Climate Emergency, Sustainability Emergency

Seriously deficient Australian Garnaut Climate Change Review CRITICALLY REVIEWED

2008-07-10T18:27:00.001-07:00

Seriously deficient Australian Garnaut Climate Change Review CRITICALLY REVIEWED

Prominent Australian academic Economist Professor Ross Garnaut was commissioned by the State and Federal Governments of Australia to review economic impacts on Australia of climate change, to also examine this in an international context and to recommend policy options.

The Garnaut Review (see: http://www.garnautreview.org.au/domino/Web_Notes/Garnaut/garnautweb.nsf ) is GOOD in that it indicates (albeit inexplicitly) a serious climate change situation; the need to act now; and a “Cap and Trade” Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS) to encourage uptake of clean energy options.

However the Garnaut Review is fatally BAD in that it IGNORES crucial major considerations e.g. the human cost of coal burning (it kills nearly 5,000 Australians annually); the “true cost” of coal-based power that is 4-5 times the “market cost”; the latest advances in low cost solar technologies; the urgent need to IMPLEMENT clean technologies; the massive ecosystem and economic damage NOW (notably to the Arctic, Antarctic, tropical forests, ocean fisheries, tropical agriculture and the ALREADY DYING coral reefs (see: http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/Story?id=5321360&page=1 ); and the urgent need to REDUCE atmospheric CO₂ from the current 387 ppm to a safe and sustainable level of no more than 350 ppm as advocated by top US climate scientist Dr James Hansen and colleagues : http://arxiv.org/abs/0804.1126 ; http://arxiv.org/ftp/arxiv/papers/0804/0804.1126.pdf ).

Unfortunately the Australian Government Terms of Reference for the Garnaut Review included the following disastrous position, quote: “The weight of scientific opinion that developed countries need to reduce their greenhouse gas emissions by 60 percent by 2050 against 2000 emission levels, if global greenhouse gas concentrations in the atmosphere are to be stabilised to between 450 and 550 ppm [effectively carbon dioxide, CO₂] by mid-century”.

However the literature cut-off for the latest (2007) IPCC Fourth Assessment Report (on which Professor Garnaut heavily relies) was 2005 and climate science is moving rapidly. Thus it has been recently reported by top coral experts in the top scientific journal Science that above about 450 ppm CO₂ (26 years’ time at current rates) the world’s coral reefs – including Australia’s Great Barrier Reef – will start dying because of ocean acidification as well as from bleaching due to photosynthetic symbiont expulsion from increased ocean temperature. Top coral scientists say the “tipping point” for world coral death is in the 450-500 ppm atmospheric CO₂ zone (see: Science 14 December 2007: Vol. 318. no. 5857, pp. 1737 – 1742: http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/abstract/318/5857/1737 ; http://www.abc.net.au/rn/scienceshow/stories/2007/2115399.htm ; http://www.exeter.ac.uk/cornwall/about_the_campus/latest_news/coral.shtml ; http://green-blog.org/tag/the-great-barrier-reef/ ; see: also the latest 2007 IPCC Synthesis Report: http://www.ipcc.ch/ and http://green-blog.org/2007/11/21/summary-of-the-summary-of-the-2007-ipcc-ar4-synthesis-report/ ) .

The world temperature increase is discontinuous and so is the increase in ocean acidity. World coral species are ALREADY DYING at the world’s current atmospheric CO2 concentration of 387 ppm. A 270 contributor Report on the world’s coral from the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's National Ocean Service (NOAA) says that nearly half of the coral reefs in areas from the Caribbean to the Pacific "are not in good condition and are continuing steadily on a long-term decline … even remote reefs are showing signs of decline "; a major bleaching and disease event in 2005 devastated coral reefs across the Caribbean. In the U.S. Virgin Islands and Puerto Rico, scientists say an average of 50 percent of the coral was lost. Some areas lost 90 percent of their coral; a 1997 report in the science journal Nature estimated that the resources and economic benefits derived from coral reefs are worth $375 billion a year - scientists who study the medical benefits of coral reefs say there are about 20 compounds in clinical trials derived from the corals themselves or the many organisms that depend on them (see : http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/Story?id=5321360&page=1 ; http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080707/ap_on_sc/coral_reef_threats ).

Further, atmospheric CO₂ concentration will reach 500 ppm in. 46 years’ time at current rates assuming no acceleration of CO₂ accretion in the atmosphere due to “positive feedback” effects (500-385 =115 ppm; 115ppm/2.5ppm per year = 46 years). At 500 ppm there is huge damage to the ocean phytoplankton system (crucial for ocean food chains and for global temperature homeostasis (balance) by sequestering CO₂ and for light-reflecting cloud formation through production of cloud-seeding dimethylsulphide) and the Greenland ice sheet melts with a huge attendant circa 7 meter sea level rise (see: James Lovelock “The Revenge of Gaia”, Penguin, London, 2006; http://www.commondreams.org/headlines06/0119-01.htm ; http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v439/n7074/abs/nature04245.html ).

According to top US climate scientist Dr James Hansen (Head, NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies, member of the prestigious US National Academy of Science) and 8 UK, French and US colleagues (my emphasis): “Paleoclimate data show that climate sensitivity is ~3 deg-C for doubled CO2, including only fast feedback processes. Equilibrium sensitivity, including slower surface albedo feedbacks, is ~6 deg-C for doubled CO₂ for the range of climate states between glacial conditions and ice-free Antarctica. Decreasing CO₂ was the main cause of a cooling trend that began 50 million years ago, large scale glaciation occurring when CO₂ fell to 450 +/- 100 ppm, a level that will be exceeded within decades, barring prompt policy changes. If humanity wishes to preserve a planet similar to that on which civilization developed and to which life on Earth is adapted, paleoclimate evidence and ongoing climate change suggest that CO₂ will need to be reduced from its current 385 ppm to at most 350 ppm. The largest uncertainty in the target arises from possible changes of non-CO₂ forcings. An initial 350 ppm CO₂ target may be achievable by phasing out coal use except where CO₂ is captured and adopting agricultural and forestry practices that sequester carbon. If the present overshoot of this target CO₂ is not brief, there is a possibility of seeding irreversible catastrophic effects.” (see: http://arxiv.org/abs/0804.1126 ).

The Garnaut Review recognized “risks” to economies and to peoples and biodiversity: “The weight of scientific evidence tells us that Australians are facing risks of damaging climate change. The risks can be substantially reduced by strong and early action by all major economies … We will delude ourselves if we think that scientific uncertainties are cause for delay. Delaying now will eliminate attractive lower-cost options. Delaying now is not postponing a decision. To delay is to deliberately choose to avoid effective steps to reduce the risks of climate change to acceptable levels”.

Professor Garnaut reviewed the science, the economics and then came up with a “Cap and Trade” Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS) to commence in an initial form in 2010. The ETS involves selling CO₂ polluters tradeable licences, thus making pollution more expensive and favouring non-polluting alternatives (geothermal and ultimately solar-dependent renewables such as solar, wind, wave and tide power). However his scheme (Cap uncertain) involves returning 50% of the licence fees to domestic consumers and 30% to business in an extraordinary subsidy of “dirty” power. The remaining 20% will be spent on Research and Development for “new” alternative technologies, notably the coal-burning with carbon capture and storage (CCS) favoured by Professor Garnaut.

