DI-APING, Lumumba Stanislaus. Copenhagen Accord death warrant to incinerate Africa in Holocaust
Lumumba Stanislaus Di-Aping from Sudan was the lead negotiator for the G77 (Developing World) countries at the 2009 Copenhagen Climate Conference (COP15). According to Euronews: “The watered-down climate change text sparked angry reactions among delegates. Poorer nations denounced it as a death warrant. Sudan said the declaration, would incinerate Africa and he compared it to the Holocaust”. [1],
Lumumba Stanislaus Di-Aping on the US-inspired Copenhagen Accord (code-named L9) that was “noted” by CPOP15 but not unanimously endorsed (December 2009): “L9 asks Africa to sign a suicide pact. It is a solution based on the values which, in our opinion, channelled six million people in Europe to the (Nazi) furnaces" (Quoted by Euronews, “Sudan compares climate deal to the holocaust”, 19 December 2009: http://www.euronews.net/2009/12/19/sudan-compares-climate-deal-to-the-holocaust/ .)
DUNLOP, Ian: "Our current path commits us to a 4 to 5-degree temperature increase. This would create a totally disorganised world with a substantial reduction in population, possibly to less than one billion people from 7.5 billion today"
Ian Dunlop (a member of the Club of Rome and formerly an international oil, gas and coal industry executive, chairman of the Australian Coal Association and chief executive of the Australian Institute of Company Directors): “Nowhere in the debate is the critical issue even raised: the existential risk of climate change, which such development now implies. Existential means a risk posing large negative consequences to humanity that can never be undone. One where an adverse outcome would either annihilate life, or permanently and drastically curtail its potential. This is the risk to which we are now exposed unless we rapidly reduce global carbon emissions… Dangerous climate change, which the Paris agreement and its forerunners seek to avoid, is happening at the 1.2-degree increase already experienced as extreme weather events, and their economic costs, escalate. A 1.6-degree increase is already locked in as the full effect of our historic emissions unfolds. Our current path commits us to a 4 to 5-degree temperature increase. This would create a totally disorganised world with a substantial reduction in population, possibly to less than one billion people from 7.5 billion today. The voluntary emission reduction commitments made in Paris, if implemented, would still result in a 3-degree increase, accelerating social chaos in many parts of the world with rising levels of deprivation, displacement and conflict. It is already impossible to stay below the 1.5-degree Paris aspiration. To have a realistic chance of staying below even 2 degrees means that no new fossil-fuel projects can be built globally – coal, oil or gas – and that existing operations, particularly coal, must be rapidly replaced with low-carbon alternatives. Further, carbon-capture technologies that do not currently exist must be rapidly deployed at scale” (Ian Dunlop, “This is not rhetoric: approving the Adani mine will kill people”, Sydney Morning Herald, 19 May 2017: http://www.smh.com.au/comment/this-is-not-rhetoric-approving-the-adani-coal-mine-will-kill-people-20170518-gw7nv9.html ).
Ian Dunlop (leading Australian business man and climate change activist) and David Spratt (leading Australian climate change activist (2017): “The first responsibility of a government is to safeguard the people and their future well-being. The ability to do this is threatened by climate change, whose accelerating impacts will also drive political instability and conflict, posing large negative consequences to human society which may never be undone. This report looks at climate change and conflict issues through the lens of sensible risk management to draw new conclusions about the challenge we now face.
• From tropical coral reefs to the polar ice sheets, global warming is already dangerous. The world is perilously close to, or passed, tipping points which will create major changes in global climate systems.
• The world now faces existential climate-change risks which may result in “outright chaos” and an end to human civilisation as we know it.
• These risks are either not understood or wilfully ignored across the public and private sectors, with very few exceptions.
•Global warming will drive increasingly severe humanitarian crises, forced migration, political instability and conflict. The Asia Pacific region, including Australia, is considered to be “Disaster Alley” where some of the worst impacts will be experienced.
• Building more resilient communities in the most vulnerable nations by high level financial commitments and development assistance can help protect peoples in climate hotspots and zones of potential instability and conflict.
• Australia’s political, bureaucratic and corporate leaders are abrogating their fiduciary responsibilities to safeguard the people and their future well-being. They are ill-prepared for the real risks
of climate change at home and in the region.
•The Australian government must ensure Australian Defence Force and emergency services preparedness, mission and operational resilience, and capacity for humanitarian aid and disaster relief, across the full range of projected climate change scenarios.
• It is essential to now strongly advocate a global climate emergency response, and to build a national leadership group outside conventional politics to design and implement emergency decarbonisation of the Australian economy. This would adopt all available safe solutions using sound, existential risk-management practices” (Ian Dunlop and David Spratt, “Disaster Alley climate change conflict & risk”, Breakthrough, 2017: https://uploads.guim.co.uk/2017/06/20/ACFrOgDkCYAvFeJ9d4YxhOlZiOHNkTOnWbkhlY_dX8kl_O3ChbGcEmWsbUNrOnJUwE4SNWFvzB7RM6w4GsF0pDwdnREIip-k5J-03TQc0Op4FWrsNcZpjXAuy7NNJ_Y=.pdf ).
Ian Dunlop (leading Australian business man and climate change activist) and David Spratt (leading Australian climate change activist on planetary existential risk (2017): “An existential risk is an adverse outcome that would either annihilate intelligent life or permanently and drastically curtail its potential (Bostrom 2013). For example, a big meteor impact or large-scale nuclear war. Existential risks are not amenable to the reactive (learn from failure) approach of conventional risk management, and we cannot necessarily rely on the institutions, moral norms, or social attitudes developed from our experience with managing other sorts of risks. Because the consequences are so severe – perhaps the end of human global civilisation as we know it – “even for an honest, truth seeking, and well-intentioned investigator it is difficult to think and act rationally in regard to... existential risks” (Bostrom and Cirkovic 2008).Yet the evidence is clear that climate change already poses an existential risk to global stability and to human civilisation that requires an emergency response. Temperature rises that are now in prospect could reduce the global human population by 80% or 90%. But this conversation is taboo, and the few who speak out are admonished as being overly alarmist…
The present path of greenhouse gas emissions commits us to a 4–5°C temperature increase relative to pre-industrial levels. Even at 3°C of warming we could face “outright chaos” and “nuclear war is possible”, according to the 2007 Age of Consequences report by two US think tanks (see page 10). Yet this is the world we are now entering. The Paris climate agreement voluntary emission reduction commitments, if implemented, would result in the planet warming by 3°C, with a 50% chance of exceeding that amount. This does not take into account “longer-term” carbon-cycle feedbacks – such as permafrost thaw and declining efficiency of ocean and terrestrial carbon sinks, which are now becoming relevant. If these are considered, the Paris emissions path has more than a 50% chance of exceeding 4°C warming. (Technically, accounting for these feedbacks means using a higher figure for the system’s “climate sensitivity” – which is a measure of the temperature increase resulting from a doubling of the level of greenhouse gases – to calculate the warming. A median figure often used for climate sensitivity is ~3°C, but research from MIT shows that with a higher climate sensitivity figure of 4.5°C, which would account for feedbacks, the Paris path would lead to around 5°C of warming (Reilly et al. 2015).)
So we are looking at a greater than one-in-two chance of either annihilating intelligent life, or permanently and drastically curtailing its potential development. Clearly these end-of-civilisation scenarios are not being considered even by risk-conscious leaders in politics and business, which is an epic failure of imagination…
The scale of the challenge is reflected in a recent “carbon law” articulated by a group of leading scientists (Rockström et al. 2017). They demonstrated that for a 66% chance of holding warming to 2°C and a 50% chance of holding warming to 1.5°C (with overshoot), their “carbon law” requires:
• Halving of global emissions every decade from 2020 to 2050 [to 5 Gt CO2/year by 2050];
• Reducing carbon dioxide emissions from land use to zero by 2050; and
• Establishing carbon drawdown capacity of 5 gigatonnes of carbon dioxide per year by 2050.
Lead author Johan Rockström says: ”It’s way more than adding solar or wind... It’s rapid decarbonization, plus a revolution in food production, plus a sustainability revolution, plus a massive engineering scale-up [for carbon removal].” In other words, an emergency-scale effort” (Ian Dunlop and David Spratt, “Disaster Alley climate change conflict & risk”, Breakthrough, 2017: https://uploads.guim.co.uk/2017/06/20/ACFrOgDkCYAvFeJ9d4YxhOlZiOHNkTOnWbkhlY_dX8kl_O3ChbGcEmWsbUNrOnJUwE4SNWFvzB7RM6w4GsF0pDwdnREIip-k5J-03TQc0Op4FWrsNcZpjXAuy7NNJ_Y=.pdf ; see also Reilly, J., S. Paltsev, E. Monier, H. Chen, A. Sokolov, J. Huang, Q. Ejaz, J, Scott , J. Morris and A. Schlosser (2015) Energy and Climate Outlook: Perspectives from 2015, MIT Program on the Science and Policy of Global Change, Cambridge MA ).
EHRLICH, Paul. Eminent US biologist estimates a 90% chance that our civilisation will collapse within 50 years
Paul Ehrlich (Bing Professor of Population Studies, President of the Center for Conservation Biology, Department of Biology, Stanford University, and author with his wife Anne Ehrlich [uncredited] of “The Population Bomb” in 1968) (asked “It's predicted that by 2100 the world population will plateau at 11 billion. Do you still maintain that the world population will be a major problem?”): “I don't maintain it will be. It’s already is a major problem. For example, even though there are some people who would claim that - professional deniers of climate change and the danger in climate change and their pimps in the fossil fuel industry, if you think about it for a minute, every person you add to the planet releases more CO2. When they release more CO2, it is a bigger threat not just to sea level rise. Everybody thinks sea level rise is the big thing about climate change. Actually, no. Our agricultural system is utterly dependent on the distribution, quality, timing of rainfall. All that's changing. We’re already seeing changes in the productivity of the basic grains we depend on. So each person you add needs more food, contributes more greenhouse gases, which increases the assault on agriculture, which has to be spread, the agricultural system already supplies something on the order of 30% of the greenhouse gases. So there’s just one little example where things are synergising and we are setting our kids up for even worse problems”.
Dr Paul Ehrlich) (asked “You have actually maintained, I think, there is a 90% chance that our civilisation will collapse within 50 years. How do you get to that?”): “Well, that is a gut feeling and the reason it’s a gut feeling is you can't deal with the discontinuities. In other words, you can see the general trends but many people, me included, but people who look at it more closely than I do, think the chances of a nuclear war between US and the Russians is bigger now than it was during most of the Cold War. They think there is an even bigger chance of a nuclear war between India and Pakistan and there that war itself, using maybe 215 kilotonne bombs, would destroy Australia and the US as a civilisation. Who can guess what the odds are on those. You get scared. But on the general trend, I think we will be very, very fortunate to avoid a collapse and Anne and I estimated 10%. Jim Brown, who is an energy expert and the world's greatest biogeographer said, "You’re crazy. There’s only a 1% chance of avoiding a collapse when you look at things like energy return on investment and so on.” Nobody knows. Jim is willing to work to make it a 1.1% chance. Anne and I are willing to work to make it an 11% chance, but I must say, when I watch the Republican debates, I'm converging on Jim”.
Dr Paul Ehrlich (asked “Do you think we’re overpopulated?): “ Yeah, I mean there’s no question about it. Talk to your ecologists. Talk to Corey - Corey Bradshaw and I just wrote a book called Killing The Koala and Poisoning the Prairies, which is a comparison of the US and Australia’s very successful war on the environment. You’re destroying your life support systems here. You’re working at it really hard. You are also working to become a Third World country, because your specialisation, of course, is to take your raw materials, like your coal, which are going to destroy the world of your grandchildren and great grandchildren, and ship as much of it unprocessed as you possibly can out to the rest of the world. A pile of coal that Australia shifts annually would be about the size of that thing there [lecture hall] extending that way all the way around the world and back to here, that's how much coal you dig out of the ground even though every scientist in the world knows we should stop burning it as fast as we possibly can. If you want a sustainable society, you can look to Australia. The Aborigines have the longest term sustainable society on the planet, until we came along, of course, and kind of screwed it up. But they went through 40, 50,000 years of great changes and so on, managed to survive, kept their numbers reasonable. By the way, you’re quite correct. If you want to solve the population problem, give women equal rights everywhere in the world. Give them equal opportunities. Give them access to modern contraception. Give them access to safe backup abortion and the odds are that you will start to slow population...” (Paul Ehrlich interviewed on Australian TV Q&A, “GST, Gonski, Population and Diversity”, 2 November 2015: http://www.abc.net.au/tv/qanda/txt/s4321172.htm ).
Paul R. Ehrlich (Professor of population studies in the Department of Biological Sciences at Stanford University. His wife Anne H. Ehrlich is the associate director and policy coordinator of the Center for Conservation Biology at Stanford University) (2013): “But our guess is that the most serious threat to global sustainability in the next few decades will be one on which there is widespread agreement: the growing difficulty of avoiding large-scale famines. As the 2013 World Economic Forum Report put it: “Global food and nutrition security is a major global concern as the world prepares to feed a growing population on a dwindling resource base, in an era of increased volatility and uncertainty.” Indeed, the report notes that more than “870 million people are now hungry, and more are at risk from climate events and price spikes.” Thus, measures to “improve food security have never been more urgently needed.”In fact, virtually all such warnings, in our view, underestimate the food problem. For example, micronutrient deficiencies may afflict as many as 2 billion additional people. And many other sources of vulnerability are underrated: the potential impact of climate disruption on farming and fisheries; how a shift away from fossil-fuel consumption will impair food production; how agriculture itself, a major emitter of greenhouse gases, accelerates climate change; and the consequences of groundwater overpumping and the progressive deterioration of soils. Indeed, agriculture is also a leading cause of biodiversity loss – and thus loss of ecosystem services supplied to farming and other human enterprises – as well as a principal source of global toxification… Can humanity avoid a starvation-driven collapse? Yes, we can – though we currently put the odds at just 10 percent. As dismal as that sounds, we believe that, for the benefit of future generations, it is worth struggling to make it 11 percent. One of our most distinguished colleagues, biogeographer and energy expert James Brown of the University of New Mexico, disagrees. He puts the odds of sustaining human civilization at 1 percent, but thinks that it’s worth trying to increase it to 1.1 percent. Developing foresight intelligence and mobilizing civil society for sustainability are central goals of the Millennium Alliance for Humanity and the Biosphere, based at Stanford University. Those who join the MAHB join the best of global civil society in the fight to avoid the end of civilization.
” Paul R. Ehrlich “Famine threatens the very survival of human civilization” , The Daily Star, Lebanon, 16 March 2013: http://mahb.stanford.edu/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/Famine-Threatens-the-Very-Survival-of-Human-Civilization.pdf ).
Paul Ehrlich (Bing Professor of Population Studies and President of Center for Conservation Biology, Stanford University. Fellow, National Academy of Sciences and Royal Society; Crafoord Prize Laureate) on an optimal 1.5 to 2 billion people (2017): “Our research group has concluded two decades ago that with foreseeable technologies an "optimum" population might be 1.5 to 2 billion people. The idea was that would be enough people to have big cities for those who like fine restaurants and opera, and few enough people to permit lots of wildlands for hunters and hermits. Overall, we thought that number might be long-term sustainable” (Paul Ehrlich quoted in Daniel Kolitz, “What is the ideal number of humans on Earth?”, Gizmodo, 28 December 2017: https://www.gizmodo.com.au/2017/12/whats-the-ideal-number-of-humans-on-earth/ .)
Paul Ehrlich (Bing professor of population studies at Stanford University in California and author of “The Population Bomb”) (2012): “How many you support depends on lifestyles. We came up with 1.5 to 2 billion because you can have big active cities and wilderness. If you want a battery chicken world where everyone has minimum space and food and everyone is kept just about alive you might be able to support in the long term about 4 or 5 billion people. But you already have 7 billion. So we have to humanely and as rapidly as possible move to population shrinkage” (Paul Ehrlich, interviewed in John Vidal , “Cut world population and redistribute resources, expert urges”, Guardian, 26 April 2012: https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2012/apr/26/world-population-resources-paul-ehrlich .)
FLYVBJERG, Bent: "To ensure the ideal population size so that everyone could enjoy a comparable way of life, taking the [present day] French lifestyle as our benchmark, we would need to reduce the world population to about 3 billion people... 1.9 billion [US based]"
Bent Flyvbjerg (Professor at Säid Business School, University of Oxford) on 2-3 billion sustainable population (2017): “From an anthropocentric perspective, to calculate the Earth's ideal population size, one would first need to establish an ideal benchmark for what we think is a good life, and calculate the resources it takes to sustain that lifestyle. As a first approximation, let's take the French lifestyle as a benchmark. According to the Global Footprint Network's calculator, if all of humanity were to live like the French, we would need about 2.5 Earths to sustain that lifestyle. Any lifestyle that cannot be universalized to the rest of humanity cannot be just. Every newborn should be able to enjoy their fair share of the world's resources. Thus, to ensure the ideal population size so that everyone could enjoy a comparable way of life, taking the French lifestyle as our benchmark, we would need to reduce the world population to about 3 billion people (4.6 billion less than today's population). If, instead, we chose the lifestyle of people in the USA as the benchmark, then the world population would need to be reduced to 1.9 billion. It is unclear, however, that the American lifestyle is any better than the French, in terms of well-being. On the contrary: it looks like Europeans are faring better than Americans” (Bent Flyvbjerg quoted in Daniel Kolitz, “What is the ideal number of humans on Earth?”, Gizmodo, 28 December 2017: https://www.gizmodo.com.au/2017/12/whats-the-ideal-number-of-humans-on-earth/ .)
