Home

This website, "Punish climate criminals”: https://sites.google.com/site/punishclimatecriminals/ , is an alphabetically-organized compendium of the views of science-informed humanitarians who argue that the worsening damage from man-made climate change, the worsening climate emergency, the worsening climate genocide and the present prospect of an unavoidable and catastrophic plus 2 degrees Centigrade temperature rise demand that climate criminals, including anti-science climate change deniers and climate change sceptics, be punished.

Humanity demands that we speak out, bear witness, and tell the truth for a better world (see “Gideon Polya Writing”: https://sites.google.com/site/gideonpolyawriting/ and “Gideon Polya”: https://sites.google.com/site/drgideonpolya/home ).

Climate criminality and climate crimes are already deadly realities. Presently over 7 million people die avoidably (prematurely) each year due to climate change or the cumulative effects of carbon burning pollutants. The World Health Organization (WHO) estimates that 7 million people die from the effects of air pollution each year [1]. 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 children above all in developing countries. Our present carbon-intensive energy system and related activities cause an estimated 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” [2, 3].

However UN Population Division data [4] 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) [5]. The impoverished tropical and subtropical countries suffering this ongoing Global Avoidable Mortality Holocaust are precisely those most susceptible to deadly risk from climate change [6]. Because climate change impacts global avoidable mortality in the Third World it is likely that the DARA estimate of 0.4 million climate change-related deaths each year is a considerable under-estimate. One can accordingly estimate that the annual deaths from climate change and air pollution total about 10 million.

It is estimated that 18,000 people died from non-state terrorism in 2013 (overwhelmingly in Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, Nigeria, and Syria) and 100,000 people died thus in the period 2000-2013 [6-11]. . The long-term accrual cost of the US War on Terror in Iraq and Afghanistan alone is about $6 trillion [12-14], the US presently prosecutes the War on Terror (the War on Non-state Terrorism) with Australia-targeted drone strikes in Libya, Somalia, Yemen, Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan, and there have been 32 million Muslim deaths from violence (5 million) or imposed deprivation (27 million) associated with US Alliance invasions of 20 countries since the US Government’s 9-11 false flag atrocity that killed about 3,000 people [15, 16].

Seen in this light, judicial arraignment and custodial punishment of climate criminals heavily responsible for circa 10 million deaths annually from climate change or carbon burning pollutants would seem to be a very modest and reasonable response to deadly state terrorism, corporate terrorism, climate terrorism and carbon terrorism [8-11]. However, as outlined below the climate emergency is set to become much worse - as many as 10 billion people will die avoidably (prematurely) this century (an average of 100 million annually) if man-made climate change is not requisitely addressed [17].

Both Dr James Lovelock FRS (Gaia hypothesis) and Professor Kevin Anderson ( Deputy Director, Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research, University of Manchester, UK) have estimated that only about 0.5 billion people will survive this century due to unaddressed, man-made global warming [18, 19]. Thus just before the 2009 Copenhagen summit, The Scotsman newspaper reported on Professor Kevin Anderson’s estimate of “only half a billion surviving”: "Current Met Office projections reveal that the lack of action in the intervening 17 years – in which emissions of climate changing gases such as carbon dioxide have soared – has set the world on a path towards potential 4C rises as early as 2060, and 6C rises by the end of the century. Anderson, who advises the government on climate change, said the consequences were 'terrifying'. 'For humanity it's a matter of life or death,' he said. 'We will not make all human beings extinct as a few people with the right sort of resources may put themselves in the right parts of the world and survive. But I think it's extremely unlikely that we wouldn't have mass death at 4C. If you have got a population of nine billion by 2050 and you hit 4C, 5C or 6C, you might have half a billion people surviving'" [18].

Dr James Lovelock FRS (top UK climate scientist, Fellow of the prestigious Royal Society, famous for his Gaia Hypothesis and atmospheric research): “If we can keep civilization alive through this century perhaps there is a chance that our descendants will one day serve Gaia and assist her in the fine-tuned self-regulation of the climate and composition of our planet. We have enjoyed 12,000 years of climate peace since the last shift from a glacial age to an interglacial one. Before long, we may face planet-wide devastation worse even than unrestricted nuclear war between superpowers. The climate war could kill nearly all of us and leave the few survivors living a Stone Age existence. But in several places in the world, including the U.K., we have a chance of surviving and even of living well. For that to be possible, we have to make our lifeboats seaworthy now ” [19].

Dr 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 disease” [20].

Noting that the world population is expected to reach 9.5 billion by 2050 according to the UN Population Division , these estimates translate to a climate genocide involving deaths of 10 billion people this century, this including roughly twice the present population of particular mainly non-European groups, specifically 6 billion under-5 year old infants, 3 billion Muslims in a terminal Muslim Holocaust, 2 billion Indians, 1.3 billion non-Arab Africans, 0.5 billion Bengalis, 0.3 billion Pakistanis and 0.3 billion Bangladeshis. [17].

Already 17 million people (about 8 million of them under-5 year old infants) die avoidably every year due to deprivation and deprivation-exacerbated disease – and man-made global warming is already clearly worsening this Global Avoidable Mortality Holocaust. However 10 billion avoidable deaths due to global warming this century yields an average annual avoidable death rate of 100 million per year. If there is no place to hide from extrajudicial killing for non-state terrorists responsible for 18,000 terrorism deaths per year and circa 200,000 such deaths this century, there should certainly be no place to hide from judicial arraignment and custodial punishment for state and corporate climate terrorists and carbon terrorists complicit in circa 10 million climate change or pollution deaths annually, 160 million such deaths since 2000 and a likely 10 billion such deaths this century.

