CLIMATE GENOCIDE
[Climate Genocide] this Website documents authoritative opinions of leading climate scientists, climate economists, climate analysts and world figures who predict a massive death toll from unaddressed, man-made global warming.
Both Dr James Lovelock FRS (Gaia hypothesis) and Professor Kevin Anderson ( Deputy Director, Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research, University of Manchester, UK) have recently estimated that only about 0.5 billion people will survive this century due to unaddressed, man-made global warming.
Thus just before the 2009 Copenhagen summit, the Scotsman reported on Professor Anderson’s estimates of “only half a billion surviving”: "Current Met Office projections reveal that the lack of action in the intervening 17 years – in which emissions of climate changing gases such as carbon dioxide have soared – has set the world on a path towards potential 4C rises as early as 2060, and 6C rises by the end of the century. Anderson, who advises the government on climate change, said the consequences were 'terrifying'. 'For humanity it's a matter of life or death,' he said. 'We will not make all human beings extinct as a few people with the right sort of resources may put themselves in the right parts of the world and survive. But I think it's extremely unlikely that we wouldn't have mass death at 4C. If you have got a population of nine billion by 2050 and you hit 4C, 5C or 6C, you might have half a billion people surviving'." [1].
Dr James Lovelock FRS (top UK climate scientist, Fellow of the prestigious Royal Society, famous for his Gaia Hypothesis and atmospheric research): “If we can keep civilization alive through this century perhaps there is a chance that our descendants will one day serve Gaia and assist her in the fine-tuned self-regulation of the climate and composition of our planet. We have enjoyed 12,000 years of climate peace since the last shift from a glacial age to an interglacial one. Before long, we may face planet-wide devastation worse even than unrestricted nuclear war between superpowers. The climate war could kill nearly all of us and leave the few survivors living a Stone Age existence. But in several places in the world, including the U.K., we have a chance of surviving and even of living well. For that to be possible, we have to make our lifeboats seaworthy now ” [2].
Noting that the world population is expected to reach 9.5 billion by 2050 (UN Population Division) , these estimates translate to a climate genocide involving deaths of 10 billion people this century, this including roughly twice the present population of particular mainly non-European groups, specifically 6 billion under-5 year old infants, 3 billion Muslims in a terminal Muslim Holocaust, 2 billion Indians, 1.3 billion non-Arab Africans, 0.5 billion Bengalis, 0.3 billion Pakistanis and 0.3 billion Bangladeshis. [3, 4].
16 million people (about 9.5 million of them under-5 year old infants) died avoidably every year due to deprivation and deprivation-exacerbated disease (2003 data) [5] – and man-made global warming is already clearly worsening this global avoidable mortality holocaust. However 10 billion avoidable deaths due to global warming this century yields an average annual avoidable death rate of 100 million per year.
Holocaust simply means death of a huge number of people as exampled by the WW2 Jewish Holocaust (5-6 million people killed, 1 in 6 dying from deprivation), the WW2 Holocaust in general (30 million Slavs, Jews and Gypsies killed), the WW2 Bengali Holocaust (6-7 million Indians deliberately starved to death by the British) and the 35 million Chinese killed associated with the Japanese occupation of China in the1930s and 1940s. [5].
However the International Law definition of “genocide” is by Article 2 of the UN Genocide Convention: it involves Assessment of “intent’ by those responsible, and states “In the present Convention, genocide means any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnic, racial or religious group, as such: a) Killing members of the group; b) Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group; c) Deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part; d) Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group; e) Forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.” [6].
“Intent” to commit mass murder is only rarely explicitly expressed but can be readily established through the horrendous, ongoing reality. Javier Sethness-Castro comments in relation to “intent” in relation to the related phenomenon of “climate genocide” that similarly arises from racist First World greed and depraved indifference: “Dominant relations can hence be characterized as governed by what Chomsky calls “depraved indifference” to human life. Australian scientist Gideon Polya has termed the current situation “climate genocide”, while Bangladeshi climatologist Atiq Rahman similarly labels it “climatic genocide”. The phrases are accurate if the word genocide is to be understood as murder of persons belonging to particular classes and social groups, as originally formulated by Raphael Lemkin, the concept’s inventor. If the definition is extended to membership or residence in particular geographic regions – a collective of sorts – the term fits better, even if the question of intent for such eventualities is left unresolved: Under the internationally accepted definition, acts of genocide occur only if governed by conscious intent. Against this view, Chomsky is right to suggest that those concerned with such problems focus on “predictable outcome as evidence for intent”. Not to work to undermine global capitalism is effectively to be complicit with the genocide of southern peoples. Jean-Paul Sartre put it well in a statement he issued as president of the International War Crimes Tribunal on Vietnam: “The genocidal intent is implicit in the facts. It is not necessarily premeditated.” [7].
Dr Gideon Polya has made a Formal Complaint to the International Criminal Court over Australian involvement in Climate Genocide and other genocidal atrocities (2008). [8].
[1]. Professor Kevin Anderson quoted in “Kevin Anderson:, Wikipedia: (see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kevin_Anderson_%28scientist%29 )
[2]. James Lovelock, “Climate war could kill nearly all of us, leaving survivors on the Stone Age”, Guardian, 29 June 2009: http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/
2009/jun/29/climate-war-lovelock .
[3]. Gideon Polya, “Climate Genocide”: https://sites.google.com/site/climategenocide/ .
[4]. “Climate racism, climate injustice & climate genocide – Australia, US and EU sabotage Copenhagen COP15”: http://bellaciao.org/en/spip.php?article19422 .
[5]. Gideon Polya, “Body Count. Global avoidable mortality since 1950”, G.M. Polya, Melbourne, 2007; see: http://mwcnews.net/Gideon-Polya and http://globalbodycount.blogspot.com/ ).
[6]. UN Genocide Convention: http://www.edwebproject.org/sideshow/genocide/convention.html .
[7]. Javier Sethness-Castro, “Imperiled life: revolution against climate catastrophe”, AK Press, 2012: http://www.amazon.com/Imperiled-Life-Revolution-Catastrophe-Interventions/dp/1849351058 .
[8]. Gideon Polya, Formal complaint to the Chief Prosecutor of the International Criminal Court re Australian Government involvement in Aboriginal Genocide, Iraqi Genocide, Afghan Genocide and Climate Genocide: http://climateemergency.blogspot.com/2008_02_01_archive.html .