The Garnaut Review leaves one with a series of paradoxes. The “Cap” is set at a CO₂ level that will kill off the Great Barrier Reef at best (at 450 ppm CO₂), devastate the planet at worst (550 ppm CO₂) and, in between these posited extremes, kill off the phytoplankton system and hence ocean life as well as irreversibly melting the Greenland ice sheet with huge attendant sea level rise (500 ppm CO₂). While Professor Garnaut follows Sir Nicholas Stern in decrying climate change as “the greatest market failure ever seen”, he insists on an Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS) “market mechanism” (albeit subverted with gigantic State subsidies) to fix the problem and rejects any State implementation or State subsidy of renewable energy.

The Garnaut Review also FAILS to take seriously the impact of factors such as from human values (altruism, responsibility, respect for the irreplaceable ecosystems and species, respect for human life) to purely selfish considerations of peak oil. Thus a 2008 CSIRO report “Fuel for Thought” says that supply/demand problems due to “peak oil” may see petrol prices increase in 10 years to $8/L from the present $1.70/L whereas even an ETS carbon price of $40-$100/tonne would only add 10-25 cents/L to the price of petrol (see: http://www.smh.com.au/news/national/peak-oil-petrol-to-reach-8-a-litre/2008/07/10/1215658037458.html ).

The Garnaut Climate Change Review is a highly flawed Report that IGNORES major realities – it does not merely ignore an Elephant in the Room, it IGNORES a HERD of Elephants in the Room. The most important reality it completely IGNORES in its prescription of CONTINUED fossil fuel-based pollution of the atmosphere is that at 387 ppm atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO₂) the Earth has ALREADY passed “tipping points” for major ecosystem devastation, notably the complete loss of Arctic sea ice (see: http://arxiv.org/abs/0804.1126 ) and the death of the world coral reefs that support 25% of ocean organisms and are economically worth $375 billion annually (see: http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/Story?id=5321360&page=1 ).

AN ALTERNATIVE SCIENCE- AND NEEDS-BASED PLAN

Here is a succinct science- and needs-based Alternative Plan. The Garnaut Review (514 pages) indicates that a favoured (but long-term, expensive, undeveloped, only partially effective at best and uncertain) Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS) technology yields power at about the same price (6 c/kWh) as EXISTING wind power technology. To replace Australia’s 92% fossil fuel-based, 50GW (50 billion Watt) electricity-generating capacity with wind power at $2 per Watt would cost 50 billion W x $2/W = $100 billion (see: http://climateemergency.blogspot.com/2008_01_01_archive.html ) . However the existing “capacity factor” (reflecting ACTUAL electricity generation in practice) is about 50% (50 W capacity generating only about 250 TWH/year rather than the 500 TWh expected if there was 100% capacity) and if we assume a much lower 20% “capacity factor” for wind power then the realistic actual replacement cost would be $100 billion x 50/20 = $250 billion.

Of course that scenario is merely one “boundary condition” (one extreme in the range of the possible) and the actual “mix” and rapid uptake path could involve a combination of the following (Garnaut Review 2006 estimates of cents/kWh in parentheses): geothermal (9), wind (6) and concentrated solar (20) as alternatives to brown or black coal (3) or the uncertain, HYPOTHETICAL proposition of brown or black coal with combined Integrated Gasification Combined Cycle (IGCC) and Carbon Capture and Storage CCS (6-7) PLUS the latest, very low cost Solar Thermal and Photovoltaic technologies already being implemented around the world (see: http://climateemergency.blogspot.com/2008_01_01_archive.html ) .

Crucial matters (not considered in the Garnaut Review) are the human cost of fossil fuel- or coal-based power generation (5,400 and 4,900 annual deaths, respectively, at a cost at $5 million person i.e. of $27 billion and $25 billion, respectively, per annum); the morbidity costs (6 times greater); and the “true cost” of coal-based electricity (estimated to be 4-5 times the “market cost”) (see: http://sites.google.com/site/yarravalleyclimateactiongroup/pollution-deaths-from-fossil-fuel-based-power-plants ; http://www.evworld.com/news.cfm?newsid=8836 and http://green-blog.org/2008/06/14/pollutants-from-coal-based-electricity-generation-kill-170000-people-annually/ ). Further, major reductions in costs of Concentrated Solar (Solar Thermal) Compact Linear Fresnel (CLFR) technology developed by Ausra mean that this could supply 90% of the US grid and auto fleet energy needs with cost estimates competitive with the “market price” gas-fired power plants and as low as 8c/kWh (see: http://www.alternativeenergy.com/profiles/blog/show?id=1066929%3ABlogPost%3A24004 ; http://venturebeat.com/2007/12/13/ausra-moves-to-mass-produce-solar-thermal/ ; http://www.ausra.com/news/releases/071213.html ). Other current renewable technologies already approaching the “market price” of coal-based power include US balloon-based solar collector for PV cells (http://mwcnews.net/content/view/18667/42/ ; ) and CIGS non-silicon thin films (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/money/main.jhtml?xml=/money/2007/02/19/ccview19.xml ; http://www.newmatilda.com/2007/08/08/how-numbers-stack ; http://thefraserdomain.typepad.com/energy/2007/12/ausra-building.html ).

The only “non-market support” that pro-renewable energy “pure free marketeers” need from Government is (a) legal and legislative action over fossil fuel-burners who are killing an estimated 5,400 Australians annually from the effects of fossil fuel burning pollutants i.e. recognition of the 4-5 times greater “true cost” of coal-based power generation and (b) gross production feed-in tariffs for renewable producers as in Germany and Spain and recommended as “more accurate” by Professor Garnaut who concludes (p437) : “A feed-in tariff based on gross metering is thus a more accurate means of pricing these benefits [as compared to “net metering”].”

Of course those “NON-free-marketeers” who believe in use of taxes for the common good (as in hospitals, schools, emergency services etc) would like to see major Government intervention for urgent provision of low-cost, non-polluting, non-homicidal renewable energy options consonant with the prescription by top US climate scientist Dr Hansen and his colleagues of REDUCING atmospheric CO₂ from a dangerous current concentration of 387 ppm to a safe level of no more than 350 ppm (see: http://arxiv.org/abs/0804.1126 ; http://arxiv.org/ftp/arxiv/papers/0804/0804.1126.pdf ).

The major failures of the Garnaut Climate Change Review can be summarized as (A) incorrect premises and ignoring major realities; and (B) highly disputable assertions.

(A) Incorrect premises and ignoring major realities

1. The Review is predicated on an outcome of an atmospheric CO₂ of 450-550 ppm. –however world coral dies above 450 ppm, the phytoplankton and the Greenland ice sheet go above 500 ppm and the world is devastated at 550 ppm (see http://green-blog.org/2007/11/21/summary-of-the-summary-of-the-2007-ipcc-ar4-synthesis-report/ ).