FORENSIC ARCHITECTURE: "Climate crimes. Two accusations of genocide in the Sahel... emission in the northern hemisphere and desertification in the Sahel"
Forensic Architecture (FA, a research agency, based at Goldsmiths, University of London, that undertakes advanced architectural and media research on behalf of international prosecutors, human rights organisations, as well as political and environmental justice groups) on climate genocide: “Climate crimes. Two accusations of genocide in the Sahel: The first issued by the International Criminal Court (ICC) in 2008 regarding war crimes in Sudan; the second issued 2009 by the Sudanese diplomat Lumumba Di-Aping directed at the world’s developed nations. The first favors the West. The second deflects and returns the claim and thereby it raises the specter of a new form of violence. This work tests what it would take to support Di-Aping’s claim and in doing so raises a number of questions about the violence wrought by climate change, especially the forums in which it is debated and eventually legitimized.What will be the role of forensic climatology in reconnecting the causes of environmental violence with their effects? And what will be the political consequences? Drawing on recent scientific research that shows a correlation between aerosol emission in the northern hemisphere and desertification in the Sahel, this project makes visible a new geopolitical cartography that ties together distant fates, linking industrialization in the North to deprivation in the South. In this way, it demonstrates that Di-Aping’s claim is a legitimate one” (Forensic Architecture, “Climate crimes”: http://www.forensic-architecture.org/file/climate-crimes/ ).
GERMAN CLIMATE ACTION DEMONSTRATORS: “Trump: Climate Genocide”
German climate action demonstrators reported thus (2017): “Germany (AP) — Thousands of demonstrators have marched through Bonn to protest the use of fossil fuels ahead of a global climate conference being held in the western German city next week. Participants in Saturday’s event carried banners with slogans that included “Revolution Not Pollution,” ″Frack Off Our Land” and “Trump: Climate Genocide.” Protest organizers say some 25,000 people took part in the demonstration” ( “Thousands protest German coal use ahead of climate meeting”, AP News, 5 November 2017: https://www.apnews.com/dcc9c074eccd4202b7a5fa15da43d81b ).
GERRARD, Michael: “Toward the end of this century, if current trends are not reversed, large parts of Bangladesh, the Philippines, Indonesia, Pakistan, Egypt and Vietnam, among other countries, will be under water”
Michael Gerrard (director, of the Sabin Center for Climate Change , Columbia Law School) (2018): “Toward the end of this century, if current trends are not reversed, large parts of Bangladesh, the Philippines, Indonesia, Pakistan, Egypt and Vietnam, among other countries, will be under water” (Michael Gerrard quoted on page 102, Suketu Mehta , “This Land Is Our Land. An Immigrant’s Manifesto ”, Farrar, Straus and Giroux, New York, 2019).
GLIKSON, Andrew. "Death of billions and likely demise of civilization"
Dr Andrew Glikson is a paleo-climate and earth scientist at the Australian National University (ANU). The Western Australian Glikson Crater is named in his honor (see: http://www.abc.net.au/unleashed/stories/s2633053.htm ).
Dr Andrew Glikson on climate sceptics and the likely death of billions and end of civilization (April 2009): “As indicated by Clive Hamilton in New Matilda ( http://newmatilda.com/2008/05/19/death-rattles-climate-change-skeptics ) there is little evidence the “climate change skeptics” worry their misunderstanding of climate science may lead to the death of billions and the likely demise of civilization. The legal status of disinformation campaigns aimed at the promotion of substances of proven fatal consequences, such as ozone-destroying CFCs, or the release of CO2 to levels over 350 ppm ( http://www.columbia.edu/~jeh1/2008/TargetCO2_ 20080407.pdf ), may yet prove to be the Achilles heel of global civilization" (
Andrew Glikson, ”Earth’s atmosphere tracking toward a mid-Pliocene-like state”, Countercurrents, 3 April 2009: http://www.countercurrents.org/glikson030409.htm .
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/ .)
Dr Andrew Glikson (2019): “According to Hans Joachim Schellnhuber, chief climate advisor to the European Union, “We’re simply talking about the very life support system of this planet”. As fascism and the horror of murderous hate crimes are on the rise, governments are presiding over runaway climate change leading toward mass extinctions of species, costing the lives of billions and the demise of much of nature, while children are protesting against the betrayal of their future… At +4 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial temperature, projected by the IPCC for the end of the 21st century, life on Earth could be depleted to levels such as existed in the wake of previous mass extinctions of species… Since many in authority do not accept, or only pay lip service to, climate science, it is a good question whether governments would be investing in adaptation measures in time. In particular no plans appear at hand for draw-down of CO2 – the one measure which could potentially arrest global warming. In this regard the reluctance to date to undertake meaningful mitigation measures does not bode well. The powers to be are now presiding over the greatest calamity that has ever befell on humanity and on much of nature” (Andrew Glikson, “The advent of extreme weather events and climate tipping points”, Countercurrents, 16 March 2019: https://countercurrents.org/2019/03/16/the-advent-of-extreme-weather-events-and-climate-tipping-points/ ).
Andrew Glikson on COVID-19 deaths versus climate deaths (2020): “Where the virus may potentially claim the lives of hundreds of thousands or even millions of people, global heating above 4oC is bound to claim the lives of billions, yet most governments hardly listen to the science. By the 25 March 2020 more than 4% of Covid-19 patients, nearly 19,000 people, tragically died worldwide, with more to come, and each death its own heartbreaking story. Many governments are listening to medical science, implementing essential measures to combat the plague, instigating social isolation and economic support systems in order to avoid a potential demise of hundreds of thousands or even millions of lives. Climate change is already causing deaths, according to a new report global warming would cause an additional 250,000 deaths per-year from heat and extreme weather events, yet most authorities continue to ignore the scientific evidence of climate disruption that threatens to exceed +2 degrees Celsius and toward 4 degrees Celsius. Potentially this is leading to a demise of billions of lives and many species through extreme weather events” (Andrew Glikson, “A viral climate of fear”, Countercurrents, 26 March 2020: https://countercurrents.org/2020/03/a-viral-climate-of-fear ).
GOODMAN, Ellen. "Global warming deniers are now on a par with Holocaust deniers"
Ellen Goodman (born April 11 1941) is a Pulitzer Prize-winning American journalist, columnist and author of many books. She was researcher and reporter for Newsweek magazine between 1963 and 1965, and has worked as an associate editor at the Boston Globe since 1967 (see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ellen_Goodman ).
Ellen Goodman on comparing climate change skeptics with deniers of the Jewish Holocaust (1967): “By every measure, the U N 's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change raises the level of alarm. The fact of global warming is "unequivocal." The certainty of the human role is now somewhere over 90 percent. Which is about as certain as scientists ever get. I would like to say we're at a point where global warming is impossible to deny. Let's just say that global warming deniers are now on a par with Holocaust deniers, though one denies the past and the other denies the present and future" ( Ellen Goodman, “No change in political climate”, Boston Globe, 9 February 2009: http://www.boston.com/news/globe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2007/02/09/no_change_in_political_climate/ .)
GUARDIAN EDITORIAL. "Climate change is an existential threat to the human race… The latest report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change tells us that there are only a dozen or so years in which to change our economies radically if we are to keep the effects of the warming already under way to manageable proportions"
The Guardian editorial on the 2018 IPCC Report “Global warming of 1.5 °C” (2018): “Climate change is an existential threat to the human race… The latest report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change tells us that there are only a dozen or so years in which to change our economies radically if we are to keep the effects of the warming already under way to manageable proportions. That would require the countries of the world to live up to the most ambitious of the goals of the Paris climate change agreement, and keep the rise in average global temperatures to 1.5C above preindustrial levels. A rise of even half a degree above that, to 2C, will have effects that are very much worse. Already this seems much more likely. All corals will disappear, as will many insects and plants… All these risks make it quite credible that we will end with a warming of 3C, 4C or even worse – and the consequences will be globally terrible, and everywhere unavoidable. Hundreds of millions of people may die through droughts on land, and flooding at the coasts, through the loss of marine species due to acidification of the oceans, and probably through the disruption of long-term weather patterns around which the world’s agriculture has been shaped.” (The Guardian, Editorial, “The Guardian view on climate change: a global emergency”, The Guardian, 9 October 2018: https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/oct/08/the-guardian-view-on-climate-change-a-global-emergency ).
HALLAM, Roger (Extinction Rebellion co-founder): "[By 2090] there could only be a billion people left. I mean that’s six billion people that have died from starvation or slaughtered in war"
Roger Hallam (co-founder of Extinction Rebellion) (2019): “Teenagers are shitting themselves about what’s happening for the future, they’ve got another 50, 60, 70 years to live on this planet, by that time there could only be a billion people left. I mean that’s six billion people that have died from starvation or slaughtered in war” (Roger Hallam, “Something drastic has to happen”, BBC HARDtalk 17 August 2019: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9HyaxctatdA ; Roger Hallam quoted in David Spratt, “At 4oC of warming, would a billion people survive? What scientists say” , Climate Code Red, 18 August 2019: http://www.climatecodered.org/2019/08/at-4c-of-warming-would-billion-people.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+ClimateCodeRed+%28climate+code+red%29 ).
HAMILTON, Clive. Australian climate economist & ethicist: "Many plausible scenarios suggest a sharp decline in the number of people that will survive in the long term. Some suggest a billion or a few hundred million will remain in a century or two"
Clive Hamilton (Australian climate economist and Professor of Public Ethics at the Centre for Applied Philosophy and Public Ethics (CAPPE) and the Vice-Chancellor's Chair in Public Ethics at Charles Sturt University) on human survival in “The Four Degrees World” (2010): “One way or another, humans will have to adapt to life in a hotter world. Many plausible scenarios suggest a sharp decline in the number of people that will survive in the long term. Some suggest a billion or a few hundred million will remain in a century or two, but one guess is as good as another. One thing is certain: the transition to a new stage of stability will be long and brutal, especially for the poorest and most vulnerable whose survival will be threatened with food shortages, extreme weather events and diseased” (Clive Hamilton, page 204, “The Four Degree World”, Chapter 7 in “Requiem for a Species. Why we resist the truth about climate change”, Allen & Unwin, 2010.)
Dr Clive Hamilton AM (economist, Professor of Public Ethics at the Centre for Applied Philosophy and Public Ethics (CAPPE) at the Australian National University (ANU), holds the Vice-Chancellor's Chair at Charles Sturt University, was the founder of the Australia Institute (a major progressive Australian think tank), and was Executive Director of the Australia Institute from1993-2008 (see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clive_Hamilton ) comparing WW2 Jewish Holocaust deniers and climate change deniers (2009): “If the climate deniers were to succeed, and stopped the world responding to the mountain of evidence for human-induced global warming, then hundreds of millions of mostly impoverished people around the world would die from the effects of climate change. They will die from famine, flood and disease caused by our unwillingness to act. The Stern report provides some sobering estimates: an additional 30-200 million people at risk of hunger with warming of only 2-3°C; an additional 250-500 million at risk if temperatures rise above 3°C; some 70-80 million more Africans exposed to malaria; and an additional 1.5 billion exposed to dengue fever. Instead of dishonouring the deaths of six million in the past, climate deniers risk the lives of hundreds of millions in the future. Holocaust deniers are not responsible for the Holocaust, but climate deniers, if they were to succeed, would share responsibility for the enormous suffering caused by global warming. It is a ghastly calculus, yet it is worth making because the hundreds of millions of dead are not abstractions, mere chimera until they happen. We know with a high degree of certainty that if we do nothing they will die" ( Clive Hamilton, “Hamilton: denying the coming climate holocaust”, Crikey, 16 November 2009: http://www.crikey.com.au/2009/11/16/hamilton-denying-the-coming-climate-holocaust/ .)
HANSEN, James. "if we burn all reserves of oil, gas, and coal, there is a substantial chance we will initiate the runaway greenhouse. If we also burn the tar sands and tar shale, I believe the Venus syndrome is a dead certainty"
HASAN, Mohammad Rakibul. "Climate genocide is already begun ..." - shocking images of coastal Bangladesh
Mohammad Rakibul Hasan is a professional photographer, independent journalist, short film maker and cinematographer based in Bangladesh who studied in Film & Video Production at UBS Film School, Australia. He is very focused on human rights, social and environmental issues (see: http://www.mrhasanphotography.com/bio.php ).
1. Mohammad Rakibul Hasan video entitled “The Climate Genocide” with shocking images on storm-wracked coastal parts of Bangladesh (2010): “Climate genocide is already begun in Bangladesh...." (Mohammad Rakibul Hasan video entitled “The Climate Genocide”, You-Tube, 16 August 2010: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qgLPkkd1pEY .)
2. Mohammad Rakibul Hasan photographs of storm-wracked coastal areas of Bangladesh (2010): "Climate genocide is already begun in Bangladesh. The populations in the South and South-East Asia coastline extending from the east coast of India to the coast of Myanmar have tasted the salt taste of annual cyclones from the Bay of Bengal with ever increasing tidal floods. Due to its existence in the middle of the coastline, Bangladesh is either the worst or the common victim irrespective of the locations where the cyclones make the landfall. Cyclones are not only resulting in human casualties and destruction of properties but also leaving behind perpetual tidal floods.
Around one million people have been rendered homeless due to river erosion in the mainland river basins over the last three decades as the mighty River Brahmaputra-Jamuna continues to widen due to decrease in its depth for heavy rush of sediments from the upstream and poor erosion management in the downstream.
Climate change is likely to lead to increasing rates of generation of climate refugees, and it is vital that evolving frameworks for climate change adaptation address issues for compliance by national and international communities to peacefully resettle those climate refugees. The whole World should work together on this issue to prevent climate genocide and ensure environmental sustainability" (Mohammad Rakibul Hasan photgraphs on Flickr “Climate Genocide (on-going project)”, Flickr (2010): http://www.flickr.com/photos/mrhasan/5276195063/.)
HASHIAN, Adam. "Let’s eradicate climate genocide and turn the tide of this world war taking place right now. It will only get VERY horrific within the next decade if we do nothing"
Adam Hashian (connected with Lucis Lumen that is dedicated to advancing innovative technology) (2015): “Climate genocide … Certainly, the current terms “climate change” and “global warming” do not accurately convey the seriousness of the issue we are facing. This is why I am calling this human induced global phenomena “climate genocide”. I do not think this is harsh, exaggerated, or unrealistic. A quick google search for the definition of genocide reveals : the deliberate killing of a large group of people, especially those of a particular ethnic group or nation. And from Encarta World English Dictionary, genocide refers to the systematic killing of all the people from a national, ethnic, or religious group, or an attempt to do this. Note the underlined: or an attempt to do this. This is quite literally what is happening now.The nations and ethnic groups which are in the most serious danger are the “Small Island Developing States” or “SIDS”… Another quick google search reveals: “A report commissioned by the governments of more than 20 countries found that more than 100 million people will die as a result of climate change by 2030 if the world stays on its current path.” It’s very possible that 100 million is a low estimate. This would be higher than the total deaths of World War 2. Everyone in the world is affected by this. The world is so interconnected now that a major imbalance in one country can cause economic systems in another country across the globe to collapse. Essentially we are fighting World War 3 right now, and the common global enemy is humanity’s bad habits and outdated systems… Please allow this article to make you consider climate genocide more seriously than you have before. Hundreds of Millions of people have their lives on the line, and most don’t even know it. All other global issues, and fights between states become completely irrelevant if there is no world to live in. Corporations out for large profits at the expense of the planet will see no profits when there is no more planet to exploit. Remember: you can start small by shutting off your router at night, or your AC during the day. Good energy habits build on themselves. Time to become an active participant in the global solution. Let’s eradicate climate genocide and turn the tide of this world war taking place right now. It will only get VERY horrific within the next decade if we do nothing”, Adam Hashian, “Climate Genocide”, Lucis Lumen, 8 July 2014: http://lucislumen.com/environment/climate-genocide/ ).
HAWKING, Stephen: "We see great peril if governments and societies do not take action now to render nuclear weapons obsolete and to prevent further climate change”
Famed theoretical physicist and cosmologist Professor Stephen Hawking of the 118-Nobel-Laureate University of Cambridge, and a member of board of sponsors of The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists (2007): “We foresee great peril if governments and societies do not take action now to render nuclear weapons obsolete and to prevent further climate change” ( Will Dunham, “Nuclear, climate perils push Doomsday Clock ahead”, Reuters, 22 January 2007: https://www.reuters.com/article/idUSN17314370 ).
Professor Stephen Hawking (eminent theoretical physicist and cosmologist) addressing the question “Will we survive on Earth?”(2018): “In January 2018, the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, a journal founded by some of the physicists who had worked on the Manhattan Project to produce the first atomic weapons, moved the Doomsday Clock, their measurement of the imminence if catastrophe – military or environmental – facing our planet, forward to two minutes to midnight… In 1947, the clock was set at seven minutes to midnight. It is now closer to Doomsday than at any time since then, save in the early 1950s at the start of the Cold War… 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).
