Here is a series of questions for the Q&A program for Monday 3 May 2010, mostly for the Australian Minister for Climate Change and Water, Senator Penny Wong.
1. A question for Senator Wong: top scientists advise climate solutions radically different from Labor for example atmospheric 350 ppm CO2–equivalent (Labor: 450); 100% renewables and cessation of fossil fuel burning ASAP (Labor: coal and LNG expansion), ETS counterproductive and fraudulent (Labor CPRS ETS). Who are giving false advice to Labor and should they be punished and sacked?
2. A question for Senator Wong: Australia’s Domestic plus Exported greenhouse gas pollution is 60 times the per capita of Bangladesh. Former Labor leader Arthur Calwell notoriously said that 2 Wongs don’t make a White and currently Labor says 60. When and how does Labor propose to return to Mr Whitlam’s “all men are created equal"?
3. A question for Senator Wong: top climate scientists and economists declare that Emissions Trading Schemes are empirically ineffective, dangerously counterproductive and flagrantly fraudulent (selling licences to pollute the world’s one common atmosphere). Who are advising you otherwise?
4. A question for Senator Wong: Australia’s Domestic plus exported greenhouse gas pollution has increased by over 4.4% under Labor despite its pre-election promises, the Global Financial Crisis and the economic downturn. When does Labor propose to start “tackling climate change”?
5. A question for Senator Wong: in its official policy Labor has conditionally proposed a target of 450 parts per million CO2-equivalent in the atmosphere. However atmospheric CO2-equivalent is already about 475 parts per million. Can you explain this and reveal Labor’s actual target?
6. A question for Senator Wong: top climate scientists say we must urgently reduce atmospheric CO2 from the present damaging 390 parts per million to a safe and sustainable 300 parts per million. Yet Australia is a world leader in per capita greenhouse gas pollution and on analysis pro-coal Labor policies will increase this pollution. Can you explain this?
7. A question for Senator Wong: on quantitative analysis the Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme means that Australia will actually increase greenhouse gas pollution by over 70% over the 2000 value by 2050. Can you justify this Orwellian Newspeak “no means yes” and “more means less”?
8. A question for Senator Wong: brilliant bionic ear electrical engineer Professor Peter Seligman (University of Melbourne) has written a book “Australia’s Sustainable Energy – by the numbers” that costs 24/7, baseload, 100% renewable energy for Australia at a mere $253 billion. Why won’t pro-coal Labor do it?
9. A question for Senator Wong: eminent UK climate scientists Dr James Lovelock (Gaia) and Professor Kevin Anderson (Head, Tyndall Centre, University of Manchester) predict that only half a billion people will survive the century due to unaddressed climate change – a Climate Genocide of 10 billion mostly non-Europeans, infants and Asians. As an Asian Australian woman where do you stand on this and why won’t Labor do anything about it?
10. A question for Senator Wong: Australia is already grossly overpopulated with huge, world-leading impacts on species extinction and ecosystem destruction. We have a very charming mutual friend who says that a baby bonus should be paid to people like him for NOT having babies. What do you think of this?
11. A question for Senator Wong: Australia has participated in all post-1950 US Asian wars, holocausts that have been associated so far with about 24 million violent deaths or non-violent excess deaths from deprivation. New pro-war Labor has now made Labor voters and 90% of Australians complicit in these crimes. Why shouldn’t betrayed anti-war Labor voters Put Labor Last?
12. A question for Senator Wong: by race-based legislation Labor has excluded Northern Territory Indigenous Australians from the protection of Mr Whitlam’s 1975 Racial Discrimination Act. Now Labor has specifically suspended the human rights of Afghan and Tamil refugees, imprisoning Asian women and children on a racial basis. Where do you stand on these race-based Labor human rights abuses as an Asian Australian Labor woman?
13. A question for Senator Wong: top climate scientists like NASA’s Dr James Hansen say that key policies are (1) no ETS fraud, (2) renewables and cessation of fossil fuel burning ASAP and (3) a Carbon Levy. The Greens score 3/3, the Coalition 1/3 and pro-coal Labor 0/3. Why should we not Put Labor Last for Australia and the Planet?
14. A question for Senator Wong: 2 World War 2 holocausts occurred in Asia – the Bengali Holocaust (6-7 million Indians starved to death by the British, 1943-1945) and the Chinese Holocaust (35 million Chinese killed by the Japanese, 1937-1945). Yet these Holocausts are ignored in Labor’s Education Revolution. Can you explain this?
15. A question for Senator Wong: just before the 2007 elections I had a long meeting with an Outer Suburbs Labor MHR who I told “the worst Australian scandal is in your electorate – very few of your kids get to the University of Melbourne”. Everyone knows that education is very poorly resourced in working class Labor–voting electorates – but after decades of egregious Labor neglect can we now conclude that this is deliberate, intentional Labor policy?