2. The Review admits that Australia’s world-leading coal exports represent a major component of Australian coal mining but extraordinarily IGNORES the contribution this makes to Australia’s annual per capita CO₂ pollution (27 tonnes CO₂per person per year domestically but 47 tonnes CO₂ per person per year including CO₂ from coal exports) (see: http://sites.google.com/site/yarravalleyclimateactiongroup/%E2%80%9Ccoal-is-king%E2%80%9D-australia-co2-pollution-fact-sheet ) .

3. The Review IGNORES the estimated huge annual deaths from coal-burning and fossil fuel-burning for electricity in Australia (4,900 and 5,400, respectively) and the World (170,000 and 283,000, respectively) (see: http://sites.google.com/site/yarravalleyclimateactiongroup/pollution-deaths-from-fossil-fuel-based-power-plants ).

4. The Review IGNORES the “true cost” of coal-based electricity generation which is estimated to be 4-5 times the “market cost” – a reality that makes all existing, best-practice non-carbon energy sources cheaper than fossil fuel-based power (see: http://www.evworld.com/news.cfm?newsid=8836 ; http://www.newmatilda.com/node/2398?ArticleID=2398&CategoryID=213 ; http://mwcnews.net/content/view/18667/42/ ; http://www.coolearthsolar.com/ ; http://www.martinot.info/Martinot_et_al_AR32_prepub.pdf ).

5. The Review ignores the huge annually added cost to Australia due to coal burning-and fossil fuel-burning-related deaths (at $5 million per person, $25 billion and $27 billion, respectively) and the 6-fold greater cost of morbidity (illness) (see: http://sites.google.com/site/yarravalleyclimateactiongroup/global-warming-dangers--solutions-for-older-people ).

6. The Review prescribes MORE CO₂ pollution and IGNORES the position of top UK, US and French climate scientists from top institutions who argue that we have already reached a disastrous “tipping point” and must reduce atmospheric CO₂ from the current 385 ppm to no more than 350 ppm i.e. a “negative CO2 pollution” policy that can implemented by energy efficiency, cessation of fossil fuel burning, implementation of best-practice existing non-carbon energy sources, re-afforestation, return of biochar to soils, and (if necessary) use of global dimming sulphur oxide aerosols (see: http://arxiv.org/ftp/arxiv/papers/0804/0804.1126.pdf ; http://mwcnews.net/content/view/23119/42/ ).

7. The Review IGNORES the findings of top biologists and environmental economists that the total economic return from major biomes (ecological systems) studied can be typically about 50% greater when there is sustainable use and that the economic return from preserving what is left of wild nature is over 100 times the cost of so doing (see: http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/abstract/297/5583/950 ).

8. The Review IGNORES the enormous current rate of species extinction that is ALREADY 100-1,000 times greater than normal and which is impacted severely by climate change(see: http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2002/01/020109074801.htm ; http://www.giss.nasa.gov/research/news/20080514/ ).

9. The Review asserts (following similar assertion from top UK climate economist Sir Nicholas Stern) that climate change is “the greatest market failure ever seen”, but then prescribes a “market mechanism” (an Emissions Trading Scheme”) that is grossly subverted by huge non-market taxpayer subsidies for use of “dirty energy” while rigorously denying any such non-market incentives for “clean energy”.

10. The Review IGNORES International and National Law in relation to illegitimate commercial impositions on other people (especially when mass suffering and death involved) and IGNORES the real prospect of litigation, Sanctions, Boycotts, Green Tariffs, Reparations Demands and national and international criminal prosecutions (e.g. see: http://climateemergency.blogspot.com/2008_02_01_archive.html ) .

11. The Review IGNORES the enormous advances made in already commercial solar energy technology, notably silicon-based photovoltaics (notably improved efficiency , sliver technology, balloon-based solar energy collection), CIGS and other non-silicon thin film photovoltaics (California, Switzerland) and Concentrated Solar Power of Solar Thermal (notably the commercial, Australian-derived Ausra Compact Linear Fresnel (CLFR) system) – all of which yield power at a cost less than the “true cost” of coal-based power and in many cases approaching the 4-5 times lower current, heavily subsidized “market cost” of coal-based power (see: ).

12. The Review has clearly IGNORED detailed, expert, well-documented, scientific representations about most of the above issues (e.g. see: http://climateemergency.blogspot.com/2008_01_01_archive.html ; http://www.garnautreview.org.au/domino/Web_Notes/Garnaut/garnautweb.nsf ).

(B) Highly disputable assertions

1. Garnaut Review, Chapter 1, pp1-22, Australia’s Climate Change Challenge – according to the Review (p12): “In the discussion of climate change much is made of natural wonders – of the Great Barrier Reef, the wetlands of Kakadu, the karri forests. We know that we value them highly, and now we will need to think about whether WE [my emphasis] are prepared to pay for their preservation” – Australian nor indeed any other species and ecosystems are NOT negotiable; further, International and National Law state that, for example, mining companies are responsible for their pollution i.e. while a highly flawed ETS scheme can increase the cost of coal-burning what is crucially needed are criminal prosecutions over the appalling, existing environmental and human impacts of coal burning (see: http://sites.google.com/site/yarravalleyclimateactiongroup/pollution-deaths-from-fossil-fuel-based-power-plants ).

2. Garnaut Review, Chapter 2, pp 23-46, Policy Change about Climate Change Mitigation – according to the Review (pp 25-27): “2.1, Risk and uncertainty” section weighs in on the “uncertainty” side of the risk-uncertainty spectrum (an indeed the whole Review) ignores the actual realities of 0.3 million people dying each year world-wide and the 5,400 Australians who are estimated die from the effects of pollutants from fossil fuel-based electrical power generation; the 16 million people who die avoidably each year from deprivation that is increasingly climate change impacted; the “billions” who, according to UK Chief Scientist Professor John Beddington FRS are threatened by food prices rises driven by biofuel diversion, global warming, oil price rises, globalization and speculation; and the estimate by top UK climate scientist Professor James Lovelock FRS that over 6 billion people will die this century due to unaddressed man-made climate change (see: ) .

3. Garnaut Review, Chapter 2 p29: “The amount of fossil fuel in the earth’s crust, in the forms of petroleum, natural gas, coal, tar sands and shale, is obviously finite. However the amount is so large that its limits are of no practical importance for climate change policies” – this is utterly incorrect from the perspective of top US climate scientist Dr James Hansen (head , NASA’s Goddard Institute of Space Studies, member of the US National Academy of Sciences and Professor, Columbia University) who in a detailed letter to PM Rudd accompanied by a superb technical summary of the situation said the complete OPPOSITE because the largely untapped coal , tar shale, and methane hydrate reserves are vastly greater than the oil and gas reserves: “Reserves are hotly debated and may be exaggerated, but we know that enough oil and gas remain to take global warming close to, if not into, the realm of dangerous climate effects. Coal and unconventional fuels such as tar shale contain enough carbon to produce a vastly different planet, a more dangerous and desolate planet, from the one on which civilization developed, a planet without Arctic sea ice, with crumbling ice sheets that ensure sea level catastrophes for our children and grandchildren, with shifting climate zones that cause great hardship for the world’s poor and drive countless species to extinction, and with intensified hydrologic extremes that cause increase drought and wildfires but also stronger rains, floods and storms” (see: http://www.columbia.edu/%7Ejeh1/mailings/20080401_DearPrimeMinisterRudd.pdf ; http://mwcnews.net/content/view/23119/42/ ).