Stephen Hawking (2016): “A more immediate danger [than Trump] is runaway climate change. A rise in ocean temperature would melt the ice-caps, and cause a release of large amounts of carbon dioxide from the ocean floor. Both effects could make our climate like that of Venus, with a temperature of 250 degrees” (Emily Atkin, “The media is ignoring the most important part of Stephen Hawking’s comments on Trump”, Altimarius, 31 May 2016: http://altmarius.ning.com/profiles/blogs/the-media-is-ignoring-the-most-important-part-of-stephen-hawking- ).
HIL, Richard. "We also need to reframe our language and acknowledge the potential for what many commentators and climate victims (for instance, in the Marshall Islands) refer to as “climate genocide""
Dr Richard Hil (progressive author and adjunct sociology professor,Griffith University, Queensland, Australia) and Dr Gideon Polya (writer, author and former associate professor of biochemistry , La Trobe University, Melbourne, Australia) (2019): “The silencing of the climate emergency, and what we should do about it” (New Matilda, 5 March 2019: https://newmatilda.com/2019/03/05/silencing-climate-emergency/ ) critically asserts that: “We also need to reframe our language and acknowledge the potential for what many commentators and climate victims (for instance, in the Marshall Islands) refer to as “climate genocide”. References also abound to “climate violence”, “violent policy making”, and increasingly, “climate criminals”, with many legal experts linking climate policy failures to specific breaches of environmental and other laws. Increasingly, there are calls for politicians, corporate and media chiefs to be held to account so that there is no statute of limitations and no place to hide for those promoting policies and actions that lead to speciescide, ecocide, sociocide, omnicide and terracide – words that have begun to spill into the public sphere… The struggle over language, and its place in the domain of common sense, is integral to the struggle against violent power. Breaking the silence of the climate emergency is key to our future survival” (Richard Hil and Gideon Polya, “The silencing of the climate emergency, and what we should do about it”, New Matilda, 5 March 2019: https://newmatilda.com/2019/03/05/silencing-climate-emergency/ .)
HOWES, Charlotte. Re climate change denier Trump's anti-science, terracidal policies: "Trump’s climate genocide"
Charlotte Howes on climate change denialist Trump’s climate genocidal policies (2017): “Trump’s climate genocide … When asked, “Do you believe in climate change?” Trump responded: “I think there’ll be a little change here, it’ll go up, it’ll get a little cooler, it’ll get a little warmer. Like it always has, for millions of years. It’s called weather. I think it’s a big scam for a lot of people to make a lot of money.”… Trump plans to cancel the remaining sum to be paid to the Climate Change Fund and any future UN climate change programmes, as laid out in his plan for the first 100 days in office. The manifesto also proposes that the funds be used instead on ‘fixing America’s water and environmental infrastructure’. His sixth statement under ‘actions to protect the American worker’ declares his intention of reviving the pipeline projects [Keystone and Dakota] and lifting other ‘Obama-Clinton roadblocks’ to allow energy infrastructure projects to move forward on Americans own finite fossil fuel reserves. This, in turn, will re-open the floodgates to up to $50 trillion dollars (£39.58 trillion) worth of shale, oil, natural gas and coal… It appears that Trump is set on waging war against the environment, at a time when if we don’t start investing in green energy then we may miss our chance to preserve our only planet” (Charlotte Howes, “Trump’s climate genocide”, Artefact, 10 February 2017: https://www.artefactmagazine.com/2017/02/10/trumps-climate-genocide/ ).
HUNZIKER, Robert. US writer: "Climate genocide... a climate holocaust may be lurking in the shadows"
Robert Hunziker (a US writer) (2015): “Climate genocide… Not only that, temperature changes of only two (2C) degrees Celsius warmer than today can, and did, equate to 16 feet of water for NYC whereas only four (4C) degrees Celsius cooler than today can, and did, equate to a block of ice 1.24 miles thick surrounding NYC. Those two seemingly small numbers, 2C and 4C, are examples used in Sir David Attenborough’s film, Are We Changing Planet Earth? BBC Natural History Unit, BBC One. Attenborough’s film unequivocally answers the question its title poses: “Yes, we are”… Paleoclimatologists study ice core and sediment samples to determine with remarkable accuracy how the climate changed millions of years ago. In fact, as recently as tens-of-thousands of years ago, Greenland’s temperature shot up by 5C-6C within a couple decades, not over hundreds of years and not over thousands of years…Furthermore, only recently, scientists from Rutgers University changed the course of scientific thought. Previously, scientists thought that 55 million years ago global temperatures took 10,000 years to increase by 5C. Now, a seminal sediment study by Rutgers University scientists has proven it only took 13 years for global temperatures to increase by 5C…Climate change is most prominent where people do not see it! Consequently, there are serious, informed scientists who believe the Arctic will be ice-free during the month of September, its annual minimal, within a few years. The corollary for the climate could be horrendous, devastating, and deathly. In other words, a climate holocaust may be lurking in the shadows. Such as, Arctic sea ice loss causing massive release of methane, smothering the Northern Hemisphere and life changing forever, as the planet heats up in a “geological instant.” Along those same lines, Ira Leifer, Ph.D., Atmospheric Science at the Marine Sciences Institute, University of California, Santa Barbara, claims: “Some scientists are indicating we should make plans to adapt to a 4C hotter world. While prudent, one wonders what portion of the population could adapt to such a world. My view is that it’s just a few thousand people seeking refuge in the Arctic or Antarctica”" (see Robert Hunziker, “” Climate genocide”, Counterpunch, 6 March 2015: http://www.counterpunch.org/2015/03/06/climate-genocide/ ).
HWANG, Andrew: "These data alone suggest the Earth can support at most one-fifth of the present population, 1.5 billion people, at an American standard of living"
Andrew D. Hwang (Associate Professor of Mathematics, College of the Holy Cross, US) (2018): According to the Worldwatch Institute, an environmental think tank, the Earth has 1.9 hectares of land per person for growing food and textiles for clothing, supplying wood and absorbing waste. The average American uses about 9.7 hectares. These data alone suggest the Earth can support at most one-fifth of the present population, 1.5 billion people, at an American standard of living” (Andrew D. Hwang, “7.5 billion and counting: how many humans can the earth support?”, The Conversation, 9 July 2018: https://theconversation.com/7-5-billion-and-counting-how-many-humans-can-the-earth-support-98797 ).
INTERNATIONAL MONETARY FUND (IMF): "725,000 fewer premature deaths in 2030 for a $75 a ton tax for G20 countries alone"
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 .
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/ ).]
ISLAND STATES representatives at Durban 2011 UN COP17 Climate Conference appeal for COP17 Ministers to avert “climate genocide”
Report from UN COP17 Climate Conference, Durban, December 2011, on dire warnings from Island States representatives about “climate genocide” from unaddressed, man-made climate change : “Action must be taken immediately to avoid “climate genocide”, according to several low-lying island states at COP17. Addressing ministers and heads of states for the first time this morning, parties representing at risk islands used the opportunity to issue dire warnings" (John Parnell, “Island states appeal for COP17 Ministers to avert “climate genocide”, RTCC, 7 December 2011: http://www.rtcc.org/policy/island-states-appeal-for-cop17-ministers-to-avert-%E2%80%9Cclimate-genocide%E2%80%9D/ .)
JOHNSTONE, A. "Capitalism – that brought us wars and holocausts – has been unable or unwilling to address man-made climate change and now threatens a climate genocide. It must be system change, not climate change"
A. Johnstone (UK socialist and activist) on system change ot avert climate genocide (2011): “Yet it [terracide] needn't be. An Australian engineering team called Beyond Zero Emissions has released its 5 year study that shows how Australia can have 100% renewable energy by 2020 using renewable technologies of wind power and concentrated solar thermal with molten salts energy storage for 24/7, baseload operation. Professor Mark Jacobson of Stanford University, California, and Mark A. Delucchi of University of California Davis have produced a plan for 100% renewable energy plan for the whole world by 2020. “James Hansen in answer to the question “Is there any real chance of averting the climate crisis?”, has stated: “Absolutely. It 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.” Capitalism denies - or through resolute inaction effectively denies - the acute problem of man-made climate change. Capitalism – that brought us wars and holocausts – has been unable or unwilling to address man-made climate change and now threatens a climate genocide. It must be system change, not climate change” (A. Johnstone, “Climate Genocide: 10 billion people set to die this century”, Socialism or Your Money Back, 20 February 2011: https://socialismoryourmoneyback.blogspot.com.au/2011/02/climate-genocide-10-billion-people-set.html ).
KAROLY, David. "There’s at least one – probably more – climate scientists in Europe that have said that the long-term sustainable population of people on the Earth is about 1 billion people in 2100 "
Professor David Karoly (climate scientist, honorary professor at the University of Melbourne and CSIRO's climate change hub leader) on the sustainable population of people on the Earth and in response to the question “Could the [present] mass extinction include humans?” : “So, we’re talking about break-up of the landscape corridors that would allow movement of animals, movement of plants, that would allow the connectivity to move southward [in the Southern Hemisphere] into cooler environments. That’s a critical factor. For people, we can move. But, certainly, there’s at least one – probably more – climate scientists in Europe that have said that the long-term sustainable population of people on the Earth is about 1 billion people in 2100 – not the foreshadowed United Nations population estimates of about 10 to 12 billion people. That’s not good news” (David Karoly in Q&A Science Special, Transcript, 17 June 2019: https://www.abc.net.au/qanda/2019-17-06/11191192 ).
KLARE, Michael. Professor of Peace and World Security Studies, Hampshire College, Massachusetts: “Climate change as genocide. Why inaction equals annihilation”
Michael T. Klare (the Five College Professor of Peace and World Security Studies at Hampshire College in Amherst, Massachusetts and author of “ The Race for What's Left: The Global Scramble for the World's Last Resources”, “Rising Powers, Shrinking Planet: The New Geopolitics of Energy and Blood and Oil: The Dangers and Consequences of America's Growing Dependence on Imported Petroleum”) on looming climate genocide (2017): “Not since World War II have more human beings been at risk from disease and starvation than at this very moment. On March 10th, Stephen O’Brien, under secretary-general of the United Nations for humanitarian affairs, informed the Security Council that 20 million people in three African countries—Nigeria, Somalia, and South Sudan—as well as in Yemen were likely to die if not provided with emergency food and medical aid…
Inaction Equals Annihilation. In this context, consider the moral consequences of inaction on climate change. Once it seemed that the process of global warming would occur slowly enough to allow societies to adapt to higher temperatures without excessive disruption, and that the entire human family would somehow make this transition more or less simultaneously. That now looks more and more like a fairy tale. Climate change is occurring far too swiftly for all human societies to adapt to it successfully. Only the richest are likely to succeed in even the most tenuous way. Unless colossal efforts are undertaken now to halt the emission of greenhouse gases, those living in less affluent societies can expect to suffer from extremes of flooding, drought, starvation, disease, and death in potentially staggering numbers….
Worse yet, on our present trajectory, it seems highly unlikely that the warming process will stop at 2 or even 3 degrees Celsius, meaning that later in this century many of the worst-case climate-change scenarios—the inundation of coastal cities, the desertification of vast interior regions, and the collapse of rain-fed agriculture in many areas—will become everyday reality.
In other words, think of the developments in those three African lands [Nigeria, Somalia, South Sudan] and Yemen [20 million facing starvation] as previews of what far larger parts of our world could look like in another quarter-century or so: a world in which hundreds of millions of people are at risk of annihilation from disease or starvation, or are on the march or at sea, crossing borders, heading for the shantytowns of major cities, looking for refugee camps or other places where survival appears even minimally possible. If the world’s response to the current famine catastrophe and the escalating fears of refugees in wealthy countries are any indication, people will die in vast numbers without hope of help.
In other words, failing to halt the advance of climate change—to the extent that halting it, at this point, remains within our power—means complicity with mass human annihilation. We know, or at this point should know, that such scenarios are already on the horizon. We still retain the power, if not to stop them, then to radically ameliorate what they will look like, so our failure to do all we can means that we become complicit in what—not to mince words— is clearly going to be a process of climate genocide. How can those of us in countries responsible for the majority of greenhouse gas emissions escape such a verdict?
And if such a conclusion is indeed inescapable, then each of us must do whatever we can to reduce our individual, community, and institutional contributions to global warming. Even if we are already doing a lot—as many of us are —more is needed. Unfortunately, we Americans are living not only in a time of climate crisis, but in the era of President Trump, which means the federal government and its partners in the fossil fuel industry will be wielding their immense powers to obstruct all imaginable progress on limiting global warming. They will be the true perpetrators of climate genocide. As a result, the rest of us bear a moral responsibility not just to do what we can at the local level to slow the pace of climate change, but also to engage in political struggle to counteract or neutralize the acts of Trump and company. Only dramatic and concerted action on multiple fronts can prevent the human disasters now unfolding in Nigeria, Somalia, South Sudan, and Yemen from becoming the global norm.” (Michael T. Klare, “Climate change as genocide. Why inaction equals annihilation”, Common Dreams, 20 April 2017: https://www.commondreams.org/views/2017/04/20/climate-change-genocide ).
Michael Klare (Five College Professor of Peace and World Security Studies at Hampshire College in Amherst, Massachusetts) (2017): “If the world’s response to the current famine catastrophe [Nigeria to Yemen] and the escalating fears of refugees in wealthy countries are any indication, people will die in vast numbers without hope of help.In other words, failing to halt the advance of climate change—to the extent that halting it, at this point, remains within our power—means complicity with mass human annihilation. We know, or at this point should know, that such scenarios are already on the horizon. We still retain the power, if not to stop them, then to radically ameliorate what they will look like, so our failure to do all we can means that we become complicit in what—not to mince words— is clearly going to be a process of climate genocide. How can those of us in countries responsible for the majority of greenhouse gas emissions escape such a verdict? And if such a conclusion is indeed inescapable, then each of us must do whatever we can to reduce our individual, community, and institutional contributions to global warming” ( Michael Klare, “Climate change as genocide”, Countercurrents, 22 April 2017: https://countercurrents.org/2017/04/climate-change-as-genocide .)
KORTEN, David. "When I ask an audience, “Who believes we are on a path to self-extinction?” nearly every hand goes up. It’s a sign of a growing awareness that humanity is on a path to self-imposed environmental and social collapse"
Dr David Korten (author of “Agenda for a New Economy” and “When Corporations Rule the World” , board chair of YES! magazine, co-chair of the New Economy Working Group, a founding board member of the Business Alliance for Local Living Economies, president of the Living Economies Forum, and a member of the Club of Rome) (2018): “When I ask an audience, “Who believes we are on a path to self-extinction?” nearly every hand goes up. It’s a sign of a growing awareness that humanity is on a path to self-imposed environmental and social collapse. For me, that awareness is a source of hope. I recently discovered an even deeper source of hope on a trip to South Korea. There I was involved in a remarkable series of international discussions on the transition to “ecological civilization"… The concept is gaining traction elsewhere as well. China has embedded its commitment to ecological civilization in its constitution… Together we need to achieve four conditions critical to the transition. 1. Earth balance… 2. Equitable distribution… 3. Life-serving technologies… 4. Living communities… It is time to unite as families, communities, and nations in our common identity as members of an ecological civilization, with a commitment to creating the possible world of our shared human dream” (David Korten, “Why I have hope in the face of extinction”, Yes!, 1 November 2018: https://www.yesmagazine.org/planet/why-i-have-hope-in-the-face-of-human-extinction-20181101 ).
[Editor's note: Apropos of “Who believes we are on a path to self-extinction?” and “nearly every hand goes up”, mathematician Lily Serno wanted to “test a mathematical phenomenon called “the wisdom of the crowd” which suggests that if you have a large enough crowd, and a broad rage of people making estimates then all the errors cancel out and what you get is something surprisingly accurate” and set out to estimate “how heavy Uluru is” [Uluru being the huge rock in the centre of Australia]. The result: “My wisdom of the crowd answer of 1.6 billion tonnes , it’s within 15% of [geologist] Verity’s expert calculation of 1.425 billion tonnes” (Lily Serno “How to be lucky: the maths of chance”, ABC Catalyst, 11 September 2018: https://www.abc.net.au/tv/programs/catalyst/transcripts/19_06_HowToBeLuckyTheMathsOfChance_Transcript.pdf )].
LAHOUD, Adrian. Forensic Architecture researcher supports Di-Aping's claim of Climate Genocide by industrial North
Adrian Lahoud writing for Forensic Architecture (FA) (a research agency, based at Goldsmiths, University of London, that undertakes advanced architectural and media research on behalf of international prosecutors, human rights organisations and political and environmental justice groups): “Climate crimes. Two accusations of genocide in the Sahel: The first issued by the International Criminal Court (ICC) in 2008 regarding war crimes in Sudan; the second [Climate Genocide] issued 2009 by the Sudanese diplomat Lumumba Di-Aping directed at the world’s developed nations. The first favors the West. The second deflects and returns the claim and thereby it raises the specter of a new form of violence. This work tests what it would take to support Di-Aping’s claim and in doing so raises a number of questions about the violence wrought by climate change, especially the forums in which it is debated and eventually legitimized. What will be the role of forensic climatology in reconnecting the causes of environmental violence with their effects? And what will be the political consequences? Drawing on recent scientific research that shows a correlation between aerosol emission in the northern hemisphere and desertification in the Sahel, this project makes visible a new geopolitical cartography that ties together distant fates, linking industrialization in the North to deprivation in the South. In this way, it demonstrates that Di-Aping’s claim is a legitimate one. The Case for Di-Aping. In 2009, a new era of violence was announced. Climate forums like the COP are part of an attempt by the world’s most developed nations to legitimize the colonization of the sky, inaugurating a new age of economic warfare waged through the atmosphere and against some of the most vulnerable people on Earth. Here, two videos and two documents are brought together in order to raise a series of questions about anthropocenic violence and the forums that legitimize it. Drawing on recent scientific research that shows a correlation between aerosol emission in the northern hemisphere and desertification in the Sahel, it makes visible a new geopolitical cartography that ties together distant fates, linking industrialization in the North to deprivation in the South. In this context, can we begin to think about forums like the COP as crime scenes?” (Adrian Lahoud, “Climate crimes”, Forensic Architecture: https://www.forensic-architecture.org/file/climate-crimes/ ).