16. A question for Senator Wong: pro-war, pro-coal, pro-logging, pro-racism, anti-science Labor has utterly betrayed traditional anti-war, anti-pollution, pro-environment, anti-racism and pro-science Labor voters. Many betrayed Labor voters now vote 1 for the Greens but at what point should they put Put Labor Last?
17. A question for Senator Wong: Labor ministers repeatedly and incorrectly refer to liquid natural gas (mostly methane) as “clean energy” but burning 1 tonne of methane yields twice the amount of CO2 as burning 1 tonne of brown coal. Do you believe the Government has a duty not to ignore the science and not to make false claims?
18. A question for Senator Wong: it is estimated that coal burning-derive pollutants kill 5,000 Australians every year and the carbon price just for this alone would be about $250 per tonne. How can you justify an ETS carbon price of $10 per tonne, 25 times lower than the mortality-related price?
19. A question for Senator Wong: violent and non-violent excess deaths in the Australia-complicit Palestinian Genocide, Iraqi Genocide and Afghan Genocide total 0.3 million, 4.4 million and 4.5 million, respectively. How can a decent, traditionally pro-Humanity Labor Party be complicit in both holocaust commission and holocaust denial?
20. A question for Senator Wong as Minister for Water : the daily water use in litres per person is about 100 (Australia), 194 (illegal West Bank settlers), 30 (Occupied Kabul) and 20 (some Occupied Palestinian rural communities). How can pro-Zionist and pro-war Labor justify theft of 80% of West Bank water by Apartheid Israel and tiny, WHO-condemned water allocations to other Occupied Asian Subjects of the US Alliance?
21. A question for Senator Wong: in your extraordinary ability to not answer questions you could be a great role model for women having to decline unwanted importunations. What do you think of a Penny Wong Award for simultaneously fending off deliveries and not scoring runs?
22. Question for the panel: as a 4 decade academic teacher I would like Q&A panellists to answer all submitted questions in a dozen words or less, the answers to be marked and the results posted as in an exam (0% for incorrect, obfuscating or inhumane answers, 100% for correct and humane answers). What do you think?
Carefully documented comments and answers are given below (based on past performance it is unlikely that any of these questions will be asked).
1. Top climate scientists and economists slam the ETS approach and support a carbon tax . [1]. NASA’s Dr James Hansen has suggested to the US Congress that CEOs of polluting corporations lying and causing harm are committing crimes: “"When you are in that kind of position, as the CEO of one the primary players who have been putting out misinformation even via organisations that affect what gets into school textbooks, then I think that's a crime."” . [2].
Clearly public servants, fossil fuel lobbyists and journalists are giving false information on man-made climate change and its solutions. The public servants should be sacked and made to compensate the taxpayer for their mendacity.
2. “Annual per capita greenhouse gas (GHG) pollution” in units of “tonnes CO2-equivalent per person per year” (2005-2008 data) is 0.9 (Bangladesh), 0.9 (Pakistan), 2.2 (India), less than 3 (many African and Island countries), 3.2 (the Developing World), 5.5 (China), 6.7 (the World), 11 (Europe), 16 (the Developed World), 27 (the US) and 30 (Australia; or 54 if Australia’s huge Exported CO2 pollution is included). [3, 4].
Clearly “all men are created equal” and anything less than equal shares is Climate Racism.
3. Top climate scientists and economists declare that Emissions Trading Schemes are empirically ineffective, dangerously counterproductive and flagrantly fraudulent (selling licences to pollute the world’s one common atmosphere). [1].
I presume that it is public servants, polluter lobbyists, journalists and neocon academics who are advising otherwise and giving advice contrary to that of top scientists and climate economists.
4. Australia’s Domestic plus Exported greenhouse gas pollution increased in 2008 by 2% over the 2007 value [5] and has increased in 2009-2010 by over 4.4% over the 2006-2007 value under Labor despite Labor’s pre-election promises, the Global Financial Crisis and the economic downturn. [6].
When does Labor propose to start “tackling climate change”? They have not done so in their first term and have recently delayed any action on their counterproductive ETS until 2013.
5. In its official policy Labor has conditionally proposed a target of 450 parts per million CO2-equivalent in the atmosphere (subject to various international agreements). [7, 8]. According to p19 of the authoritative March 2009 Copenhagen Climate Congress Synthesis Report, the CO2 range of 350-400 ppm corresponds to a CO2-equivalent of 445-490 and interpolation of the quasi-linear graphed data yields correspondence of the current CO2 of 390 ppm with 480 ppm CO2-e. [9]. According to Dr Andrew Glikson (Australian National University, ANU; the WA Glikson Crater is named in his honor), October 2009 : "The atmosphere has already transcended the CO2-equivalent (including the forcing of methane) level of 460 ppm". [10].