4. Garnaut Review, Chapter 2, p29: “Concerns about the availability of fossil fuel resources was one element in the analysis and cautions of the Club of Rome, and their ill-fated prophecy about limits to growth in the early 1970s (Club of Rome, 1972)” – the Club of Rome was absolutely CORRECT in a big picture sense e.g. the atmosphere and the oceans are finite; “peak oil” has arrived; at 385 ppm CO₂ in the atmosphere the Arctic sea ice may be completely gone in 5 years; data sent by NASA’s Dr Hansen to PM Rudd indicates that a substantial proportion of limited oil and gas resources have already been consumed and that the vast preponderance of major carbon fuel sources left (and which simply cannot be used because of the excess atmospheric CO₂ problem) are coal, shale oil, tar sands and methane hydrates (see: http://www.columbia.edu/%7Ejeh1/mailings/20080401_DearPrimeMinisterRudd.pdf ).

5. Garnaut Review, Chapter 3, pp 47-86, The Science of Climate Change – the Review in section 3.3.2, pp60-69: the sections dealing with of Fluorinated gases do not mention nitrogen trifluoride (NF₃) which as 17,000 times worse than CO₂ as a greenhouse gas and is used in manufacture of plasma and LCD TVs (see: http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2008/07/03/2293369.htm?section=justin ).

6. Garnaut review, Chapter 3, p82: “Captured CO₂ could be stored underground or used [via photosynthesis] to produce biofuels” – the “stored underground” is hypothetical, expensive, and not ready for immediate implementation – indeed the US Department of Energy has scrapped the major $1.8 billion FurureGen Carbon Capture and Storage coal-burning power plant project (see: http://news.cnet.com/8301-11128_3-9861473-54.html ) . And as for biofuels, except for those involving non-crop biomass and algae, biofuel production (e.g. from growing wheat, sugar cane, canola and palm oil on former forest land) is a major net CO₂ emitter and the UK, US, and EU legislatively mandated biofuel production is a major threat to human survival through using food to drive cars and driving up food prices (see: http://climateemergency.blogspot.com/2008/04/biofuel-famine-biofuel-genocide-and.html; http://green-blog.org/2008/04/04/world-food-price-crisis-and-global-famine-from-biofuel-perversion-climate-change-and-globalization/ ; http://www.liberalati.com/?q=node/261 ; http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,23336840-11949,00.html ; http://www.earth-policy.org/Updates/2008/Update69.htm ; Science 29 February 2008, Vol. 319. no. 5867, pp. 1238 – 1240: http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/abstract/1151861 ); Science 29 February 2008, Vol. 319. no. 5867, pp. 1235 – 1238: http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/abstract/1152747 ).

7. Garnaut Review, Chapter 3, p82: Dr Hansen and colleagues are quoted in relation to biochar production but the Review ignores the major demand of these top US climate scientists for “negative CO₂ emissions” i.e. removal of CO₂ from the atmosphere to a safe level of no more than 350 ppm - a position that is completely OPPOSITE to that of the Terms of Reference of the Garnaut Review which posits continued coal exports and increasing atmospheric CO₂ to a globally disastrous “target” of 450-550 ppm (see: http://arxiv.org/ftp/arxiv/papers/0804/0804.1126.pdf ).

8. Garnaut Review, Chapter 3, p82: “Today, there are no large scale commercial technologies that capture carbon from the air” – yes, there are: this technology is called “forestry” (see: http://business.theage.com.au/forestry-claims-role-in-carbon-trading-20080629-2yua.html ).

9. Garnaut Review, Chapter 4, pp 87-110, Emissions in the Platinum Age: the rapid, recent and projected growth of greenhouse gas emissions – the Review (Fig. 4.2, p89) gives Australia’s annual per capita CO₂-e pollution in tonnes per person per year (2004) as about 26; however this figure ignores Australia’s world leading coal exports (this coal is burned to generate CO₂that pollutes the global atmosphere) which lifts this figure to a world-leading 46 as compared to China’s 5 and India’s 1 tonnes CO₂-e per person per year (see: http://sites.google.com/site/yarravalleyclimateactiongroup/%E2%80%9Ccoal-is-king%E2%80%9D-australia-co2-pollution-fact-sheet ).

10. Garnaut Review, Chapter 4, Figure 4.12, p102: there have been huge increases in the price of carbon fuels since 1999, about 5 times for thermal coal and liquefied natural gas and about 8 times for crude oil. As Professor Garnaut correctly observes “Continued high fossil energy prices, if across the board, will cause reductions n energy consumption and a substitution towards non–fossil-fuel energy sources.” However this data certainly weakens the argument for an ETS and especially for an ETS that will direct 80% of the licence fees to huge subsidies for “dirty energy” users and of the 20% left one supposes that at least half will go towards CO₂ sequestration-related research (note that the price of petrol is projected to increase a further 5-fold within the next 10 years: http://www.smh.com.au/news/national/peak-oil-petrol-to-reach-8-a-litre/2008/07/10/1215658037458.html ).

11. Garnaut Review, Chapter 5, pp111-142, Observations and projections of global climate change – according ot the Review (p111): “much of the research literature on observed and projected has been summarised and evaluated in the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change Fourth Assessment Report (IPCC 2007). Here the Review summarizes the key observations illustrates some of the main possible changes. Where relevant the discussion makes use of research undertaken since the Fourth Assessment Report was compiled and considers alternative views.” However (a) the literature cut-off for the IPCC Report was 2005; (b) the most recent work quoted of Dr Hansen’s group at NASA’s Goddard Institute of Space Studies (GISS) is a paper published in 2005; (c) the Review fails to present the “alternative views” of these outstanding US climate scientists, specifically that we must reduce atmospheric CO2 from a currently dangerous 385 ppm to a safe level of no more than 350 ppm (see Hansen et al, 2008: http://arxiv.org/ftp/arxiv/papers/0804/0804.1126.pdf ).

12. Garnaut Review, Chapter 5, p134, Carbon feed-back effects - missing from the list of important feed-back effects are the ACTUAL, current feed-back effects of the “albedo flip” (the effect of replacing light-reflecting ice and snow with light-absorbing dark sea water in the Arctic and Antarctic) and the lubrication of glacier movement by melt water (see: http://arxiv.org/ftp/arxiv/papers/0804/0804.1126.pdf; http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/climate-change/the-earth-today-stands-in-imminent-peril-453708.html ; http://pubs.giss.nasa.gov/abstracts/2007/Hansen_etal_2.html ); the major loss of ocean phytoplankton above 500 ppm CO₂ (the ocean phytoplankton are crucial for temperature and CO2 homeostasis through sequestering CO2, being the initial solar-energy-driven part of the ocean food-chain including carbonaceous organisms, and also produce dimethyl sulphide crucial for cloud seeding ( see: Professor James Lovelock FRS “The Revenge of Gaia”, Penguin, London, 2006; http://www.commondreams.org/headlines06/0119-01.htm ; http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v439/n7074/abs/nature04245.html ); forest burning associated with climate change, drought and misplaced biofuel perversion (see: http://www.panda.org/news_facts/newsroom/index.cfm?uNewsID=118741 and http://news.mongabay.com/2005/0423-rhett_butler.html ). Further, the Southern Ocean has ALREADY suffered major decline as a CO₂ sink due to global warming-exacerbated storms (see: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/6665147.stm ; http://environment.newscientist.com/article/dn11876-southern-ocean-already-losing-ability-to-absorb-cosub2sub.html ).