LDC & MVC CIVIL RIGHTS GROUPS re CoP 22 Marrakech climate conference: inaction will aggravate Climate Genocide
Bangladesh Report on LDC (Least Developed Countries) and MVC (Most Vulnerable Countries) Civil Rights Groups’ dismay over Marrakech Climate Conference failure (2016): “Today, just one day before of the conclusion of CoP 22 Marrakech climate conference, civil society rights group representing LDCs and MVCs have organized a press conference in CoP 22 Marrakech climate conference at press conference room Dakhla, they express dismay on possible conclusion of CoP 22 Marrakech climate conference.In their group position paper, they said that US president elect Donald Trump’s possible threats on possible pull out from Paris Agreement (PA) the climate multilateral deal, indecisions of developed countries in respect of enhancing mitigation ambitions, very little or no financing commitment in respect of financing especially for adaptation and loss and damages, finally inaction in respect of climate induced displacement from this conference will lead and aggravate climate genocide in LDCs and MVCs. They cite examples from a recent (14th Nov 2016) World Bank and Global Facility of Disaster Reduction and Recovery (GFDRR)’s released report that, there will be 26 million new poor and loss of $520 billion worth asset and services annually due to natural disasters” (“Civil Society Right Groups from LDC (Least Developed Countries) and Most Vulnerable Countries (MVC) express dismay on CoP 22 Marrakech Climate Conference. Developed countries indecisions in Marrakech will lead Climate Genocide in LDCs and MVCs”, Coastal Bangladesh, 18 November 2016: http://coastalbangladesh.com/english/174#.WKJHK_Ire70 ).
LEIFER, Ira: "a 4C hotter world. While prudent, one wonders what portion of the population could adapt to such a world. My view is that it’s just a few thousand people seeking refuge in the Arctic or Antarctica"
Dr Ira Leifer (Atmospheric Science at the Marine Sciences Institute, University of California, Santa Barbara): “Some scientists are indicating we should make plans to adapt to a 4C hotter world. While prudent, one wonders what portion of the population could adapt to such a world. My view is that it’s just a few thousand people seeking refuge in the Arctic or Antarctica” (quoted in Robert Hunziker, “” Climate genocide”, Counterpunch, 6 March 2015: http://www.counterpunch.org/2015/03/06/climate-genocide/ ).
LI, Minqi. 445-490 ppm CO2-e, plus 2-2.4C and tipping points "leading to massive catastrophes that could wipe out most of the species on earth”
Minqi Li (a Chinese political economist, world-systems analyst, and historical social scientist, currently an associate professor of Economics at the University of Utah, and known as an advocate of the Chinese New Left and a Marxian economist) (2008): “According to models adopted by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), if atmospheric CO2-equivalent rises to 445-90 ppm, then the global average temperature is likely to rise to 2-2.4 degrees above the pre-industrial level (IPCC, 2007c). With an increase of 2 degrees, there will be widespread crop failures, drought, desertification, and flooding throughout Asia, Africa, Europe, North and South America, and Australia. Of plant and animal species, 15-40 percent are likely to go extinct. But more importantly, a 2-degree warming will constitute “a dangerous anthropogenic interference” as it will initiate a series of climate feedbacks that are likely to take the earth beyond a set of “tipping points”. Beyond these tipping points, global warming will become a self-sustaining process out of human control, leading to massive catastrophes that could wipe out most of the species on earth” (Minqi Li, “The rise of China and the demise of the capitalist world economy”, Monthly Review Press, New York, 2008; page 183)
[Editor’s note: the IPCC Summary argues for a limitation of temperature rise to 2oC through limiting greenhouse gas (GHG) pollution of the atmosphere to 450 ppm CO2-equivalent but hard evidence says that we have already reached 478 ppm CO2-equivalent (see Ron Prinn, “400 ppm CO2? Add other GHGs and its equivalent to 478 ppm”, Oceans at MIT, 6 June 2013: http://oceans.mit.edu/featured-stories/5-questions-mits-ron-prinn-400-ppm-threshold ; Gideon Polya, “International consensus-based IPCC Summary For Policymakers (2014) downplays acute seriousness of Climate Crisis”, Countercurrents, 12 November, 2014: http://www.countercurrents.org/polya121114.htm )].
LONDON PRE-COPENHAGEN DEMONSTRATION SIGN: “NO CLIMATE GENOCIDE”
Breitbart London report on huge London demonstration just before the Copenhagen Climate Conference (2015): “Thousands took to the streets of London today, led by Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn, to protest climate change. The event was part of a worldwide day of protest with almost 2,500 similar events taking place globally ahead of a United Nations (UN) climate summit in Paris. Organisers claimed that about 50,000 people took part in the London march this afternoon; with other UK events took place in cities including Newcastle and Belfast. Campaigners from groups such as Greenpeace, Oxfam, Friends of the Earth, ActionAid and the World Wildlife Fund marched alongside feminist groups and campaigners from local campaigns such as a group protesting against fracking in Lancashire. They held signs that read “No climate genocide” and “I am a climate migrant”. Some chanted “we are the wretched of the earth” and “save our planet”” (Breitbart London, “” , 29 November 2015: http://www.newsjs.com/url.php?p=http://www.breitbart.com/london/2015/11/29/no-climate-genocide-thousands-protest-london-support-un-climate-summit/ ).
LOVELOCK, James. Only 0.5 billion to survive climate holocaust
Dr James Lovelock, Fellow of the Royal Society (FRS) is one of the UK’s and the World’s most eminent climate scientists. He is famous for his Gaia Hypothesis (mutually interacting physical world and biological feedbacks affecting atmosphere and climate) and for his invention of the electron capture detector which ultimately assisted in discoveries about the persistence of CFCs and their role in stratospheric ozone depletion (see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Lovelock ).
Dr James Lovelock re very few surviving this century (June 2009) : “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" (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).
Dr James Lovelock, quoted by interviewer (November 2007): “By 2100, Lovelock believes, the Earth's population will be culled from today's 6.6 billion to as few as 500 million, with most of the survivors living in the far latitudes -- Canada, Iceland, Scandinavia, the Arctic Basin" (Jeff Goodell, “The Prophet of climate change”, Rolling Stone, 1 November 2007: http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/story/16956300/the_prophet_of_climate_change_james_lovelock .)
Dr James Lovelock re fewer than 1 billion surviving this century and in answer to the New Scientist interviewer question “Do you think that we will survive”( January 2009): “I'm an optimistic pessimist. I think it's wrong to assume we'll survive 2 °C of warming: there are already too many people on Earth. At 4 °C we could not survive with even one-tenth of our current population. The reason is we would not find enough food, unless we synthesised it. Because of this, the cull during this century is going to be huge, up to 90 per cent. The number of people remaining at the end of the century will probably be a billion or less. It has happened before: between the ice ages there were bottlenecks when there were only 2000 people left. It's happening again. I don't think humans react fast enough or are clever enough to handle what's coming up. Kyoto was 11 years ago. Virtually nothing's been done except endless talk and meetings" ([3]. Gaia Vince, “One last chance to save mankind”, New Scientist, 23 January 2009: http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg20126921.500-one-last-chance-to-save-mankind.html?full=true .)
James Lovelock (FRS, atmospheric gas analysis and proposer of the Gaia thesis) (2006): “We are not all doomed. An awful lot of people will die, but I don’t see the species dying out... A hot Earth couldn’t support much over 500 million” (James Lovelock quoted in “Scientist says global warming will ‘kill billions'”, The Scotsman, 2006 and in David Spratt, “At 4oC of warming, would a billion people survive? What scientists say” , Climate Code Red, 18 August 2019: http://www.climatecodered.org/2019/08/at-4c-of-warming-would-billion-people.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+ClimateCodeRed+%28climate+code+red%29 ).
LYONS, Kate: "A 2018 report from the World Health Organisation, which predicted that between 2030 and 2050, global warming would cause an additional 250,000 deaths per year from heat stress, malnutrition, malaria and diarrhoea"
Kate Lyons (Guardian reporter) on climate deaths (2019): “Climate change is “absolutely” already causing deaths, according to a new report on the health impacts of the climate crisis, which also predicts climate-related stunting, malnutrition and lower IQ in children within the coming decades. The report, From Townsville to Tuvalu, produced by Monash University in Melbourne, pulled together scientific research from roughly 120 peer-reviewed journal articles to paint a picture of the health-related impacts of the climate emergency in Australia and the Pacific region. It pointed to a 2018 report from the World Health Organisation, which predicted that between 2030 and 2050, global warming would cause an additional 250,000 deaths per year from heat stress, malnutrition, malaria and diarrhoea” (Kate Lyons, “Climate crisis already causing deaths and childhood stunting, report reveals”, Guardian, 31 July 2019: https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/jul/31/climate-crisis-already-causing-deaths-and-childhood-stunting-report-reveals ).
MAIN, Douglas: "A [sustainable] world population of between 1 billion and 2 billion... If humans reduced fertility rates to one child per woman on average by 2100, there could be as few as 2 billion people by 2153"
Douglas Main commenting in Newsweek on study, by Corey Bradshaw and Barry Brook, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences and 2 billion people by 2153 if one child per woman on average by 2100 (2014): “The researchers wrote that reducing fertility rates (defined as the number of offspring the average woman has over her lifetime) to 2 from the current rate of 2.37 by 2020 would lead to 777 million fewer "people to feed planet-wide by 2050," for example. But they emphasized that worldwide population would take a long time to stabilize. Several other studies suggest that a world population of between 1 billion and 2 billion "might ensure that all individuals [live] prosperous lives, assuming limited change in per capita consumption and land/materials use." If humans reduced fertility rates to one child per woman on average by 2100, there could be as few as 2 billion people by 2153, they calculated… "The corollary of these findings is that society's efforts towards sustainability would be directed more productively towards reducing our impact as much as possible through technological and social innovation," as opposed to focusing solely on population, said Bradshaw. A primary end goal for these innovations would be to produce energy without greenhouse gases (by embracing renewable energy) and to quit destroying forests and other ecosystems, they added” (Douglas Main, “Even a pandemic wouldn’t create a “sustainable” population, study says”, Newsweek, 28 October 2014: https://www.newsweek.com/even-pandemic-wouldnt-create-sustainable-population-study-says-280338 ).
MCGRATH, Mackenzie: "Thought the pandemic was bad? Wait till you see climate genocide... the UN reports a climate genocide is coming"
Mackenzie McGrath (US writer) on Trumpist denialism and Climate Genocide (2020): “ Even with fires under our noses and unnatural hurricanes quite literally swirling around us, Trump’s cabinet and staff are full of those who have denied and questioned the reality of climate change. On the president’s orders, the US officially began leaving the Paris Climate Agreement in late 2019. As of 2016, only 53% of American voters think climate change is caused by human activities, while 97% of climate scientists believe humans are to blame. Many Republican leaders are threatened by policies that would raise the cost of burning fossil fuels and coal, indicating they’ve chosen to ignore the climate crisis in favor of financial gain. With that in mind, it’s critical to note that just 100 fossil fuel companies and producers are responsible for 71% of greenhouse gas emissions since 1988. That means it’s largely thanks to them that the UN reports a climate genocide is coming. In fact, five years ago the World Health Organization predicted rising global temperatures would lead to 250,000 additional deaths per year by 2030. A newer report suggests 250,000 is a “conservative estimate.” Before long, the climate crisis will become a public health issue akin to the coronavirus — except we won’t be able to stop it” (Mackenzie McGrath, “McGrath: thought the pandemic was bad? Wait till you see climate genocide”, The Daily Utah Chronicle, 3 September 2020: https://dailyutahchronicle.com/2020/09/03/mcgrath-thought-the-pandemic-was-bad-wait-till-you-see-climate-genocide/ ).
MEHTA, Suketu: "Since 1992, 4.2 billion people have been affected by droughts, floods and storms. Today, 1.8 billion people are suffering the effects of drought, land degradation, and desertification"
Suketu Mehta (Gujarati Indian American writer, an associate professor of journalism at New York University, and author of “Maximum City: Bombay Lost and Found” and “This Land is Our Land. An Immigrant’s Manifesto”) (2019): “But migration driven by climate change isn’t something that’s safely in the future; it’s been dramatically increasing in the recent past. Since 1992, 4.2 billion people have been affected by droughts, floods and storms. Today, 1.8 billion people are suffering the effects of drought, land degradation, and desertification… Migrants come to work because they can’t work at home. Heat waves took almost a million people out of the global workplace in 2016, half of them in India alone. They come to eat because they can’t eat at home. For every degree Celsius increase in temperature, wheat yields have been falling by 6 percent and rice yields by 3 percent. 1.5 degrees, corn yields shrink by 10 percent” (pages 102-103, Suketu Mehta , “This Land Is Our Land. An Immigrant’s Manifesto ”, Farrar, Straus and Giroux, New York, 2019).
MOHADJI, Fouad. VP of the Comoros at COP17, Durban, 2011: “History will condemn us for causing climate genocide”
Fouad Mohadji is the Vice President of the Comoros (see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vice_President_of_the_Comoros ).
Fouad Mohadji, Vice President of the Comoros at the COP17 UN Climate Conference in Durban, December 2011, saying that millions of people were living with a death sentence over their heads: “History will condemn us for causing climate genocide" (John Parnell, “Island states appeal for COP17 Ministers to avert “climate genocide”, RTCC, 7 December 2011: http://www.rtcc.org/policy/island-states-appeal-for-cop17-ministers-to-avert-%E2%80%9Cclimate-genocide%E2%80%9D/ .)
MORALES, Evo. Climate change inaction threatens African Holocaust, ecolocide, climate genocide
Evo Morales (born October 26, 1959) is the leader of leader of the Bolivian political party called the Movement for Socialism (Movimiento al Socialismo, with the Spanish acronym MAS, meaning "more") and has been the socialist President of Bolivia since 2005. He was the first fully indigenous Bolivian head of sate in the 470 years since Spanish conquest (see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evo_Morales ).
Evo Morales on climate crimes against Humanity, prosecution of climate criminal countries before the International Criminal Court, disappearance of Island nations and the climate holocaust threatening Africa (Copenhagen, December 2009): "Our objective is to save humanity and not just half of humanity. We are here to save mother earth. Our objective is to reduce climate change to [under] 1C. [above this] many islands will disappear and Africa will suffer a holocaust... he real cause of climate change is the capitalist system. If we want to save the earth then we must end that economic model. Capitalism wants to address climate change with carbon markets. We denounce those markets and the countries which [promote them]. It's time to stop making money from the disgrace that they have perpetrated" (John Vidal, “Evo Morales stuns Copenhagen with demand to limit temperature rise to 1C. Bolivian president warns of climate 'holocaust' in Africa as Hugo Chávez blames capitalism for climate change”, Guardian, 16 December 2009: http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2009/dec/16/evo-morales-hugo-chavez .)
Evo Morales commenting on the day before the conclusion of the December 2010 Cancun Climate Conference ((he has argued for cuts of up to 50 per cent in global carbon emissions by 2020, more than any other leader): “We need limited industrial development, rational development, not industries to kill like we have now, but rather industries to save lives… It [failure to act] is leaving the world without ecology. I called it ecolocide, which will lead to genocide… It's important to create an international court of climate justice. Industries, social movements, governments and international organisations who do not meet the norms that are established must be sanctioned…The most important thing is that the proposals of the people of the world are being debated, the rights of mother earth are being debated… What's never been in a debate before is how to live in harmony with Mother Earth - that's the debate" (Evo Morales, quoted in “Morales warns of climate “genocide””, Aljazeera, 10 December 2010: http://english.aljazeera.net/news/americas/2010/12/2010121054139149384.html .)
MORNINGSTAR, Cory. Canadian climate activist protests Indigenous Indian displacement by Brazilian Bel Monte hydroelectric scheme: “Bel Monte/ Climate Genocide will not be Stopped with Petitions/Letters”
Cory Morningstar is a Canadian writer, climate activist and human rights activist who, in her own words “has traveled extensively in developing, war torn countries, spending time in coffee fincas of Nicaragua, the sugar bateyes of the Dominican Republic, on the streets of Cambodia, and most recently Bolivia where she contributed to the People’s Agreement written in Cochabamba… [she] serves as chair of the advisory committee on the environment, to the City of London. She recently resigned as president of one of the most active Council of Canadians chapters in Canada. She works closely with climate change activists. She would rather die than compromise. She believes in direct action and initiated the grassroots group: Canadians for Action on Climate Change, a member of International Climate Justice Now! She also works with ClimateSOS activists. Prior to working on the People’s Agreement in Cochabamba, 2010, Ms. Morningstar, collaborated with Ms. Joan Russow, former Leader of the Canadian Green Party in writing the document Time to be Bold which was one of the documents referred to in the creation of the People’s Agreement. In November 2010, Ms. Morningstar accepted an invitation to join the International Advisory Board of Klimaforum10 for COP16” (see: http://theartofannihilation.com/about-the-author/ ).