I cannot see how this absurdity (target 450 ppm, yet currently 475 ppm) can be explained except in terms of utter governmental failure. We have yet to be told of Labor’s actual target given that it has already surpassed its present target.
6. Top climate scientists (notably NASA’s Dr James Hansen, Germany’s Professor Hans Joachim Schellnhuber and the Coral Working Group of the UK Royal Society) say we must urgently reduce atmospheric CO2 from the present damaging 390 parts per million to a safe and sustainable 300 parts per million.. [11]. Yet Australia is a world leader in per capita greenhouse gas pollution. [3, 4] and on analysis pro-coal Labor policies will increase this pollution. [5, 6, 12]. Labor has utterly ignored the extremely detailed and documented Letter to PM Rudd by NASA’s Dr James Hansen who pleaded for Australia to keep fossil fuels, especially coal, in the ground. [13].
Can you explain this? Pro-coal Labor is clearly committed to burning and exporting fossil fuels as fast as possible before the World forces Australia to stop.
7. Quantitative analysis using US Energy Information Administration data shows that the Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme means that Australia will actually increase greenhouse gas pollution by 73% over the 2000 value by 2050. [8, 12].
This Orwellian Newspeak of “no means yes” and “more means less” is clearly absurd.
8. Brilliant bionic ear electrical engineer Professor Peter Seligman (University of Melbourne) has written a book “Australia’s Sustainable Energy – by the numbers” that costs 24/7, baseload, 100% renewable energy for Australia at a mere $253 billion. The book can be downloaded for free. [14].
Why won’t pro-coal Labor do it? Pro-coal Labor is clearly committed to burning and exporting fossil fuels as fast as possible before the World forces Australia to stop.
9. Eminent UK climate scientists Dr James Lovelock (atmospheric gas measuring technology, the Gaia Hypothesis) and Professor Kevin Anderson (Head, Tyndall Centre, University of Manchester) predict that only half a billion people will survive the century due to unaddressed climate change – a Climate Genocide in which 10 billion mostly non-Europeans, infants and Asians will perish. [15, 16].
As an Asian Australian woman where do you stand on this and why won’t Labor do anything about it? Moot questions indeed.
10. Australia is already grossly overpopulated with huge, world-leading impacts on species extinction and ecosystem destruction. The extinction rate is currently 100-1,000 times the normal value and Australia is a world leader in this obscenity. [17].
A baby bonus should be paid to people for NOT having babies.
11. Australia has participated in all post-1950 US Asian wars, holocausts that have been associated so far with about 24 million violent deaths or non-violent excess deaths from deprivation. [18-22]. New pro-war Labor has now made Labor voters and 90% of Australians complicit in these crimes (before the Rudd Government was elected over 50% of Australians opposed both the Iraq War and the Afghan War but the election of the Rudd Government made all Australians except for the Greens complicit in these atrocities).
Betrayed anti-war Labor voters should certainly Put Labor Last.
12. By race-based legislation Labor has excluded Northern Territory Indigenous Australians from the protection of Mr Whitlam’s 1975 Racial Discrimination Act. Now Labor has specifically suspended the human rights of Afghan and Tamil refugees, imprisoning Asian women and children on a racial basis. [23].
It is quite appropriate to ask an Asian Australian Labor woman MP where she stands on these race-based Labor human rights abuses of Asians as well as of Indigenous Australians.
13. Top climate scientists like NASA’s Dr James Hansen say that key policies are (1) no ETS fraud, (2) renewables and cessation of fossil fuel burning ASAP and (3) a Carbon Levy. [1, 24-26]. The Greens score 3/3, the Coalition 1/3 and pro-coal Labor 0/3.
Sensible pro-Planet Australians should discard traditional party loyalties and vote 1 Greens and Put Labor Last for Australia and the Planet.
14. Two World War 2 holocausts occurred in Asia – the Bengali Holocaust (6-7 million Indians starved to death by the British, 1943-1945) [18, 28] and the Chinese Holocaust (35 million Chinese killed by the Japanese, 1937-1945) [18]. Yet these Holocausts are ignored in Labor’s Education Revolution.
This can only be explained as a continuation of deeply racist Australian attitudes from the past that are certainly not expressed openly in politically correct Australia but are there just the same.
15. Just before the 2007 elections I had a long meeting with an Outer Suburbs Labor MHR who I told “the worst Australian scandal is in your electorate – very few of your kids get to the University of Melbourne”. Everyone knows that education is very poorly resourced in working class, Labor–voting electorates. The My School website is full of statistics but the shocking statistic missing (accessible when the final year results are reported in the press) is how many students make it to the top-ranking University of Melbourne. [28]
After decades of egregious Labor neglect sensible people conclude that this is deliberate, intentional Labor policy to maximize the number of poorly educated Labor voters.