13. Garnaut Review, Chapter 5, p135: “Himalayan glaciers … are receding faster than any other glaciers around the world, and current estimates project that may disappear altogether by 2035 (WWF Nepal Program, 2005)” – this is a huge threat for the several billion people who depend on the South Asian, South East Asian and Chinese rivers flowing from the Himalaya highlands which makes the default “continue coal exports and continue CO₂ pollution” position of the Review incomprehensible (one can well understand the pessimism of Professor James Lovelock FRS in asserting that over 6 billion people will perish this century due to unaddressed climate change (see: http://royalsociety.org/news.asp?id=7226 ; http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/story/16956300/the_prophet_of_climate_change_james_lovelock ; http://climateemergency.blogspot.com/2008_02_01_archive.html ).

14. Garnaut Review, Chapter 5, p137 - Notwithstanding the 450-550 ppm Terms of Reference position of the Garnaut Review it states: “At a carbon dioxide concentration of 450 ppm, the diversity of corals on reefs will decline under the continued affect (sic) of elevated temperature and ocean acidity. Atmospheric carbon dioxide concentration as low as 500 ppm will result in coral communities that no longer produce calcium carbonate or are able to maintain coral reef structures” (huge damage is already happening: http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/Story?id=5321360&page=1 ; http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080707/ap_on_sc/coral_reef_threats ).

15. Garnaut Review, Chapter 5, p137 Risk of species extinction: “Risk of species extinction” - the extinction rate is ALREADY 100-1000 tmes greater than in the past, this is clearly related to human activity (and hence, quantitatively to GDP which is directly proportional to CO2 pollution) and Dr Cynthia Rosenzweig of GISS (quoted by the Garnaut Review) and her colleagues, including Austtralia’s Professor David Karoly of the University of Melbourne, show that climate change as a major contributor to physical and biological changes in global ecosystems (see: http://pubs.giss.nasa.gov/abstracts/2008/Rosenzweig_etal_1.html ).

16. Garnaut Review, Chapter 6, pp143-160, The Australian Context to Climate Change – this chapter has a sub-section on bushfires (p151) but fails to mention other biological consequences of man-made warming for Australia e.g. the destruction of the Great Barrier Reef above 450 ppm (even though the latest authoritative paper on the subject is quoted elsewhere in the Review: Science 14 December 2007: Vol. 318. no. 5857, pp. 1737 – 1742: http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/abstract/318/5857/1737 ) or the risk to human life (especially of elderly people) due to heat waves (see: http://sites.google.com/site/yarravalleyclimateactiongroup/pollution-deaths-from-fossil-fuel-based-power-plants ).

17. Garnaut Review, Chapter 7, pp161-198, [Health and Economic] Impacts of Climate Change on Australia - the Review (pp169-171) FAILS to mention that the rice growing has already collapsed (production down by 98%; see: http://www.iht.com/articles/2008/04/17/business/17warm.php ); that the Murray River fruit industries are gravely threatened already; that Mining (ignored in this chapter) will be severely affected when the World eventually bans Australian coal exports (see: http://sites.google.com/site/yarravalleyclimateactiongroup/%E2%80%9Ccoal-is-king%E2%80%9D-australia-co2-pollution-fact-sheet ); and that Health will benefit enormously (fossil fuel-based power generation pollution kills an estimated 5,400 Australians annually at a cost of $27 billion annually; morbidity costs may be 6 times greater: http://sites.google.com/site/yarravalleyclimateactiongroup/pollution-deaths-from-fossil-fuel-based-power-plants ).

18. Garnaut Review, Chapter 8, Australia’s emissions and the economy, pp199-210 – the Review notes (p199) that Australia’s 2005 “annual per capita CO2-e pollution” in tonnes per person per year was 559 Mtonnes/21 million = 27 tonnes per person per. However the Review IGNORES Australia’s world-leading coal exports that in 2004 via the end-users yielded about 424 Mtonnes CO2 year, this giving a “true” estimate of 559 + 424 = 983 Mtonnes/21 million people = 47 tonnes per person per year (as compared to China’s 5 and India’s 1 tonnes CO₂-e per person per year in 2004; see: Garnaut Review, Chapter 4, Fig. 4.2, p89 i.e. on a true, per capita basis Australia is 10 times worse than China and about 40 times worse than India) (see: http://sites.google.com/site/yarravalleyclimateactiongroup/%E2%80%9Ccoal-is-king%E2%80%9D-australia-co2-pollution-fact-sheet ).

19. Garnaut Review, Chapter 9, The Modelled Economic Consequences of Climate Change in Australia, pp213-247: extraordinarily the Review quite deliberately IGNORES the economic cost of damage to Nature and Human Health in this Chapter, notwithstanding expert advice that sustainable use of Nature is typically 50% more profitable than unsustainable use and that the economic value of preserving wild Nature is over 100 times the cost of so doing (see: http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/abstract/297/5583/950 ); and that an estimated 5,400 Australians die each year from the effects of pollutants from fossil fuel-based electricity generation at a cost of $27 billion, with morbidity (illness) costs being 6 times greater (see: http://sites.google.com/site/yarravalleyclimateactiongroup/pollution-deaths-from-fossil-fuel-based-power-plants ). INSTEAD the Review states (p214): “The modelling presented in this chapter … precludes the assessment of non-market effects, such as the impacts of climate change on biodiversity and ecosystems [annual Total Economic Value of Nature is estimated at US $33 trillion: http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/abstract/297/5583/950 ] and some aspects of human health [coal-burning pollutants kill 170,000 people globally each year, corresponding at $5 million per person [EU valuation] to about $1 trillion per annum: http://sites.google.com/site/yarravalleyclimateactiongroup/pollution-deaths-from-fossil-fuel-based-power-plants] . Section 6.3 and Chapters 2 and 10 discuss the implications associated with excluding non-market effects from an economic evaluation of climate change.”

20. Garnaut Review, Chapter 9, Coal mining, p239, Economic consequences for mining - the Review modelling quite extraordinarily IGNORES the compelling international demand for cessation of coal mining and consequent CO₂ pollution: “The mining industries are also adversely affected by climate change …the coal industry is by far the most affected, with output projected to decline by almost 10% relative to the reference case [not climate change impacted] case by 2100. The result is mainly driven through changes in world demand, since the majority of coal produced in Australia is exported. The international modelling undertaken by the Review implies that world demand for coal falls by almost 19 percent, relative to the reference case” (NASA’s Dr Hansen has called for a moratorium on coal burning: http://www.thebulletin.org/web-edition/features/the-need-international-moratorium-coal-power ).