Cory Morningstar on genocide of Brazilian Indians by the Bel Monte hydrolectric project (2011), noting that “genocide” according to Article 2 of the UN Genocide Convention is defined as “acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnic, racial or religious group” : ” Bel Monte/ Climate Genocide will not be Stopped with Petitions/Letters … The chief Raoni cries when he learns that Brazilian president Dilma released the beginning of construction of the hydroelectric plant of Belo Monte, even after tens of thousands of letters and emails addressed to her and which were ignored as the more than 600 000 signatures. That is, the death sentence of the peoples of Great Bend of the Xingu river is enacted. Belo Monte will inundate at least 400,000 hectares of forest, an area bigger than the Panama Canal, thus expelling 40,000 indigenous and local populations and destroying habitat valuable for many species – all to produce electricity at a high social, economic and environmental cost, which could easily be generated with greater investments in energy efficiency" ( Cory Morningstar, “Bel Monte/ Climate Genocide will not be Stopped with Petitions/Letters”, Climate Connections, 2 June 2011: http://climate-connections.org/2011/06/02/belo-monte-climate-genocide-will-not-be-stopped-with-petitions-letters/ .)
MOTTLEY, Mia: "Real effective action or numerous nations across the world will be robbed of their future. I would like to believe that the major emitters are not capable of what would be close to climate genocide"
Mia Mottley (PM of Barbados) addressing the virtual Climate Ambition Summit (2020): “Frankly, at the global level we need to move from placatory rhetoric to real effective action or numerous nations across the world will be robbed of their future.I would like to believe that the major emitters are not capable of what would be close to climate genocide. I would like to believe that we are visible and indispensable for them… Our optimism and joy in Paris now seems short-lived. Global greenhouse gas emissions continue to rise unabated and our window to end the crisis is closing” (Jarni Blakkarly, “High-emitting countries committing “climate genocide” without bigger reductions, Barbados PM says SBS News, 14 December 2020: https://www.sbs.com.au/news/high-emitting-countries-committing-climate-genocide-without-bigger-reductions-barbados-pm-says ).
PACIFIC ISLANDS DEVELOPMENT FORUM: "Coral atoll nations could become uninhabitable as early as 2030"
Pacific Islands Development Forum (2019): “We the People of the Pacific islands Development Forum, Striving to advance the sustainable and inclusive development of Pacific Island nations … Declare that we … 3. Underscore the serious concerns and stark warnings, documented by the IPCC Special Report on 1.5oC and the Special Report on Oceans and Cryosphere, GHG emissions must be reduced immediately . The science warns of the real possibility that coral atoll nations could become uninhabitable as early as 2030. By 2100, the coral atoll nations of the Republic of the Marshall Islands, Tuvalu, Kiribati, Tokelau and the Maldives and many SIDS could be submerged” (Pacific Islands Development Forum Pacific Islands Development Forum, “Nadi Bay Declaration on the Pacific Islands Climate Change Crisis”, 30 July 2019: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1cbSloYVSuY4mIZnUUC5ISpZUaV3NTb2y/view ).
PATIENCE, Angela Shabella. Ugandan lawyer & climate change activist: "Uganda is headed for a climate genocide"
Agodo Shabella Patience ( a Ugandan Lawyer, founder and Executive Director of Green Teso Initiative a climate change Advocacy NGO based in Eastern Uganda) (2015): “For generations, Uganda has grappled with political instability, poverty and inequality. Today however, as she starts to witness a semblance of progress, she is rudely awakened to a climate change reality. A reality that threatens to plunge her into a much worse state than she has ever witnessed before. This unprecedented climate change reality promises the distraction of systems essential for human livelihood such as water systems, ecosystems, health, food security and infrastructure. This unprecedented climate change reality promises the distraction of systems essential for human livelihood such as water systems, ecosystems, health, food security and infrastructure. And with over 70% of the populace dependent on climate fed agriculture, Uganda is headed for a climate genocide. To evidence these threats, the Ugandan weather has added twists and turns to its expected scope causing many parts of the country to suffer an avalanche of rains and droughts” (Agodo Shabella Patience, “A climate genocide: preparing Uganda to cope with climate change challenges”, News 24 Africa, 27 May 2015: http://news24africa.com/a-climate-genocide-preparing-uganda-to-cope-with-climate-change-challenges/ ).
POLYA, Gideon. 10 billion to die in climate holocaust, climate genocide
Dr Gideon Polya is a biochemist, academic, writer, artist, and climate change activist. Associated with the Australian Climate Emergency Network and the Yarra Valley Climate Action Group, he is the Convenor of 300.org that, informed by the latest science, holds that we must return the world's atmospheric CO2 concentration to 300 ppm for a safe and sustainable planet for all peoples and all species (see: .http://mwcnews.net/Gideon-Polya ).
Dr Gideon Polya on near-terminal Climate Genocide (2020): “While the presently dominant and deadly neoliberalism demands maximal freedom to exploit human and natural resources for private profit, this rapacious course now existentially threatens Humanity and the Biosphere as the world careers towards a Climate Genocide in which 10 billion people will die avoidably this century en route to a sustainable population in 2100 of a mere 0.5- 1.0 billion [37]. The world has a crucial choice between (a) near-total mass murder of Humanity and (b) sustainable sharing of limited resources on Spaceship Earth. The clear alternative to genocidal neoliberalism is Social Humanism (socialism, democratic socialism, eco-socialism, the welfare state, universal basic income) that seeks to sustainably maximize human happiness, dignity and opportunity through evolving, pragmatic and culturally sensitive intra-national and international social contracts...
Decent people must oppose the neoliberal Gadarene rush to global suicide by (a) informing everyone they can, (b) following the example of the marvellous Greta Thunberg [50] and the School Strikers and launching a Climate Revolution (peaceful and non- 359 violent of course) with millions out in the streets [51], and (c) 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. There is no Planet B and there must be zero tolerance for the neoliberal, genocidal and terracidal climate criminals. However, as argued in the Introductory comments, fundamentally we must all rigorously adhere to the principle that ―all men are created equal and have an inalienable right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness‖ – and that means an end to Mainstream mendacity, the ongoing Global Avoidable Mortality Holocaust, the ongoing Muslim Holocaust and Muslim Genocide, and the worsening Climate Genocide" (pages 358-359, Gideon Polya, “US-Imposed Post-9/11 Muslim Holocaust & Muslim Genocide” , 400 pages, Korsgaard Publishing, Germany, 4 June 2020: https://www.amazon.com/US-Imposed-Post-9-Muslim-Holocaust-Genocide/dp/8793987056 ; for a summary of the book see Gideon Polya, “Racist Mainstream ignores “US-Imposed Post-9/11 Muslim Holocaust & Muslim Genocide””, Countercurrents, 17 July 2020: https://countercurrents.org/2020/07/racist-mainstream-ignores-us-imposed-post-9-11-muslim-holocaust-muslim-genocide/ ).
Dr Gideon Polya re climate genocide (December 2009): “Both Dr James Lovelock FRS (Gaia hypothesis) and Professor Kevin Anderson (Director, Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research, University of Manchester, UK) have estimated that fewer than 1 billion people will survive this century due to unaddressed, man-made global warming – these estimates translating to a climate genocide involving deaths of 10 billion people this century, this including 6 billion under-5 year old infants, 3 billion Muslims, 2 billion Indians, 0.5 billion Bengalis, 0.3 billion Pakistanis and 0.3 billion Bangladeshis" ( Gideon Polya, “Climate racism, climate injustice and climate genocide – Australia, US & EU sabotage Copenhagen COP15”, Bellaciao, 14 December 2009: http://bellaciao.org/en/spip.php?article19422 .)
Gideon Polya on Climate Genocide in context of April 22, Earth Day (2011): “April 22 is Earth Day. The following science-informed analysis summarizes the dire state of the Planet and what needs to be done to stop the horrendous global avoidable mortality holocaust killing 18 million people each year and to deal with the worsening climate emergency that threatens a climate genocide with a predicted 10 billion victims this century if man-made climate change is not urgently addressed" (Gideon Polya, “April 22, Earth Day: We Must Stop Climate Catastrophe”, Countercurrentsd, 22 April 2011: http://www.countercurrents.org/polya220411.htm .)
Dr Gideon Polya (2009): “Australia has an over 2 century history of involvement in genocide. However this appalling genocide history is kept hidden by a sustained process of Australian holocaust denial and genocide denial
Before going further it must be clearly stated that the term “Genocide” used here is “Genocide” as precisely defined by Article 2 of the UN Genocide Convention as follows: “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” (see: http://www.edwebproject.org
/sideshow/genocide/convention.html ).
Further, in assessing deaths from particular policies of invasion, occupation and dispossession one notes that deaths can be violent (from bombs and bullets) or non-violent (from deprivation and deprivation-exacerbated disease). Both kinds of avoidable death (death that should not have happened) are included within the term “excess death” used below (see “Body Count. Global avoidable mortality since 1950”, G.M. Polya, Melbourne, 2007: http://mwcnews.net/Gideon-Polya/ and “Body Count. Global avoidable mortality since 1950 (2008 lecture)”: http://globalavoidablemortality.blogspot.com/2008/08/body-count-global-avoidable-mortality.html )...
Climate Genocide (16 million die avoidably each year already from deprivation and deprivation-exacerbated disease; Professor James Lovelock FRS says that only 1 billion will survive this century i.e. about 10 billion (2 billion being Indians) will perish this century due to unaddressed climate change; on a per capita basis Australia is among the very worst greenhouse gas (GHG) polluters – in terms of 2004 figures for “fossil fuel-derived annual per capita CO2 pollution” Australia is about 40 times worse than India and 160 times worse than Bangladesh if you include Australia’s world number 1 coal exports; for details and documentation see “ “Climate Disruption, Climate Emergency, Climate Genocide & Penultimate Bengali Holocaust through Sea Level Rise”:http://sites.google.com/site/yarravalleyclimateactiongroup/climate-disruption-climate-emergency-climate-genocide-penultimate-bengali-holocaust-through-sea-level-rise )” (Gideon Polya, “”Indigenous Genocide, Climate Genocide And Holocaust Denial By White Australia”, Countercurrents, 12 May, 2009: https://www.countercurrents.org/polya120509.htm and ibid, Treaty Republic, 12 May, 2009: https://treatyrepublic.net/node/54 ).
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 (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 (anti-racist Jewish Australian scientist, artist, humanist and humanitarian activist) (2009): “Australia, the US and the EU are sabotaging Copenhagen COP15 climate summit and sabotaging Climate Justice which requires (a) equal per capita GHG pollution for all men plus (b) a penalty for huge First World historical pollution (73% of 1750-2006 carbon pollution) … It seems likely that the US surrogate, climate criminal Apartheid Australia, will succeed in sabotaging the Copenhagen Climate Conference - just as it helped the US sabotage the previous Kyoto (1997), Bali (2007) and Poznan (2009) Climate Conferences. The people of Tuvalu and other Island Nations are ALREADY going under the sea but the greedy First World nations at Copenhagen, led by climate criminal Australia, have ignored their pleas. 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 fewer than 1 billion people will survive this century due to unaddressed, man-made global warming – these estimates translating to a climate genocide involving deaths of 10 billion people this century, this including 6 billion under-5 year old infants, 3 billion Muslims, 2 billion Indians, 0.5 billion Bengalis, 0.3 billion Pakistanis and 0.3 billion Bangladeshis … The World must respond to this Australian, US, Anglo-American and EU climate racism, climate injustice and worsening climate genocide of non-Europeans by Sanctions, Boycotts, Green Tariffs, Reparations Demands and International Criminal Court prosecutions against the people, politicians, corporations and countries complicit in the worsening climate genocide” (Gideon Polya, “Climate racism, climate injustice & climate genocide- Australia, US & EU sabotage Copenhagen COP15”, Bellaciao, 14 December 2009: http://www.bellaciao.org/en/spip.php?article19422 ).
Gideon Polya on climate genocide (2007): “Climate Criminals And Climate Genocide … The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPPC) Fourth Assessment Report (2007) warns of the following disasters this century if mankind does not respond urgently to anthropogenic climate change: possible temperature increases of up to 4 degrees Centigrade, sea level rises of up to 0.6 metres, massive damage to agriculture and serious threat to huge populations, especially in Asia and Africa. Further, the IPCC warns that “anthropogenic warming and sea level rise would continue for centuries due to the timescales associated with climate processes and feedbacks, even if greenhouse gas concentrations were to be stabilized ).” (IPCC, Climate Change 2007: the physical science basis. Summary for policy makers: http://www.ipcc.ch/SPM2feb07.pdf )... Dr James Hansen and colleagues, and published by the prestigious UK Royal Society, says that the IPCC warnings are actually UNDER-estimated and warns of an impending “cataclysm”. Dr Hansen and colleagues conclude: “Palaeoclimate data show that the Earth's climate is remarkably sensitive to global forcings. Positive feedbacks predominate. This allows the entire planet to be whipsawed between climate states. One feedback, the 'albedo flip' property of ice/water, provides a powerful trigger mechanism. A climate forcing that 'flips' the albedo [light reflection capacity] of a sufficient portion of an ice sheet can spark a cataclysm. Inertia of ice sheet and ocean provides only moderate delay to ice sheet disintegration and a burst of added global warming. Recent greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions place the Earth perilously close to dramatic climate change that could run out of our control, with great dangers for humans and other creatures. Carbon dioxide (CO2) is the largest human-made climate forcing, but other trace constituents are also important. Only intense simultaneous efforts to slow CO2 emissions and reduce non-CO2 forcings can keep climate within or near the range of the past million years” (Dr James Hansen et al, Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society, vol. 365, 1925-1954 (2007), “Climate change and trace gases”: http://www.journals.royalsoc.ac.uk/ontent/l3h462k7p4068780/fulltext.html ) (Gideon Polya, “Climate Criminals And Climate Genocide”, Countercurrents, 2 July, 2007: https://www.countercurrents.org/polya010807.htm ).
Gideon Polya (Australian biochemist ) on present-day 3.3 billion population ideal based on the impact of human population on a coral “canary in the mine” in the last 50 years (2018): “Drastic decrease in population is required for cessation of the present appalling level of ecosystem destruction (ecocide) that is associated with catastrophic species loss (speciescide) and leading to omnicide and terracide. If we take world coral as a “canary in the coal mine” then the 320 ppm CO2 at which coral reefs started to decline [30] was reached in 1965 [8], at which time the world’s population was 3.340 billion as compared to the present 7.5 billion [44]. One can therefore plausibly suggest that given the present carbon economy the world’s population needs to roughly halve for a safe and sustainable environment for all peoples and all species” (Gideon Polya, “How much negative carbon emissions, negative population growth & negative economic growth is needed to save planet?”, Countercurrents, 28 November 2018: https://countercurrents.org/2018/11/28/how-much-negative-carbon-emissions-negative-population-growth-negative-economic-growth-is-needed-to-save-planet/ .)
Dr Gideon Polya (quotes from a Senate Inquiry Submission) (2019): “Australia is among world leaders for animal species extinction, with 40 animal extinctions to its name ranking it 4th in the world after the US (237), French Polynesia (59) and Mauritius (44) [9]. While arguably involved in the disappearance of the megafauna, Indigenous Australians practiced sustainable use of the Australian ecosystems for 65,000 years. This horrendous Australian speciescide has come about through hunting particular species to extinction (notably the Tasmanian tiger) [6], ecocide and hence speciescide through land clearing in forestry, agriculture, industry and urban development (notably the iconic koala, Phascolarctos cinereus) [10] , over-exploitation and pollution of scarce water resources [11], and the deadly impact of feral animals (notably foxes, dogs, cats and the cane toad)…
Australia is among world leaders for the following 14 activities or parameter variously impacting the climate and hence species and ecosystem survival : (1) annual per capita greenhouse gas pollution… (14) climate genocide and approach towards omnicide and terracide … If one includes GHG pollution from combustion of its world-leading coal and gas exports, Australia (population 25 million) with 0.33% of the world’s population is responsible for 4.6% of the world’s GHG pollution… various climate experts (e.g. Dr James Lovelock, UK, , Professor Kevin Anderson, UK, Professor Clive Hamilton Australia, and Professor David Karoly, Australia) state that the sustainable human carrying capacity of the earth by 2100 may be a mere 1 billion or fewer…
There are some obvious ways of urgently dealing with this appalling Australian ecocide and speci[e]scide catastrophe that is disproportionately contributing to a relentless global movement towards omnicide and terracide: (1) rapid cessation of exports of coal, gas and methanogenically-derived meat; (2) rapid cessation of deforestation and other land clearing ; (3) rapid cessation of fossil fuel use for electricity and transport, and attendant subsidies; (5) massive re-afforestation and environmental restoration; (6) immediate priority given to the natural water flows in our rivers; (7) immediate cessation of any actions threatening Australia’s decimated biodiversity; (8) emergency action to wipe out damaging introduced plant and animal pests ; (9) urgent encouragement of rational and pro-environment lifestyle choices (vegetarianism, recycling, limited consumption and avoidance of air travel) , and (10) emergency action to preserve what is left of Australia’s indigenous flora and fauna. For those neoliberals scoffing at these proposals, let me simply reiterate that every species is priceless, and not for this generation to destroy” (Gideon Polya, “Submission from Dr Gideon Polya to the Senate Inquiry into Australia’s Faunal Extinction Crisis (12 August 2019)”, Submission #38: file:///C:/Users/Gideon/AppData/Local/Temp/Sub38-2.pdf .)