In his 2005 Literature Nobel Prize Acceptance speech, the outstanding anti-racist Jewish British playwright Harold Pinter declared: “We have brought torture, cluster bombs, depleted uranium, innumerable acts of random murder, misery, degradation and death to the Iraqi people and call it 'bringing freedom and democracy to the Middle East'. How many people do you have to kill before you qualify to be described as a mass murderer and a war criminal? One hundred thousand? More than enough, I would have thought. Therefore it is just that Bush and Blair be arraigned before the International Criminal Court of Justice” [21]. Decent people can likewise well ask “How many people do you have to kill before you qualify to be described as a mass murderer and a war criminal in the War on the Planet? 10 million per year? 160 million since 2000? 10 billion this century? More than enough, I would have thought.

Politicians and corporate officers directly involved in climate crimes, including reckless endangerment through deadly climate change inaction and deadly deception, should be arraigned, tried and punished for climate criminality with penalties ranging up to total dispossession and life imprisonment with hard labour.

The worst corporate offenders are the CEOs of fossil fuel exploiting companies. The simplest way of identifying the worst politicians by country is through national “annual per capita greenhouse gas (GHG) pollution” taking livestock and land use into account [22], although a fairer estimate involves weighting “annual per capita greenhouse gas (GHG) pollution” by “per capita income” , this revealing that the rich Anglosphere countries (Australia, Canada, the US, New Zealand , Ireland and the UK ) are among the worst polluters [23].

Politicians and corporate leaders who actually physically act to prevent requisite climate change action are condemned by their deadly depraved indifference and deserve life imprisonment with hard labour and loss of all possessions. However otherwise disempowered Mainstream journalist, politician and academic presstitutes who contribute to climate change inaction merely by expression of opinion should be protected not just by the First Amendment guarantee of free speech in the US but also in general by the crucial importance of free speech for science, scholarship, societal risk management and indeed democracy. Accordingly, Mainstream journalist, politician and academic presstitutes who contribute to climate change denial and climate change inaction by free speech should suffer no financial or custodial punishment for their egregious misdeeds. However they should be subject to a no-cost, expertly-informed, judicial process of truth assessment and be punished simply by the consequent ignominy of being exposed as purveyors of egregiously anti-social falsehood.

Crucially, future custodial punishment and dispossession of climate criminals will be small comfort to future generations suffering now inevitable catastrophic climate change, but the resolute promise now of such inescapable punishment will have a significant impact now and make a now inescapably catastrophic future “less bad” for our children, grandchildren and future generations.

[1]. World Health Organization (WHO), “7 million premature deaths annually linked to air pollution”: http://www.who.int/mediacentre/news/releases/2014/air-pollution/en/ .

[2]. 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/ .

[3]. 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 .

[4]. UN Population Division: http://esa.un.org/wpp/unpp/p2k0data.asp .

[5]. 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/ .

[6]. Rebecca Leber, “Obama is right: climate change kills more people than terrorism”, New Republic, 12 February 2015: https://newrepublic.com/article/121032/map-climate-change-kills-more-people-worldwide-terrorism .

[7]. Institute for Economics & Peace, “Global Terrorism Index, 2014”: http://www.visionofhumanity.org/sites/default/files/Global%20Terrorism%20Index%20Report%202014_0.pdf .

[8]. “Stop state terrorism” : https://sites.google.com/site/stopstateterrorism/ [state and corporate complicity in worsening climate genocide and 7 million annual air pollution deaths from carbon fuel burning].

[9]. "State crime and non-state terrorism": https://sites.google.com/site/statecrimeandnonstateterrorism/ [state and corporate complicity in worsening climate genocide and 7 million annual air pollution deaths from carbon fuel burning].

[10]. “Climate terrorism: 400,000 climate change-related deaths globally annually versus an average of 4 US deaths from political terrorism annually since 9-11”: https://sites.google.com/site/statecrimeandnonstateterrorism/climate-terrorism .[11]. “Carbon terrorism: 3 million US air pollution deaths versus 53 US political terrorism deaths since 9-11 (2001-2015)”: https://sites.google.com/site/statecrimeandnonstateterrorism/carbon-terrorism .

[12]. “Muslim Holocaust Muslim Genocide”: https://sites.google.com/site/muslimholocaustmuslimgenocide/

[13]. “Afghan Holocaust, Afghan Genocide”: http://sites.google.com/site/afghanholocaustafghangenocide/ .

[14]. “Iraqi Holocaust, Iraqi Genocide”: http://sites.google.com/site/iraqiholocaustiraqigenocide/ .

[15]. Gideon Polya,“Paris Atrocity Context: 27 Million Muslim Avoidable Deaths From Imposed Deprivation In 20 Countries Violated By US Alliance Since 9-11”, Countercurrents, 22 November, 2015: http://www.countercurrents.org/polya221115.htm .

[16]. “Experts: US did 9-11”: https://sites.google.com/site/expertsusdid911/ .

[17]. “Climate Genocide”: https://sites.google.com/site/climategenocide/ .

[18]. “Kevin Anderson (scientist)”, Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kevin_Anderson_%28scientist%29 .

[19]. 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 .

[20]. 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.

[21]. Harold Pinter, “Art, Truth And Politics”, Countercurrents, 8 December, 2005: https://www.countercurrents.org/arts-pinter081205.htm .

[22]. Gideon Polya, “Revised Annual Per Capita Greenhouse Gas Pollution For All Countries – What Is Your Country Doing?”, Countercurrents, 6 January, 2016: http://www.countercurrents.org/polya060116.htm .

[23]. Gideon Polya, “Exposing And Thence Punishing Worst Polluter Nations Via Weighted Annual Per Capita Greenhouse Gas Pollution Scores”, Countercurrents, 19 March, 2016: http://www.countercurrents.org/polya190316.htm