21. Garnaut Review, Chapter 9, p249, Health impacts: “The health-related impacts considered by the Review have relatively small economic effects” – however compare this assertion with the estimate that 5,400 Australians die each year from the effects of fossil fuel-burning power generation pollutants at a cost of $27 billion; the morbidity cost may be 6 times greater (see: http://sites.google.com/site/yarravalleyclimateactiongroup/pollution-deaths-from-fossil-fuel-based-power-plants ; the Australian GDP in 2007 was about $1 trillion: http://209.85.141.104/search?q=cache:CdsLv4GSiTEJ:www.pbec.org/index.php%3Foption%3Dcom_content%26task%3Dview%26id%3D315%26Itemid%3D17+australia+trillion+%22gdp+%22&hl=en&ct=clnk&cd=10&gl=au ).

22. Garnaut review, Chapter 10, The Wider costs and benefits of climate change mitigation in Australia, p255, Human health: the Review IGNORES the huge positive impact on human health from cessation of fossil fuel burning (see item #21). Thus (p255): “While a significant proportion of the total adverse impacts on health from climate change were excluded from the economic analysis in Cha9ter 9, the Review does not consider this to be significant in terms of economic consequences. Even if the modelled cost discussed in Chapter 9 were to double to reflect the excluded impacts, the net economic consequences from climate change would still not be large. While the excluded health impacts are not considered represent large economic consequences they may represent considerable non-market effects”. The review makes similar comments in section 10.3 pp264-265 - however 7 x $27 billion = $189 billion is the estimated annual mortality plus morbidity costs from fossil fuel burning power station pollutants (see: http://sites.google.com/site/yarravalleyclimateactiongroup/pollution-deaths-from-fossil-fuel-based-power-plants ) and corresponds to about 19% of GDP]. WHO statistics (see: http://www.who.int/countries/aus/en/ ) tell us that the “total medical expenditure” in Australia was US$3,001 and 8.8% of GDP in 2005, corresponding to 21 million x $3,001 = $63 billion.

23. Garnaut Review, Chapter 11, pp269-287, The International response to climate change to date - an assessment: the review faces up to the problem (albeit inexplicitly) : “Greenhouse emissions area global public “bad”. One country’s emissions affect all countries … To ensure compatibility, unilateral and regional schemes would need to be based around common guiding principles.” The really fundamental principles would be whether you have (a) positive CO₂ emissions to some “target”; (b) zero emissions; or (c) negative CO₂ emissions e.g. to no more than 350 ppm as advocated by Dr Hansen of NASA’s GISS and his colleagues (see: http://arxiv.org/ftp/arxiv/papers/0804/0804.1126.pdf ). Unfortunately the Review ignores (b) and (c) without explanation – notwithstanding that these propositions are advanced by some of the world’s top climate scientists.

24. Garnaut Review, Chapter 12, pp289-308, Towards agreement on national and global emissions limits - the Review FAILS to posit the fundamentals of whether you have (a) positive CO₂ emissions to some “target”; (b) zero emissions; or (c) negative CO₂ emissions (see comments for item #23). The Review (p292) plumps for various versions of scenario (a) that are disastrous for Australia and the Planet by yielding 450 ppm (death of coral) or 550 ppm (destruction of phytoplankton, most ocean life and the Greenland ice sheet; devastation of mega-delta regions and coastal cities): “The review models two global mitigation scenarios, one less ambitious, the other more. The strong global mitigation case is a stabilisation scenarionat which the concentration of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere approaches 550 ppm carbon dioxide equivalent (CO₂-e) and stabilizes at around that level thereafter. The ambitious global mitigation case is an overshooting scenario , which peaks at around 500 ppm CO₂-e and then stabilizes at around 450 ppm CO₂-e. Any lower stabilization objective, for example at 400 ppm,CO₂-e would need to involve a longer period of overshooting”.

Planetary disaster aside, this Review position has to be considered in relation to the expertly-informed EU position (p290): “The European Union, for example, has argued that global mean warming should not be allowed to exceed 2⁰C from pre-industrial levels (Council of the European Union 2007)”. Unfortunately, while the IPCC (2007) has concluded that the temperature increase from a doubling of pre-industrial 280 ppm CO₂ to 560 ppm CO₂ “is likely to be in the range of 2 to 4.5 degrees with a best estimate about 3 degrees”.

At our present 387 ppm CO₂ the average temperature has increased by 0.8⁰C over the pre-industrial but there is a thermal inertia component of a further + 0.6⁰C and positive feedback effects from the Arctic “albedo flip” may yield a further +0.3⁰C i.e. we are already committed to about +1.7⁰C at 387 ppm with global temperature increasing at about 0.25⁰C per decade. Hansen and Sato suggest a “long-term” climate sensitivity of +6⁰C (involving an ice-melting “albedo flip” as in the Pleistocene era) rather than the Charney-IPCC estimate of +3⁰C for a doubling of CO₂ (see Chapter 5, “Climate Code Red. The case for emergency action” by David Spratt and Philip Sutton, Scribe, Melbourne, 2008; Hansen, Sato et al: http://www.columbia.edu/~jeh1/2007/EastWest_20070925.pdf ).

In this crucial area the Review is not only IGNORING top US climate scientists but also the proscription of the expertly-informed EU.

25. Garnaut Review, Chapter 13, pp309-335, Deepening international collaboration - the Review states that “trade in emissions rights greatly to be preferred to trade in offset credits, which should be restricted”. However, while the “emissions rights” are “political” constructs that will typically IGNORE the real quantifiable environmental and human costs (e.g. as made quite clear in the Review itself), the “offset credits” are objectively and scientifically determined in terms of “net CO₂ pollution”.

This point illustrates the importance of CO₂ pollution policies being determined objectively by scientists rather than by economists and politicians (thus the Review IGNORES many objectively and scientifically assessed matters and the carefully considered positions top climate scientists such as NASA’s Dr James Hansen and top UK climate scientist Professor James Lovelock FRS: http://arxiv.org/abs/0804.1126 ; http://arxiv.org/ftp/arxiv/papers/0804/0804.1126.pdf ; “The Revenge of Gaia” by James Lovelock).

26. Garnaut Review, Chapter 14, pp337-357, Australian mitigation: overview of the policy challenge – the Review borrows from Sir Nicholas Stern’s comment thus: “The Stern Review referred to climate change as “the greatest example of market failure we have ever seen (Stern 2007)”. In section 14.2 “Addressing the greatest market failure ever seen” (pp941-942) the Review opts for a mixture of supposedly “market” and “regulatory” approaches: “The options for meeting the policy objective – reducing Australia’s greenhouse gas emissions in a manner that reflects the atmosphere’s true scarcity value – are typically categorized as being either regulatory or market based. Within these two categories, numerous policy instruments can be applied.” The Review in opting for an Emissions Trading Scheme with nearly all the licence fees being used to subsidize carbon-based power IGNORES what is done elsewhere in relation to use of scarce common resources e.g. water.

Water scarcity is dealt with (at least in the cities if not with agriculture which consumes most of the available water) by rigorous (and publicly supported) restrictions to increase water use efficiency and by pricing water appropriately – although, unfortunately, minority vested interests determine that the unique Murray-Darling ecosystems are being sacrificed to private greed and political cowardice prevents the recycling that occurs in much, much wetter countries such as the UK.