POPE FRANCIS in Encyclical Letter "Laudato si" (2015): "Exposure to atmospheric pollutants produces a broad spectrum of health hazards, especially for the poor, and causes millions of premature deaths"
Pope Francis in his encyclical “Laudato si “ (“Praise be”) has quite exceptionally gone further than any other major leader by alluding to the millions of “premature deaths” – also epidemiologically known as untimely deaths, avoidable deaths, excess deaths, avoidable mortality, excess mortality, deaths that need not have happened – that are occasioned by pollution or poverty and the need for these environmental and social costs of business be “fully borne” by those incurring them (2015): “ [Section 20] Some forms of pollution are part of people's daily experience. Exposure to atmospheric pollutants produces a broad spectrum of health hazards, especially for the poor, and causes millions of premature deaths … [Section 48] The human environment and the natural environment deteriorate together; we cannot adequately combat environmental degradation unless we attend to causes related to human and social degradation… The impact of present imbalances is also seen in the premature death of many of the poor, in conflicts sparked by the shortage of resources, and in any number of other problems which are insufficiently represented on global agendas… [Section 195] 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” (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: Pope Francis did not put figures on premature deaths from poverty or pollution in his 246-section encyclical letter “Laudato si”, but the numbers are readily available . Thus UN Population Division data (UN Population Division: http://esa.un.org/wpp/unpp/p2k0data.asp ) enable one to calculate that 17 million people die avoidably (prematurely) each year (half of them children) due to poverty in the Developing World (minus China) (see Gideon Polya, “Body Count. Global avoidable mortality since 1950”, that includes a history of every country from Neolithic times and is now available for free perusal on the web: http://globalbodycount.blogspot.com/ ) . The World Health Organization (WHO) estimates that 7 million people die from the effects of pollution each year (World Health Organization (WHO), “7 million premature deaths annually linked to air pollution”: http://www.who.int/mediacentre/news/releases/2014/air-pollution/en/ ). The DARA 2012 Report commissioned by 20 countries states: “This report estimates that climate change causes 400,000 deaths 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… 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” (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/ and 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 )].
PRASHAD, Vijay: "We are between climate catastrophe and wars of extinction, with the final administration provoking both at hyper-speed"
Vijay Prashad (professor of international studies at Trinity College in Hartford, Connecticut and the author of 18 books, including “Arab Spring, Libyan Winter”, “The Poorer Nations: A Possible History of the Global South” and “The Death of a Nation and the Future of the Arab Revolution”) (2017): “It is not as if the Paris or Kyoto agreements would have been sufficient to stem the tide of adverse climate change. Even those were too mild, too friendly to corporations that make their money destroying the planet. But at least these agreements forced governments to accept that human activity—namely industrial capitalism—had hastened the destruction of nature. Now, Trump’s Energy Secretary Rick Perry says openly that carbon dioxide emissions are not the main drivers of climate change. Perry pointed the finger of blame at ‘ocean waters,’ allowing industrial capitalism an exit from responsibility. Why bother with alternatives to carbon when there is no ‘evidence’ that such energy sources bring the planet closer to annihilation?…Will a ‘small’ nuclear exchange be contemplated for the Korean Peninsula and for Eastern Asia in general? We are between climate catastrophe and wars of extinction, with the final administration provoking both at hyper-speed. Trump plays the role of Judas in Gaudi’s sculpture. Jesus speaks to him about betrayal. But he is looking over Judas’ shoulder. He is asking the rest of us if we are participants in the betrayal. What are you doing today to prevent Trump's agenda from driving our planet closer to extinction?” (Vijay Prashad, “Why the Trump Administration could be America’s last. We are between climate catastrophe and wars if extinction”, Alternet, 21 June 2017: http://www.alternet.org/world/why-trump-administration-could-be-americas-last ).
PROGRESSIVE RADIO NETWORK: “Climate genocide. The planet has warmed by 0.85C since the industrial revolution... when temperatures were 2C warmer than today, NYC would have been in 16 feet of water”
Progressive Radio Network (2016): “Climate genocide. The planet has warmed by 0.85C since the industrial revolution, or since 1880, according to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), which is the baseline for measurement by the scientific community. That doesn’t seem like much; it’s such a small number, less than one (1). But, remarkably, the increase of 0.85C happened within 150 years, whereas historically it normally took much, much longer for the planet’s temperature to increase by that amount. Ostensibly, it’s speeding up by quite a bit. Beware! The 0.85C temp increase is mere triviality when compared to some prior events in the paleoclimatic record books. An ominous event much more threatening than a 0.85C increase may be lurking in the shadows. Paleoclimatic studies confirm Earth’s climate has turned nasty “on a dime of geological time,” within little more than a decade, more on this later. Not only that, temperature changes of only two (2C) degrees Celsius warmer than today can, and did, equate to 16 feet of water for NYC whereas only four (4C) degrees Celsius cooler than today can, and did, equate to a block of ice 1.24 miles thick surrounding NYC. Those two seemingly small numbers, 2C and 4C, are examples used in Sir David Attenborough’s film, Are We Changing Planet Earth? BBC Natural History Unit, BBC One. Attenborough’s film unequivocally answers the question its title poses: “Yes, we are.” As explained in the film, seemingly small temperature changes have huge planetary impact, for example: 160,000 years ago when temperatures were 4C cooler than today, NYC would have been in a block of ice 1.25 miles thick. Then, 30,000 years later, when temperatures were 2C warmer than today, NYC would have been in 16 feet of water” (Progressive Radio Network, “Climate genocide”: http://prn.fm/climate-genocide/ .)
RAHMAN, Atiq. Executive Director of the Bangladesh Centre for Advanced Studies (BCAS) on threat to Bangladesh: "the global nation states, must take action. If not we'll be calling it climatic genocide. That's where we're heading"
Dr Atiq Rahman is Executive Director of the Bangladesh Centre for Advanced Studies (BCAS) and received the "Bangladesh National Environment Award - 2008" from the Government of Bangladesh for Environmental Research and Technology Innovation. (see: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/4056755.stm and http://www.bcas.net/ ).
Dr Atiq Rahman of the Bangladesh Centre for Advanced Studies who has investigated how climate change will affect Bangladesh (2004): “It's a flat, flat, flat country. The flow of water coming from the Himalayas - which is huge - depends on the differential of height. When the sea level is higher, the flow of that water will be restricted. So when you hear now of Bangladesh being a flood-prone country - it will be a much more flood-prone country in future. .. "No contribution, highest impact [by rich, polluting countries] - that makes it a huge case of moral inequality against which the global citizenry, the global nation states, must take action. If not we'll be calling it climatic genocide. That's where we're heading" (Dr Atiq Rahman quoted by Roland Buerk, “Flooded future looms for Bangladesh”, BBC News, 7 December 2004: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/4056755.stm .)
RANAWAKA, Patali Champika. Climate racism, climate terrorism & climate genocide
Patali Champika Ranawaka is Sri Lanka Minister of Environment and Natural Resources (see: http://www.sundayobserver.lk/2009/11/01/spe07.asp ).
Patali Champika Ranawaka on Developed World climate racism, climate terrorism and climate genocide (November 2009): “Climate racism … During the pre industrial era when oil or coal was not used as a main energy source, carbon concentration in the atmosphere was 260ppm. Now it has risen to 390ppm. During the last century the mean temperature has risen by 0.730C. It is now predicted that the temperature would rise to a point between 1.5o – 6o Celsius, during the 21st century. Therefore, scientists introduced a carbon budget to avoid catastrophic environmental disaster which may end the humanity on the planet. According to their calculations, if we could be able to go back to the 350ppm and limit the temperature rise to 1.50C relative the pre industrial era, there would be an over 90% probability to avert an environmental calamity that could devastate this planet… The infamous US Senate (Byrd - Hagel) Resolution stated that it was the sense of the Senate that US should not be a signatory to any protocol that did not include binding targets and time tables for developing countries (like Sri Lanka) as well. A few weeks ago, the G-8 Summit reiterated this position. Australian and Mexican proposals to Copenhagen too have suggested a similar position. In order to cut emission levels of developed countries, developing countries too should cut their emission levels. The USA emits over 36% of carbon and “Wyoming” the least populous state with only 495,700 people emits more carbon dioxide than 74 developing countries with a combined population of nearly 396 million. The carbon emission of Texas with a population of 22 million, exceeds the aggregate emission of 120 developing countries with a combined population of 1.1 billion people. For the past century the US had emitted more than 50% of the total emission of all the developing countries in the world put together! So what right do they have to ask developing countries to limit their development? On the other hand, the USA economy is very inefficient with respect to the black carbon content. Each dollar contains 0.56 grams of carbon. Whereas in Japan it is 0.26 and in Sri Lanka it is 0.16 grams. If they simply are matching the Japan’s energy efficiency they would have to reduce their emission by more than half without signing the KP. But they ignored this under developed technological structure and simply were wasting fossil fuel deposits, causing genocide to others. When the US administration talk about human right violation, global terrorism, genocide etc., they should realize that its mirror image is much worse environmental human right violation, global climate terrorism and climate genocide over our children etc., Joseph Stieglitz, the ex president of the World Bank and Nobel prize winner for economics rightly pointed out that any agreement should be based on emissions per dollar of GDP and emissions per-capita… So in Copenhagen, developing countries will have a moral high ground and rational argument. On the other hand, developed countries only have brute force and concepts like Climate Nazism, Climate Racism and Climate Terrorism" (Patali Champika Ranawaka, “Climate racism”, Sunday Observer, 1 November 2009: http://www.sundayobserver.lk/2009/11/01/spe07.asp .)
RINCKER, Frits: "The choice is between having the blood of the coming climate genocide on our hands or not"
Frits Rincker (Den Haag, Netherlands) commenting on a geo-engineering article by Professor Tim Lenton (an Earth system scientist based in the School of Environmental Sciences, University of East Anglia, Norwich, UK) (2009): “Black soil [biochar] and iron fertilizing are good ideas [for CO2 removal by geo-engineering] , but the 'could' mentality is killing us. Why not say we will have no environmentally lethal products or activities from NOW on. Every uncompensated molecule of CO2 anywhere in the productive chain is one to much. Would life stop? I doubt it strongly. The choice is between having the blood of the coming climate genocide on our hands or not” (Frits Rincker comment in Tim Lenton, “Big problems need big solutions”, BBC News, 4 Marxh 2009: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/7921619.stm ).
ROCKSTROM, John: "It’s difficult to see how we could accommodate a billion people or even half of that [at 4C]"
Johan Rockström (director of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research, Germany) on a hotter world (2019): “We will have lost all the [coral] reefs decades before 2100 – at somewhere between 2C and 4C … A combination of climate change and deforestation could push it [the Amazon rain forest] into a savannah state … It’s difficult to see how we could accommodate eight billion people or maybe even half of that. There will be a rich minority of people who survive with modern lifestyles, no doubt, but it will be a turbulent, conflict-ridden world… The reason is primarily making enough food, but also we would have lost the biodiversity we’re dependent on and be facing a cocktail of negative shocks all the time, from fires to droughts” (Johan Rockström quoted in Gaia Vince, “The heat is on over the climate crisis. Only radical measures will work”, Guardian, 19 May 2019: https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/may/18/climate-crisis-heat-is-on-global-heating-four-degrees-2100-change-way-we-live . )
SCHELLENHUBER, Hans Joachim: "a billion people" left & when asked about the difference between a 2°C world and a 4°C world: “Human civilization”
Professor Hans Joachim Schellnhuber (leading climate scientist) when asked at a 2011 conference in Melbourne about the difference between a 2°C world and a 4°C world, replied: “Human civilization” (Ian Dunlop and David Spratt, “Disaster Alley climate change conflict & risk”, Breakthrough, 2017: https://uploads.guim.co.uk/2017/06/20/ACFrOgDkCYAvFeJ9d4YxhOlZiOHNkTOnWbkhlY_dX8kl_O3ChbGcEmWsbUNrOnJUwE4SNWFvzB7RM6w4GsF0pDwdnREIip-k5J-03TQc0Op4FWrsNcZpjXAuy7NNJ_Y=.pdf ).
Hans Joachim Schellnhuber ( founding director of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research, Germany and key adviser to Angela Merkel in the design of Germany's transition to a low-carbon economy) (2015): “In the world of Google you can raise any myth and you can raise any lie. If you go to the internet then I will be accused or applauded for asking to reduce the world population to one billion. 'Here is what I really said. It was a scientific conference, preceding the infamous Copenhagen conference in 2009, and actually I talked about the carrying capacity of the Earth, which is an interesting issue. What I said is, if global warming is not in any way mitigated, and we go into a six or eight degrees warmer world, then our planet will probably only be able to support a billion people” (Hans Joachim “John” Schellnhuber quoted in Rosanna Ryan, “Meet John Schellnhuber: climatologist to Pope Francis”, ABC Radio National Late Night Live, 25 September 2015: https://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/latenightlive/meet-john-schellnhuber-climatologist-to-pope-francis/6799686 ).
SETHNESS, Javier. Climate genocide shows naked abomination of capitalism
Javier Sethness is an educator and libertarian socialist who currently lives in California (see: http://www.countercurrents.org/sethness191009.htm ).
Javier Sethness on climate genocide in reviewing Richard A. Koenigsberg's book “Nations Have the Right to Kill: Hitler, the Holocaust and War” (October 2009): “As is well-known, climate change stands to threaten agricultural production across much of the globe, radically diminish the global supply of freshwater, inundate low-lying coastal settlements currently home to hundreds of millions of people, prompt widespread desertification, and literally eradicate some countries that today exist. The specter of such life-negating realities seems to find its genesis in capitalist society, a form of totalitarianism that essentially values profitability above all else. The response of nearly every advanced-capitalist country to the now well-established reality of climate change has been entirely inadequate toward the end of allowing much of humanity and life itself the chance to flourish or even survive the projected consequences of anthropogenic global warming; their lack of meaningful action on this question—a lack which results from the desire to hold existing society more or less unchanged—is systematic. It cannot merely then be stated that the mass murder—the rendering-impossible of human life—that follows from reformist inaction is a mistake, an unintended consequence, an ‘externality.' Such horrifying consequences are today essentially inevitable in contemporary capitalism; as such, dominant Western treatment of these questions bears much in common with other genocidal episodes of human history…What is currently occurring, then, is the mass-murder of the global South by much of the global North. There has of course been a marked tendency toward this dynamic now for some time in human history, but it seems climate genocide constitutes the most final of these historical denials…Just, then, in Koenigsberg's words, as “[t]he Holocaust depicts the ugliness, futility and meaninglessness of submission to the nation-state,” so does the prospect of climate genocide illustrate the naked abomination of capitalism. Dialectically, of course, it also holds out the necessity of the institution of eco-socialism: it demands that humanity cut the fuse, in Walter Benjamin's words, “[b]efore the spark reaches the dynamite" (Javier Sethness, “The Holocaust and Climate Genocide: an eco-socialist review of “Nations have the Right to Kill””, Countercurrents, 19 October 2009: http://www.countercurrents.org/sethness191009.htm .)
Javier Sethness on climate genocide and "intent" (2012): “
"[Planet-devastating neoliberalism is] an emergency necessitating radical action. This follows, of course, from the dominant imperative to maintain and expand existing power structures and privileges. It represents perhaps the most extreme expression of the domiant trend within capitalist societies that valorizes capitalist profit over the interests of people – a continuation , again, of the decidedly extreme oppression historically visited upon southern peoples by imperialist powers.
Within the framework of a system such as this, it is largely assumed that the “normal” operation if capitalist society need not be interrupted by concerns about the continued existence of much of humanity – it is expected, indeed, that humankind and even life itself should be subordinated to the demands of capital. Such an arrangement is undoubtedly totalitarian , for it sacrifices “human freedom” to “historical development”. While the nameless, foreign others sacrificed by climate change are not normally referred to as a “plague bacilllus” or an “epidemic” against which one must defend the interests of the fatherland or state – indeed, the victims of global warming are conspicuous for their absence in the northern imagination – the end result, which amounts to massive disregard for the welfare of the other and mass death, is not terribly different.