16. Pro-war, pro-coal, pro-logging, pro-racism, anti-science Labor has utterly betrayed traditional anti-war, anti-pollution, pro-environment, anti-racism and pro-science Labor voters. [29-32].
Many betrayed Labor voters will now vote 1 for the Greens but they should also Put Labor Last (rule #1: punish the incompetent incumbent; rule #2: don’t vote for a party that betrays its own supporters) . [29-32].
17. Labor ministers repeatedly and incorrectly refer to liquid natural gas (mostly methane) as “clean energy” but burning 1 tonne of methane yields 2.8 tonnes CO2, twice the amount of CO2 as burning 1 tonne of brown coal (1.3 tonnes). In terms of electricity produced natural gas is about 50% more efficient than coal i.e. it is “cleaner” in that sense but is certainly not “clean”.
The Government has a duty not to ignore the science and not to make false claims. False instruction of children is intellectual child abuse.
18. Based on Ontario data it is estimated that coal burning-derived pollutants kill 5,000 Australians every year and the carbon price just for this alone would be about $250 per tonne. [33, 34].
How can you justify an ETS carbon price of $10 per tonne, 25 times lower than the mortality-related price? One can’t.
19. Violent and non-violent excess deaths in the Australia-complicit Palestinian Genocide, Iraqi Genocide and Afghan Genocide total 0.3 million, 4.4 million and 4.5 million, respectively. [19-23, 36].
How can a decent, traditionally pro-Humanity Labor Party be complicit in both holocaust commission and holocaust denial? It can’t be.
20. The daily water use in litres per person is about 100 (Australia), 194 (illegal West Bank settlers), 30 (Occupied Kabul) and 20 (some Occupied Palestinian rural communities). [37].
How can pro-Zionist and pro-war Labor justify theft of 80% of West Bank water by Apartheid Israel and WHO-condemned water allocations to Occupied Asian Subjects of the US Alliance? It surely can’t.
21. Senator Wong has an extraordinary ability to not answer questions - indeed she could be a great role model for women having to decline unwanted importunations.
A Penny Wong Award for simultaneously fending off deliveries and not scoring runs is a great idea (outstanding Yorkshire and England batsman Geoffrey Boycott is famous for stonewalling but he at least put a huge total of runs on the board).
22. As a 4 decade academic teacher I would like Q&A panellists to answer all submitted questions in about a dozen words or less, the answers to be marked and the results posted as in an exam (0% for incorrect, obfuscating or inhumane answers, 100% for correct, focussed and humane answers).
Hopefully these numerous questions and answers on “Questions Q&A won’t ask” can be useful as a National Tutorial and if there are some journalists out there in the Western Murdochracies who are prepared to ask a Key Question, some time. [38].
[3]. “List of countries by greenhouse gas emissions per capita”: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_greenhouse_gas_emissions_per_capita .
[4]. “Climate justice & climate injustice: Australia wants a 2020 per capita GHG pollution 15 times greater than Developing World’s”: http://sites.google.com/site/yarravalleyclimateactiongroup/climate-justice .
[9]. March 2009 Copenhagen Climate Congress Synthesis Report, p19: http://climatecongress.ku.dk/pdf/synthesisreport/ .
[10]. Andrew Glikson, “Planetary boundaries”, 18 October 2009: http://climatechangepsychology.blogspot.com/2009/10/andrew-glikson-planetary-boundaries-co2.html .
[20]. Palestinian Holocaust, Palestinian Genocide: http://sites.google.com/site/palestiniangenocide/ ;
[21]. Afghan Holocaust, Afghan Genocide: http://sites.google.com/site/afghanholocaustafghangenocide/ .
[22]. Iraqi Holocaust, Iraqi Genocide: http://sites.google.com/site/iraqiholocaustiraqigenocide/ .
[36]. 9 January 2010 Formal Complaint by Dr Gideon Polya to the International Criminal Court (ICC) re US Alliance Palestinian Genocide , Iraqi, Genocide, Afghan Genocide, Muslim Genocide, Aboriginal Genocide, Biofuel Genocide and Climate Genocide: http://sites.google.com/site/aboriginalgenocide/9-january-2010-formal-complaint .
[37]. Gideon Polya, “Apartheid Israel’s 62 years of Palestinian Genocide, Resource Theft, Water Crisis & US Global Hegemony”, Bellaciao, 2010: http://bellaciao.org/en/spip.php?article19793 .
[38]. “Mainstream media lying”: http://sites.google.com/site/mainstreammedialying/ .