Rational risk management involves a successive process of (a) accurate data, (b) scientific analysis and (c) informed systemic change. In relation to man-made climate change this would mean (s) recognizing expert scientific concerns e.g. the need to rescue atmospheric CO₂ to no more than 350 ppm, the cost in Australian lives of coal burning, assessment of the “true cost” of coal burning based electricity generation (4-5 times the market cost); (b) scientific analysis of how to achieve this (e.g. cessation of coal mining and exports; cessation of subsidies for carbon-burning; cost-recovery for costs from coal burning; about $250 billion to make Australian electricity 100% non-carbon; energy efficiency and renewable uptake support measures; energy use restrictions; re-afforestation, biochar enrichment of soils) and (c) implementation.

The coal burning-dedicated Review IGNORES all of these rational risk management steps in favour of policies that permit continued coal mining and exports; a subsidy-perverted Emissions Trading Scheme as a mechanism to make non-carbon power more attractive; and continued enormous subsidy of coal burning .

27. Garnaut review Chapter 15, An Australian emissions trading scheme (ETS), pp359-402 – the Review describes a “Cap and Trade” ETS that is deeply flawed. Thus the “Cap” is an atmosphere CO2 concentration that ranges from 450 ppm (above which the Great Barrier Reef and indeed all coral around the world dies and 550 ppm (3-6 ⁰C temperature rise and planetary devastation). The Review IGNORES expert US climate science opinion for a “cap” of no more than 350 ppm (that would mean ordering carbon polluters to clean up the mess of their making) or of the current 387 ppm (zero emissions; no pollution licences issued). A rational ETS would invest the licence fees in renewable or geothermal power (remember the Snowy Mountains Scheme, the Ord, the World War 2 national manpower and resources mobilization) – however the Review hands 80% of the fees back to subsidize “dirty energy” users and of the remaining 20%, half will go for research into “cleaner carbon burning”, leaving it up to “the market” to be encouraged to invest in non-carbon power.

2 critical flaws in the Review ETS are that (a) it IGNORES the reality that the “true cost” of coal-based power is about 4-5 times the “market price” (simple honest recognition of this would mean that an honestly informed market would rapidly implement a vastly cheaper non-carbon power system); and (b) it only deals with about half of the problem – it IGNORES Australia’s world leading coal exports that give Australia a “true” “annual per capita greenhouse pollution” of 47 tonnes per person as compared to about 5 for China and 1 for India (see: http://sites.google.com/site/yarravalleyclimateactiongroup/%E2%80%9Ccoal-is-king%E2%80%9D-australia-co2-pollution-fact-sheet ).

Insider-trading and anti-price collusion legislation prohibits deception of investors and consumers and indeed applies draconian penalties. Similar legislation would dramatically clarify the climate emergency debate in Australia which is heavily influenced by industry and politicians to the exclusion of expert climate scientists. Indeed Dr James Hansen in a recent address to the US National Press Club and a briefing to the US House Select Committee on Energy Independence & Global Warming. Congressional Committee raised the issue of criminal prosecutions: “CEOs of fossil energy companies know what they are doing and are aware of long-term consequences of business as usual. In my opinion, these CEOs should be tried fro hugh crimes against humanity and nature” (see: http://www.columbia.edu/~jeh1/2008/TwentyYearsLater_20080623.pdf ).

28. Garnaut Review, Chapter 15, p380 – the Review stipulates that polluters would be able to borrow money “to use permits from the future” but notes “Eligibility – borrowers must be credit worthy”. It is well established in International and National Law that polluters are liable for the cost of the clean-up. Inspection of the huge human cost alone of fossil fuel burning-based electricity generation (0.3 million deaths world-wide annually at a cost of $1.5 trillion, with Australia a major culprit as the world’s number 1 coal exporter) casts serious doubt on the credit worthiness of the polluters (see: http://sites.google.com/site/yarravalleyclimateactiongroup/pollution-deaths-from-fossil-fuel-based-power-plants ).

29. Garnaut review Chapter 16, Research, development and innovation, pp403-426 - the Review (p406) repeatedly admits to climate change being “the greatest market failure ever seen” but insists on a “dirty energy”-subsidizing quasi-market scheme that discriminates against “clean energy”: “the emissions trading scheme [involving huge, non-market Government subsidies encompassing perhaps 90% of the licence fees] will create sufficient demand-pull for new low-emissions technology, and thus there is generally no need for any additional support for innovation at the market uptake stage.”

The discrimination in favour of “dirty energy” is enormous as proposed by the Review and is enormous now: (a) the “true cost” of fossil fuel-based power is 4-5 times the “market cost” i.e. carbon-based energy is hugely subsidized here in this sense; (b) there is a further $10 billion per annum in subsidies for fossil fuels; (c) the huge human cost is simply ignored; (d) the huge Australian contribution to global pollution through its world-leading coal exports is ignored. The reality – ignored by the Review – is that with the latest technological advances and economies of scale some already developed renewable technologies (notably CIGS and dye-based thin-film non-silicon photovoltaics, balloon-based solar collection for photovoltaics and and Ausra solar thermal) are now approaching the “market cost” of coal-based electricity generation –whereas the Carbon Capture and Storage (CCS) favoured by the non-scientist Reviewer is expensive, location-specific, non-timely and undeveloped (see: ).

30. Garnaut Review, Chapter 17, Network infrastructure market failures, pp427-442 – the Review wants infrastructure for electricity grids and “carbon dioxide transport” for the hypothetical CCS system but departs from the “pure market” by asserting that the Government (taxpayer) “Building Australia Fund should be extended to cover energy infrastructure” i.e. not even encouragement or subsidy of non-carbon power but huge Government subsidy (in addition to the existing and proposed subsidies for “dirty power”; see #29) for more carbon burning-based power.

31. Garnaut Review, Chapter 17, p428 – the Review states; “An emissions trading scheme will make higher-emissions forms of energy generation more expensive, shifting demand towards lower-emissions sources, and towards technologies that capture and sequester emissions”. However Figure 20.2 of the Review shows that the cost in cents/kWh of EXISTING wind technology is about the same as for the HYPOTHETICAL Carbon Capture and Storage systems.

The Review DOES say something useful in relation to feed-in tariffs for domestic energy production (p433) “A feed-in tariff based on gross metering [as in Germany and Spain] is thus a more accurate means of pricing these benefits” i.e. while “dirty energy” and its hypothetical “cleaner” coal burning versions can be heavily subsidized according to the Review, the only “subsidy” advocated for “clean energy” is a gross metering-based feed-in tariff because it is “more accurate” than the net metering feed-in tariff that obtain in Victoria.

32. Garnaut Review, Chapter 18, pp443-468, Information and agency barriers - the Review states (p443) that “There are significan toportunties for low-cost reductions in emissions across the Australian economy through the deployment of existing technologies and practices. These opportunities include energy efficiency and fuel switching in homes, industry and transport … Two kinds of market failures … One relates to the externalities in the supply of information and skills.”. Unfortunately the review IGNORES the opportunity to review INFORMATION on extraordinary advances in solar technologies that are bringing some very close to the “market cost” of coal-based electricity (however, by way of marked contrast, see the Yarra Valley Climate Action Group Climate Emergency Fact Sheets: http://sites.google.com/site/yarravalleyclimateactiongroup/Home; Climate Emergency, Sustainability Emergency: http://climateemergency.blogspot.com/2008_01_01_archive.html ; Climate Emergency Fact Sheets: http://climatefactsheets.blogspot.com/ ; “Climate Code Red” by David Spratt and Philip Sutton: http://www.climatecodered.net/ ).