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" (Javier Sethness, “Imperiled life: revolution against climate catastrophe (Anarchist Intervention)”, AK Press, 2012, pp126-127: http://books.google.com.au/books?id=HxbSuzsQSJ8C&pg=PA126&lpg=PA126&dq=%22climate+genocide%22&source=bl&ots=_faQtXhxP-&sig=zRec3HSasKDJVPgCthiFPjLWneA&hl=en&sa=X&ei=R1YgU4qCGYPGkAWEqIHgDA&ved=0CGUQ6AEwCTgK#v=onepage&q=%22climate%20genocide%22&f=false .and http://www.amazon.com/Imperiled-Life-Revolution-Catastrophe-Interventions/dp/1849351058 . )
SKRBINA, David. "If we set aside half (5.6 bha) for nature and live on the other half, and we assume the current global average footprint of 2.8 ha/person, then the planet can support just (5.6 / 2.8 =) 2 billion people at current living standards"
David Skrbina (Senior Lecturer in Philosophy in the Department of Philosophy at the University of Michigan) (2020): “A world of, say, 5 billion people is more likely to be sustainable than one of 10 billion; and a world of 1 billion is likely more sustainable still. All things being equal, a world with fewer people will allow for a more robust planetary ecosystem, and a higher quality of life for humans, than a world with more people… First, we have been pumping carbon gases into the air for over 300 years, and neutrality only means no further additions; at some point, we need to start pulling carbon out of the air, and return to a stable condition. We need a “carbon negative” plan, not a carbon neutral one. Second, the implication is that population can continue its unhindered growth—as if a world of 10 billion “carbon neutral” people could be sustainable. It can’t. But this raises an important question: How many people can the planet sustain? We can do a quick analysis, comparable to what I have done above. The total usable land area on Earth is around 11.2 billion ha. If we set aside half (5.6 bha) for nature and live on the other half, and we assume the current global average footprint of 2.8 ha/person, then the planet can support just (5.6 / 2.8 =) 2 billion people at current living standards. This is a decline of 74% from the current 7.7 billion… Obviously, we could sustain a higher population if we reduced the global average footprint. Theoretically, 5 billion people are sustainable if they all live at the poverty level of 1.0 ha/person. But that’s not a viable goal” (David Skrbina, “The population question: Toward a plan for global sustainability”, The Overpopulation Project”, 13 January 2020: https://overpopulation-project.com/the-population-question-toward-a-plan-for-global-sustainability/ ).
SOLON ROMERO, Pablo. Bolivian UN Ambassador: Cancun climate inaction deal means ecocide and genocide
Pablo Solón Romero is currently the Ambassador of the Plurinational State of Bolivia to the United Nations. He is the son of the famous Bolivian muralist Walter Solón Romero Gonzáles (see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pablo_Sol%C3%B3n_Romero ).
Pablo Solón Romero, the Bolivian representative at the December 2010 Cancun Climate Conference was blunt in his assessment of the final “deal”*: "We're talking about a [combined] reduction in emissions of 13-16%, and what this means is an increase of more than 4C. Responsibly, we cannot go along with this - this would mean we went along with a situation that my president [Evo Morales] has termed “ecocide and genocide”.” [1].
The BBC has summarized the Cancun Climate Deal as “Things achieved: fund to channel money from the West to developing nations; formal recognition that current emissions pledges need to rise; framework on paying countries not to cut down their forests and Things not achieved: deeper emissions cuts; mechanisms for negotiating deeper emission cuts; deciding on the legal status of any new global agreement" (“ UN Climate Change talks in Cancun agree a deal”, BBC, 11 December 2010: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-11975470 ).
SPRATT, David: "Temperature rises that are now in prospect could reduce the global human population by 80% or 90%"
David Spratt (leading Australian climate change activist and Ian Dunlop (leading Australian business man and climate change activist) (2017): “The first responsibility of a government is to safeguard the people and their future well-being. The ability to do this is threatened by climate change, whose accelerating impacts will also drive political instability and conflict, posing large negative consequences to human society which may never be undone. This report looks at climate change and conflict issues through the lens of sensible risk management to draw new conclusions about the challenge we now face.
• From tropical coral reefs to the polar ice sheets, global warming is already dangerous. The world is perilously close to, or passed, tipping points which will create major changes in global climate systems.
• The world now faces existential climate-change risks which may result in “outright chaos” and an end to human civilisation as we know it.
• These risks are either not understood or wilfully ignored across the public and private sectors, with very few exceptions.
•Global warming will drive increasingly severe humanitarian crises, forced migration, political instability and conflict. The Asia Pacific region, including Australia, is considered to be “Disaster Alley” where some of the worst impacts will be experienced.
• Building more resilient communities in the most vulnerable nations by high level financial commitments and development assistance can help protect peoples in climate hotspots and zones of potential instability and conflict.
• Australia’s political, bureaucratic and corporate leaders are abrogating their fiduciary responsibilities to safeguard the people and their future well-being. They are ill-prepared for the real risks
of climate change at home and in the region.
•The Australian government must ensure Australian Defence Force and emergency services preparedness, mission and operational resilience, and capacity for humanitarian aid and disaster relief, across the full range of projected climate change scenarios.
• It is essential to now strongly advocate a global climate emergency response, and to build a national leadership group outside conventional politics to design and implement emergency decarbonisation of the Australian economy. This would adopt all available safe solutions using sound, existential risk-management practices” (Ian Dunlop and David Spratt, “Disaster Alley climate change conflict & risk”, Breakthrough, 2017: https://uploads.guim.co.uk/2017/06/20/ACFrOgDkCYAvFeJ9d4YxhOlZiOHNkTOnWbkhlY_dX8kl_O3ChbGcEmWsbUNrOnJUwE4SNWFvzB7RM6w4GsF0pDwdnREIip-k5J-03TQc0Op4FWrsNcZpjXAuy7NNJ_Y=.pdf ).
David Spratt (leading Australian climate change activist) and Ian Dunlop (leading Australian business man and climate change activist) on planetary existential risk (2017): “An existential risk is an adverse outcome that would either annihilate intelligent life or permanently and drastically curtail its potential (Bostrom 2013). For example, a big meteor impact or large-scale nuclear war. Existential risks are not amenable to the reactive (learn from failure) approach of conventional risk management, and we cannot necessarily rely on the institutions, moral norms, or social attitudes developed from our experience with managing other sorts of risks. Because the consequences are so severe – perhaps the end of human global civilisation as we know it – “even for an honest, truth seeking, and well-intentioned investigator it is difficult to think and act rationally in regard to... existential risks” (Bostrom and Cirkovic 2008).Yet the evidence is clear that climate change already poses an existential risk to global stability and to human civilisation that requires an emergency response. Temperature rises that are now in prospect could reduce the global human population by 80% or 90%. But this conversation is taboo, and the few who speak out are admonished as being overly alarmist.
Prof. Kevin Anderson considers that “a 4°C future [relative to pre-industrial levels] is incompatible with an organized global community, is likely to be beyond ‘adaptation’, is devastating to the majority of ecosystems, and has a high probability of not being stable” (Anderson 2011). He says: “If you have got a population of nine billion by 2050 and you hit 4°C, 5°C or 6°C, you might have half a billion people surviving” (Fyall 2009).
Asked at a 2011 conference in Melbourne about the difference between a 2°C world and a 4°C world, Prof. Hans Joachim Schellnhuber replied in two words: “Human civilisation”. The World Bank reports: “There is no certainty that adaptation to a 4°C world is possible” (World Bank 2012). Amongst other impacts, a 4°C warming would trigger the loss of both polar ice caps, eventually resulting, at equilibrium, ina 70-metre rise in sea level.
The present path of greenhouse gas emissions commits us to a 4–5°C temperature increase relative to pre-industrial levels. Even at 3°C of warming we could face “outright chaos” and “nuclear war is possible”, according to the 2007 Age of Consequences report by two US think tanks (see page 10). Yet this is the world we are now entering. The Paris climate agreement voluntary emission reduction commitments, if implemented, would result in the planet warming by 3°C, with a 50% chance of exceeding that amount. This does not take into account “longer-term” carbon-cycle feedbacks – such as permafrost thaw and declining efficiency of ocean and terrestrial carbon sinks, which are now becoming relevant. If these are considered, the Paris emissions path has more than a 50% chance of exceeding 4°C warming. (Technically, accounting for these feedbacks means using a higher figure for the system’s “climate sensitivity” – which is a measure of the temperature increase resulting from a doubling of the level of greenhouse gases – to calculate the warming. A median figure often used for climate sensitivity is ~3°C, but research from MIT shows that with a higher climate sensitivity figure of 4.5°C, which would account for feedbacks, the Paris path would lead to around 5°C of warming (Reilly et al. 2015).)
So we are looking at a greater than one-in-two chance of either annihilating intelligent life, or permanently and drastically curtailing its potential development. Clearly these end-of-civilisation scenarios are not being considered even by risk-conscious leaders in politics and business, which is an epic failure of imagination…
The scale of the challenge is reflected in a recent “carbon law” articulated by a group of leading scientists (Rockström et al. 2017). They demonstrated that for a 66% chance of holding warming to 2°C and a 50% chance of holding warming to 1.5°C (with overshoot), their “carbon law” requires:
• Halving of global emissions every decade from 2020 to 2050 [to 5 Gt CO2/year by 2050];
• Reducing carbon dioxide emissions from land use to zero by 2050; and
• Establishing carbon drawdown capacity of 5 gigatonnes of carbon dioxide per year by 2050.
Lead author Johan Rockström says: ”It’s way more than adding solar or wind... It’s rapid decarbonization, plus a revolution in food production, plus a sustainability revolution, plus a massive engineering scale-up [for carbon removal].” In other words, an emergency-scale effort” (Ian Dunlop and David Spratt, “Disaster Alley climate change conflict & risk”, Breakthrough, 2017: https://uploads.guim.co.uk/2017/06/20/ACFrOgDkCYAvFeJ9d4YxhOlZiOHNkTOnWbkhlY_dX8kl_O3ChbGcEmWsbUNrOnJUwE4SNWFvzB7RM6w4GsF0pDwdnREIip-k5J-03TQc0Op4FWrsNcZpjXAuy7NNJ_Y=.pdf ).
David Spratt (leading Australian advocate of climate emergency action) on expert global reactions to the 2018 IPCC Report “Global warming of 1.5 °C”(2018): “Quite suddenly, in the wake of the recent IPCC report, it’s become commonplace to talk about a global climate emergency… In many ways, the recent IPCC report on 1.5°C was too conservative, overestimating the length time till we hit 1.5°C, and failing to account for crucial feedbacks in the climate system. Yet the report’s evidence was that 2°C of warming would be catastrophic in so many ways, including for sea-level rise, for coral systems, and for food and water security of hundreds of millions of people, if not more. The current Paris commitments are a path to 3.4°C of warming, and closer to 5°C when the full range of feedbacks are included… We have reached crunch time. “There is no documented historical precedent” for the speed and scale of transformative action needed to keep warming to 1.5°C, said the new IPCC report” (David Spratt, “World wakes up to scale of climate challenge, so what should a Labor government do?”, Renew Economy, 24 October 2018: https://reneweconomy.com.au/world-wakes-up-to-scale-of-climate-challenge-so-what-should-a-labor-government-do-19670/ ).
David Spratt (leading Australian analyst and climate activist) (2018): “At 4oC of warming, would a billion people survive? In a way it’s an obscene question: if the planet warms by 4 degrees Celsius (°C), would only a billion people survive and many billions perish? Obscene in the sense of the obscenity of arguing about the exact body count from a genocide. In the end it’s about the immorality, the crime, the responsibility, not the precise numbers. But it’s a relevant question, in that Earth is heading towards 4°C of warming, based on emission reduction commitments so far. The Paris commitments are a path of warming of around 3.3°C, but that does not include some carbon cycle feedbacks that have already become active (e.g. permafrost, Amazon, other declines in carbon store efficiency) which would push that warming towards 5°C. So saying we are presently on a 4°C path is about right… On the present path, we may well exceed 4°C this century. At the moment Earth appears to be heading towards 1.5°C by 2030 and 2°C before 2050, and if the feedbacks kick in, 4°C some 30-50 years after that. … So did Roger Hallam “go too far” [1 billion people left, 6 billion killed by 2090]? Not at all, there is serious research and eminent voices in support of his statements. The gross error in all of this are all those who cannot countenance this conversation” (David Spratt, “At 4oC of warming, would a billion people survive?”, Climate Code Red, 18 August 2018: https://www.climatecodered.org/2019/08/at-4c-of-warming-would-billion-people.html?m=1 ).
SUVA DECLARATION ON CLIMATE CHANGE BY THE PACIFIC ISLANDS DEVELOPMENT FORUM (2015): "We 1. Are gravely distressed that climate change poses irreversible loss and damage to our people, societies, livelihoods, and natural environments creating existential threats to our very survival"
SUVA DECLARATION ON CLIMATE CHANGE BY THE PACIFIC ISLANDS DEVELOPMENT FORUM (2015): "We, the Leaders of the Pacific Islands Development Forum following open, transparent and inclusive discussions with stakeholders undertaken during the Pacific Islands Development Forum Third Annual Summit held in Suva, Fiji between 2-4 September 2015 declare that we:
1. Are gravely distressed that climate change poses irreversible loss and damage to our people, societies, livelihoods, and natural environments creating existential threats to our very survival
and other violations of human rights to entire Pacific Small Island Developing States;
2. Express profound concern that the scientific evidence unequivocally proves that the climate system is warming and that human influence on the climate system is clear, but appropriate responses are lacking;
3. See and suffer from the adverse impacts of climate change, including but not limited to increased intensity of tropical cyclones, sea level rise, severe storm surges, more frequent and more extreme weather events, coral bleaching, saltwater intrusions, higher king tides, coastal erosion, changing precipitation patterns, submersion of islands, and ocean acidification, with scientific evidence clearly informing us these impacts will further intensify over time…
5. Are deeply disappointed that current international pledges for action as contained in submitted Intended Nationally Determined Contributions (INDCs), to stabilize global average temperature increase to well below 1.5⁰C above pre-industrial levels, remain grossly inadequate, with emissions of greenhouse gases (GHG) continuing to rise;
6. Express grave concern that the continued increase in the production of fossil fuels, particularly the construction of new coal mines, undermines efforts to reduce global GHG emissions and the goal of decarbonising the global economy;
7. Highlight that irreversible loss and damage caused by climate change goes beyond adaptation and is already a reality for PSIDS if there is inadequate mitigation action, and that climate change is already resulting in forced displacement of island populations and the loss of land and territorial integrity and further highlight that such loss and damage results in breaches of social and economic rights…
9. Welcome the conclusion of the Structured Expert Dialogue of the 2013-15 Review under the UNFCCC, that the goal to hold the increase in global average temperature below 2⁰C above pre-industrial levels is inadequate in view of the ultimate objective of the Convention. The latest science suggests that the 2⁰C ‘guardrail’ concept is no longer safe for the survival of our Pacific Small Island Developing States;
10. Emphasize that scientific evidence indicates that limiting warming to well below 1.5⁰C above pre-industrial levels will significantly reduce impacts, risks, adaptation needs, as well as loss and damage, and that actions to this effect will not significantly impact on economies…(see Pacific Islands Development Forum 4 September 2015 "Suva Declaration on Climate Change": http://pacificidf.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/06/PACIFIC-ISLAND-DEVELOPMENT-FORUM-SUVA-DECLARATION-ON-CLIMATE-CHANGE.v2.pdf ):
TRUMP CLIMATE GENOCIDE - message of UK protester after climate criminal and climate change denier Donald Trump's election
“TRUMP CLIMATE GENOCIDE” – poster message of climate change action protester outside the US Embassy in London after the election of racist, bigoted, pro-coal, pro-gas, pro-oil, anti-science, anti-environment and neoliberal climate change denier Donald Trump as President of the US (see Tom Powell, “Donald Trump protesters swoop on US Embassy in London to warn of “climate genocide”” , Evening Standard, 2016: http://www.standard.co.uk/news/world/donald-trump-protesters-swoop-on-us-embassy-in-london-to-warn-of-climate-genocide-a3399621.html ).
Dr Hansen has also stated that approval of the Keystone pipeline to exploit oil from Alberta, Canada tar sands was “game over for the climate” (2012): “Global warming isn’t a prediction. It is happening. That is why I was so troubled to read a recent interview with President Obama in Rolling Stone in which he said that Canada would exploit the oil in its vast tar sands reserves “regardless of what we do.” If Canada proceeds, and we do nothing, it will be game over for the climate. Canada’s tar sands, deposits of sand saturated with bitumen, contain twice the amount of carbon dioxide emitted by global oil use in our entire history. If we were to fully exploit this new oil source, and continue to burn our conventional oil, gas and coal supplies, concentrations of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere eventually would reach levels higher than in the Pliocene era, more than 2.5 million years ago, when sea level was at least 50 feet higher than it is now. That level of heat-trapping gases would assure that the disintegration of the ice sheets would accelerate out of control. Sea levels would rise and destroy coastal cities. Global temperatures would become intolerable. Twenty to 50 percent of the planet’s species would be driven to extinction. Civilization would be at risk. That is the long-term outlook. But near-term, things will be bad enough. Over the next several decades, the Western United States and the semi-arid region from North Dakota to Texas will develop semi-permanent drought, with rain, when it does come, occurring in extreme events with heavy flooding. Economic losses would be incalculable. More and more of the Midwest would be a dust bowl. California’s Central Valley could no longer be irrigated. Food prices would rise to unprecedented levels. If this sounds apocalyptic, it is. This is why we need to reduce emissions dramatically. President Obama has the power not only to deny tar sands oil additional access to Gulf Coast refining, which Canada desires in part for export markets, but also to encourage economic incentives to leave tar sands and other dirty fuels in the ground… The concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere has risen from 280 parts per million to 393 p.p.m. over the last 150 years. The tar sands contain enough carbon — 240 gigatons — to add 120 p.p.m. Tar shale, a close cousin of tar sands found mainly in the United States, contains at least an additional 300 gigatons of carbon. If we turn to these dirtiest of fuels, instead of finding ways to phase out our addiction to fossil fuels, there is no hope of keeping carbon concentrations below 500 p.p.m. — a level that would, as earth’s history shows, leave our children a climate system that is out of their control” (James Hansen, “Game over for the climate”, New York Times, 9 May 2012: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/10/opinion/game-over-for-the-climate.html )]
UN GENOCIDE CONVENTION.
UN Genocide Convention.
The Contracting Parties confirm that genocide, whether committed in time of peace or in time of war, is a crime under international law which they undertake to prevent and to punish.
In the present Convention, genocide means any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, 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.
The following acts shall be punishable:
(a) Genocide;
(b) Conspiracy to commit genocide;
(c) Direct and public incitement to commit genocide;
(d) Attempt to commit genocide;
(e) Complicity in genocide.
Persons committing genocide or any of the other acts enumerated in Article 3 shall be punished, whether they are constitutionally responsible rulers, public officials or private individuals.
The Contracting Parties undertake to enact, in accordance with their respective Constitutions, the necessary legislation to give effect to the provisions of the present Convention and, in particular, to provide effective penalties for persons guilty of genocide or any of the other acts enumerated in Article 3.
Persons charged with genocide or any of the other acts enumerated in Article 3 shall be tried by a competent tribunal of the State in the territory of which the act was committed, or by such international penal tribunal as may have jurisdiction with respect to those Contracting Parties which shall have accepted its jurisdiction.
Genocide and the other acts enumerated in Article 3 shall not be considered as political crimes for the purpose of extradition.
The Contracting Parties pledge themselves in such cases to grant extradition in accordance with their laws and treaties in force.
Any Contracting Party may call upon the competent organs of the United Nations to take such action under the Charter of the United Nations as they consider appropriate for the prevention and suppression of acts of genocide or any of the other acts enumerated in Article 3.
Disputes between the Contracting Parties relating to the interpretation, application or fulfilment of the present Convention, including those relating to the responsibility of a State for genocide or any of the other acts enumerated in Article 3, shall be submitted to the International Court of Justice at the request of any of the parties to the dispute.
The present Convention, of which the Chinese, English, French, Russian and Spanish texts are equally authentic, shall bear the date of 9 December 1948.
The present Convention shall be open until 31 December 1949 for signature on behalf of any Member of the United Nations and of any non-member State to which an invitation to sign has been addressed by the General Assembly.
The present Convention shall be ratified, and the instruments of ratification shall be deposited with the Secretary-General of the United Nations.
After 1 January 1950, the present Convention may be acceded to on behalf of any Member of the United Nations and of any non-member State which has received an invitation as aforesaid.
Instruments of accession shall be deposited with the Secretary-General of the United Nations.
Any Contracting Party may at any time, by notification addressed to the Secretary-General of the United Nations, extend the application of the present Convention to all or any of the territories for the conduct of whose foreign relations that Contracting Party is responsible.
On the day when the first twenty instruments of ratification or accession have been deposited, the Secretary-General shall draw up a proces-verbal and transmit a copy of it to each Member of the United Nations and to each of the non-member States contemplated in Article 11.
The present Convention shall come into force on the ninetieth day following the date of deposit of the twentieth instrument of ratification or accession.
Any ratification or accession effected subsequent to the latter date shall become effective on the ninetieth day following the deposit of the instrument of ratification or accession.
The present Convention shall remain in effect for a period of ten years as from the date of its coming into force.
It shall thereafter remain in force for successive periods of five years for such Contracting Parties as have not denounced it at least six months before the expiration of the current period.
Denunciation shall be effected by a written notification addressed to the Secretary-General of the United Nations.
If, as a result of denunciations, the number of Parties to the present Convention should become less than sixteen, the Convention shall cease to be in force as from the date on which the last of these denunciations shall become effective.
A request for the revision of the present Convention may be made at any time by any Contracting Party by means of a notification in writing addressed to the Secretary-General.
The General Assembly shall decide upon the steps, if any, to be taken in respect of such request.
The Secretary-General of the United Nations shall notify all Members of the United Nations and the non-member States contemplated in Article 11 of the following:
(a) Signatures, ratifications and accessions received in accordance with Article 11;
(b) Notifications received in accordance with Article 12;
(c) The date upon which the present Convention comes into force in accordance with Article 13;
(d) Denunciations received in accordance with Article 14;
(e) The abrogation of the Convention in accordance with Article 15;
(f) Notifications received in accordance with Article 16.
The original of the present Convention shall be deposited in the archives of the United Nations.
A certified copy of the Convention shall be transmitted to all Members of the United Nations and to the non-member States contemplated in Article 11.
The present Convention shall be registered by the Secretary-General of the United Nations on the date of its coming into force.”
[1]. Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide, Adopted by Resolution 260 (III) A of the United Nations General Assembly on 9 December 1948: http://www.hrweb.org/legal/genocide.html .
WALKER, Patrick. “Climate Genocide: why the Poor People’s Campaign should demand Trump’s impeachment”
Patrick Walker (US writer) on the US Poor People’s Campaign (PPC), climate emergency and Trump impeachment over climate genocide (2018): “For U.S. climate justice activists like me, the Poor People’s Campaign (PPC) is really the only game in town. That is to say, it’s the only U.S. political movement that, by effective coalition building and massive direct action, has the remotest hope of radically overhauling our obscenely corrupt U.S. political system—the one now obstructing virtually all effective climate action. And, by adding “ecological devastation” to Martin Luther King’s original triple evils of poverty, racism, and militarism, the PPC has—though not yet explicitly enough—made itself a de facto climate justice movement… Beyond the urgency of “saving human civilization itself” illustrated in the link above, volumes of evidence can now be mustered that humanity faces a climate emergency—one guaranteed, like most lesser human catastrophes, to take its first and worst toll on the dark-skinned and poor. Obviously, the longer effective climate action is delayed, the more devastating the death and suffering toll on the dark-skinned poor will be—well beyond the minimal level to justify the term planned genocide. In adding “ecological degradation” to the original PPC’s “triple evils,” I’m sure the new PPC’s leaders realized the urgency of humanity’s climate emergency. Especially as people committed to abolishing racism and poverty. So I think it’s safe, without further stressing climate action’s “fierce urgency of now,” to pass on to the strategic merits of impeaching Trump for planned climate genocide—above all, of the dark-skinned poor… But as a movement of moral witness, the PPC shouldn’t be concerned with legal niceties, but only with the best moral ground for impeaching Trump: his commitment to climate genocide. If there isn’t yet a law against that, there damn well ought to be” (Patrick Walker, “Climate Genocide: why the Poor People’s Campaign should demand Trump’s impeachment”, Counterpunch, 2 August 2018: https://www.counterpunch.org/2018/08/02/climate-genocide-why-the-poor-peoples-campaign-should-demand-trumps-impeachment/ ).
Patrick Walker (progressive US writer) on “Republicans’ racist, social-Darwinist climate genocide” (2019): “The Sunrise Movement and their avid congressional supporter, surprisingly genuine maverick freshman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, have expressed ardent advocacy for a Green New Deal. I haven’t heard anything from the Poor People’s Campaign specifically about a Green New Deal, but it seems a natural for them–as is a compelling interest in warding off racist, social-Darwinist climate genocide. So, as potent newsmaking forces with aligned interests, all three need to heroically play the role of Captain Obvious and repeatedly denounce Republicans’ racist, social-Darwinist climate genocide for what it obviously is. Doing so will make the 2020 election a referendum between the party of the Green New Deal and the party of racist, social-Darwinist climate genocide. And warn Democrats not supportive of the Green New Deal that the label of “genocide Democrats” may soon await them” (Patrick Walker, “Referendum 2020: a Green New Deal vs. racist, classist, climate genocide”, Counterpunch, 17 January 2017: https://www.counterpunch.org/2019/01/17/referendum-2020-a-green-new-deal-vs-racist-classist-climate-genocide/ ) .
Patrick Walker (2019): “Russiagate versus Climate Genocide: how Democrats cover up Trump’s worst crime… Russiagate’s Beauty for Dems: Dissing Trump without Discussing Issues. The more important an issue is to humanity, the likelier it is Democrats don’t want to discuss it. Thus, it’s hardly surprising that Noam Chomsky felt obliged to point out the “moral depravity”of both major parties for discussing neither climate change nor the increasing risk of nuclear war during the recent midterm election campaigns. It’s likewise hardly surprising that the Republican Party, which Chomsky rightly terms “the most dangerous organization in human history,” likes to stay mum on the real nature of its wantonly destructive policies. But what’s truly amazing—until one habituates to the mammoth corruption of current U.S. politics—is how utterly unwilling today’s Democratic Party is to discuss issues that would paint Republicans in not merely in an unflattering, but in a criminally insane light” (Patrick Walker (2019): “Russiagate versus Climate Genocide: how Democrats cover up Trump’s worst crime”, Counterpunch, 3 January 2019: https://www.counterpunch.org/2019/01/03/russiagate-vs-climate-genocide-how-democrats-cover-up-trumps-worst-crime/ ).
[Editor: Famed theoretical physicist and cosmologist Professor Stephen Hawking of the 118-Nobel-Laureate University of Cambridge, and a member of board of sponsors of The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists (2007): “We foresee great peril if governments and societies do not take action now to render nuclear weapons obsolete and to prevent further climate change” ( Will Dunham, “Nuclear, climate perils push Doomsday Clock ahead”, Reuters, 22 January 2007: https://www.reuters.com/article/idUSN17314370 ) ].
WALLACE-WELLS, David. "UN says climate genocide is coming. It’s actually worse than that"
David Wallace-Wells (US journalist who writes on the worsening climate emergency) on the 2018 IPCC Report “Global warming of 1.5 °C” (2018): “UN says climate genocide is coming. It’s actually worse than that… Just two years ago, amid global fanfare, the Paris climate accords were signed — initiating what seemed, for a brief moment, like the beginning of a planet-saving movement. But almost immediately, the international goal it established of limiting global warming to two degrees Celsius began to seem, to many of the world’s most vulnerable, dramatically inadequate; the Marshall Islands’ representative gave it a blunter name, calling two degrees of warming “genocide”. The alarming new report you may have read about this week from the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change — which examines just how much better 1.5 degrees of warming would be than 2 — echoes the charge… Barring the arrival of dramatic new carbon-sucking technologies, which are so far from scalability at present that they are best described as fantasies of industrial absolution, it will not be possible to keep warming below two degrees Celsius — the level the new report describes as a climate catastrophe. As a planet, we are coursing along a trajectory that brings us north of four degrees by the end of the century. The IPCC is right that two degrees marks a world of climate catastrophe. Four degrees is twice as bad as that. And that is where we are headed, at present — a climate hell twice as hellish as the one the IPCC says, rightly, we must avoid at all costs”. But the real meaning of the report is not “climate change is much worse than you think,” because anyone who knows the state of the research will find nothing surprising in it. The real meaning is, “you now have permission to freak out” … Monday’s IPCC may seem like a dramatic departure, and it is. But there is going to be much more like it coming. So long as we continue to squander what little time we have, the news will only get worse from here” (David Wallace-Wells, “UN says climate genocide is coming. It’s actually worse than that”, New York Magazine, 10 October 2018: http://nymag.com/intelligencer/2018/10/un-says-climate-genocide-coming-but-its-worse-than-that.html ).
[Editor: The Climate Genocide website is an alphabetically-organized compendium of expert views on the worsening Climate Genocide - presently 7 million people die annually from air pollution, 15 million people die avoidably from deprivation in the global South (all variously impacted by man-made climate change), and perhaps about 1 million people die from climate change each year - however this is set to increase in a worsening Climate Genocide with, in the absence of requisite action, 10 billion people dying prematurely as we head to a world with a carrying capacity for humans of only 0.5 billion by 2100 (see “Climate Genocide”: https://sites.google.com/site/climategenocide/ ).]
WATSON, Paul (founder of the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society): "We need to radically and intelligently reduce human population to fewer than one billion"
Paul Watson ( founder of the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society) (2007): “We need to radically and intelligently reduce human population to fewer than one billion… Curing a body of cancer requires radical and invasive therapy, and therefore, curing the biosphere of the human virus will also require a radical and invasive approach” (Paul Watson quoted in Steven pinker, “Enlightenment Now. The case for reason, science, humanism and progress”, Penguin, 2018, page 122).
WEIZMAN, Ines. On climate genocide & Di-Aping: "as recent climate research has demonstrated, much of the desertification of the Sahel is attributable to increased greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere”
Ines Weizman on Climate Genocide (2013): “Climate genocide… As the climate summit disbanded, with news of Di-Aping’s claim of “climate genocide” spreading, hundreds of thousands of protestors gathered outsdide the Bella Centre in Copenhagen. The fracturing of a political accord mirrored the disaggregation of the climate model, both caught in the ambiguous scales of environmental politics. Di-Aping’s responses to the colonial mentality of the G20 (“we had been asked to sign a suicide pact”) and his invocation of the death camps of the Second World War (“climate genocide”) were unexpected. Like a particle fired into view from an imperceptible background, Di-Aping’s dissident utterance aimed an succeeded in breaking all protocol. The idea that a Sudanese person would speak out in such a way in the context of a major international summit elicited derisory comments that suggested a lack of responsibility , disingenuousness and unproductive hyperbole. Di-Aping’s status as a speaking subject and chairman of 132 nations was called into further question because of the continuing criminal proceedings regarding war crimes in Darfur. What many commentators failed to realize is that it was precisely Di-Aping’s proximity to events in Darfur that provided him with a visceral sense of what the change in temperature meant, since as recent climate research has demonstrated, much of the desertification of the Sahel is attributable to increased greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere” (Ines Weizman (editor), “Architecture and the Paradox of Dissidence”, Routledge, 2013; page 211).
WESTRA, Laura. "Climate change exacerbates the condition of poor people everywhere. The increase in temperature permitted in the most recent COP meeting in Cancun’s – that is 4oC – encourages (and in fact guarantees) a situation that can be termed “ecocide” or “genocide”"
Professor Laura Westra (Professor Emerita (Philosophy), University of Windsor, Osgoode Hall Law School, Faculty of Law, University of Windsor, Toronto, Canada) in “Faces of state terrorism” states (2012): “As well, there are millions of avoidable deaths globally, because of deprivations and lack of health care: “Whether a child dies from neocon bombs or bullets or from neocon-imposed deprivation, the result is the same ” (Polya 2011:2). Climate change exacerbates the condition of poor people everywhere. The increase in temperature permitted in the most recent COP meeting in Cancun’s – that is 4oC – encourages (and in fact guarantees) a situation that can be termed “ecocide” or “genocide” , according to Bolivia’s president. Hence the ways of supporting wholesale harms, in both war and peace, using the might of the state and that of its alliances, within and without the UN, are multiple and not simply limited to the support of some South American dictatorship (Gareau 2004)” ((Laura Westra, “Faces of State Terrorism. Volume 42 of Studies in Critical Social Sciences”, BRILL, 2012, page 129; see also “Stop state terrorism”: https://sites.google.com/site/stopstateterrorism/ ).
WORLD BANK: “There is no certainty that adaptation to a 4°C world is possible”, 145 million climate migrants by 2050
World Bank (2012); “There is no certainty that adaptation to a 4°C world is possible” (World Bank , “Turn Down the Heat: Why a 4°C Warmer World Must be Avoided”, World Bank, 2012, Washington DC ).
World Bank Climate Report overview (2019): “Countries need sustainable economic growth and good development outcomes and climate change puts both at risk. Natural disasters cost about $18 billion a year in low- and middle-income countries through damage to power generation and transport infrastructure alone. They also trigger wider disruptions for households and firms costing at least $390 billion a year. The impact of extreme natural disasters is equivalent to a global $520 billion loss in annual consumption, and forces some 26 million people into poverty each year. Without urgent action, climate impacts could push an additional 100 million people into poverty by 2030. By 2050, it could mean that as many as 143 million people across three developing regions will become climate migrants, with individuals, families and even whole communities forced to seek more viable and less vulnerable places to live. Under the Paris Agreement, the world committed to limiting the rise in global temperatures to well below 2 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels by the end of the century” (World Bank Climate Report overview, 2019: https://www.worldbank.org/en/topic/climatechange/overview ).
WORLD HEALTH ORGANIZATION (WHO): "in 2012 around 7 million people died - one in eight of total global deaths – as a result of air pollution exposure"
World Health Organization (WHO) reported (2014) : “25 March 2014 | Geneva - In new estimates released today, WHO reports that in 2012 around 7 million people died - one in eight of total global deaths – as a result of air pollution exposure. This finding more than doubles previous estimates and confirms that air pollution is now the world’s largest single environmental health risk. Reducing air pollution could save millions of lives” (World Health Organization (WHO), “7 million premature deaths annually linked to air pollution”: http://www.who.int/mediacentre/news/releases/2014/air-pollution/en/ ). {Editor: presently in 2020 9 million die annually from air polution] .
YATES, Oliver: "If we don't address climate change and start to reduce our emissions, then it's likely that billions of families could be forced to move home unnecessarily"
Oliver Yates (former Clean Energy Finance Corporation chief executive, former bank executive, former member of the Australian Liberal Party (conservative party) and independent candidate for the blue-ribbon Liberal seat of Kooyong in Melbourne) (2018): "If we don't address climate change and start to reduce our emissions, then it's likely that billions of families could be forced to move home unnecessarily… [I] cannot understand how Liberals would knowingly inflict damage on others when they have a perfectly workable economic cure in front of them [clean energy]” (Nicole Hasham, “Former Clean Energy finance chief, Oliver Yates, slams Turnbull government’s “immoral” climate policies”, Sydney Morning Herald, 7 November 2017: https://www.smh.com.au/politics/federal/former-clean-energy-finance-chief-oliver-yates-slams-turnbull-governments-immoral-climate-policies-20171106-gzfobv.html ).