33. Garnaut Review, Chapter 19, pp469-478 – the Review admits (p469) that “Lower-income households spend much higher proportions of their incomes than other households on emissions-intensive products” and as a consequence allocates 50% of the ETS licence fees in a non-market scheme to subsidize the more expensive domestic “dirty” electricity consumption. More sensible and just would be for Government policy to favour uptake of the cheapest power technologies – and the cheapest non-carbon technologies are all cheaper than the “true cost” of coal -based power and in some cases approaching the “market price” of coal-based power (see #34 below).

34. Garnaut Review, Chapter 20, pp481-584, The Energy Transformation – Table 20.2 is very revealing – existing technology wind power is about the same price – about 6 cents/kWh - as hypothetical CCS coal-burning power technology but the Review shies away from reviewing the remarkable developments in “clean energy” technologies in favour of hypothetical “cleaner” coal CCS technologies. Why? Table 20.2 lists only one solar technology (Concentrated Solar Thermal) at 20 cents/kWh yet the new, large-scale, commercialized, Ausra Concentrated Solar Power (Solar Thermal) Compact Linear Fresnel (CLFR) system technology is already HALF that with lower cost to come with economies of scale: “Ausra claims that It can generate electricity for 10 cents/kWh now, under 8 cents/kWh in 3 yrs. It also claims that using Ausra’s current solar technologies, all U.S. electric power, day and night, can be generated using a land area smaller than 92 by 92 miles” (see: http://thefraserdomain.typepad.com/energy/2007/12/ausra-building.html ; http://www.newmatilda.com/node/2398?ArticleID=2398&CategoryID=213 ; http://mwcnews.net/content/view/18667/42/ ; http://www.coolearthsolar.com/ ; http://www.martinot.info/Martinot_et_al_AR32_prepub.pdf ; http://www.rsc.org/publishing/journals/PP/article.asp?doi=b715013j ).

Biofuel famine, biofuel genocide and the global food price crisis

2008-04-27T01:08:00.000-07:00

Biofuel famine, biofuel genocide and the global food price crisis

Dr Gideon Polya

Lecture to Agricultural Science students, Tuesday 29 April, 2008.

1. Summary

The world is facing a global food price crisis that threatens billions of people in the developing world with famine. Prices for major food commodities such as wheat, rice, corn and soybean have doubled in the last year or so. The price of rice has doubled in the last 6 months. Food prices in US$ have been driven upwards through a combination of factors, notably: (1) the immoral (and net CO₂ polluting) diversion of food for biofuel (impelled by global warming considerations, peak oil, increased oil prices, economics, US, EU and UK legislation); (2) US dollar decline; (3) oil price impact on agriculture costs; (4) anthropogenic global warming (and consequent intensified droughts); (5) increased demand for food (notably meat) from the new Asian giants; (6) fear, speculation and unilateralism.

Global non-observance of basic human “entitlement” (Amartya Sen) means that millions who cannot buy food will starve to death. History ignored yields history repeated - when the price of rice doubled and then finally quadruped 6-7 million starved to death in Bengal and adjoining Indian provinces in 1943-1945 in the “forgotten” Bengali Holocaust, the man-made Bengal Famine in British-ruled India during World War 2.

The solutions in general involve rational risk management involving (a) accurate data, (b) scientific analysis and (c) systemic change to reduce risk. The specific solutions involve: (1) cessation of the biofuel perversion (except for environmentally and morally acceptable biomass and algal systems); (2) cessation of Biosphere-threatening CO₂ pollution (indeed negative CO₂ emissions are required to reduce atmospheric CO₂ to a safe and sustainable 300-350 ppm from the present unacceptable 385 ppm); (3) respect for Humanity and “food entitlement” for all on Spaceship Earth; (4) cessation of the Third World Holocaust (16 million avoidable deaths annually) e.g. by “economic efficiency credits” (countries such as Bangladesh or peoples such as Indigenous Australians modestly rewarded for high efficiency and low impact on the Biosphere) and other measures to limit population and Biosphere impact.

2. Rational risk management

Rational Risk Management (RRM) successively involves (a) getting accurate data, (b) scientific analysis (science involving the critical testing of potentially falsifiable hypotheses) and (c) systemic change, involving setting up systems such that when Nature or fallible humans inevitably cause a dangerous situation the system is better able to minimize risk.

All too prevalent “spin” and “politicized” responses in society pervert RRM by (a) lies, slies (spin-based untruths), censorship, intimidation, self-censorship, white-washing, (b) anti-science spin involving the use of selected asserted “facts” to support a partisan position, and (c) “blame and shame”, picking convenient culprits for public punishment, thereby inhibiting reportage (war being the ultimate expression of this perverted approach).

For details of a recent course I gave on Risk Management, Science and Denial see: http://rationalriskmanagement.blogspot.com/ .

3. Avoidable mortality (excess death)

Excess death (excess mortality, avoidable mortality, avoidable death, death that should not happen) and other measures of undesirable outcome (e.g. under-5 infant mortality) can be used to measure the success or otherwise of local, national or global policies. For a country in a given period, excess death (avoidable death, avoidable mortality, excess mortality, deaths that should not have happened) is the difference between the ACTUAL deaths in a country and the deaths EXPECTED for a peaceful, decently governed country with the same demographics (see: http://globalavoidablemortality.blogspot.com/ ).

Using detailed UN Population Division demographic data I have calculated the avoidable mortality for every country in the world since 1950 in 5-year periods (pentades). The results are horrendous but have been corroborated by independent calculations of the post-1950 under-5 infant mortality for every country in the world since 1950 (see: “Body Count. Global avoidable mortality since 1950” (G.M. Polya, Melbourne, 2007: http://mwcnews.net/content/view/1375/247/ and http://globalbodycount.blogspot.com/ ).

The big picture is as follows: the 1950-2005 avoidable mortality has totalled 1.3 billion for the world, 1.2 billion for the non-European world and 0.6 billion for the Muslim world – a Muslim Holocaust 100 times greater than the WW2 Jewish Holocaust (6 million victims) or the WW2 man-made Bengal Famine in British-ruled India (6-7 million victims in Bengal and adjoining provinces; 1941-1951 demographic deficit 10 million; regional deaths associated with rice price-driven famine in Bengal and adjoining states of Bihar, Orissa and Assam: 6-7 million according to Dr Sanjoy Bhattacharya of the Wellcome Institute, University College, London; essentially deleted from British history) (see: BBC transcript of “The Bengal Famine”: http://www.open2.net/thingsweforgot/bengalfamine_programme.html ; ABC transcript of “Bengali Famine”: http://www.abc.net.au/rn/science/ockham/stories/s19040.htm ; “Jane Austen and the Black Hole of British History. Colonial rapacity, holocaust denial and the crisis in biological sustainability” (G.M. Polya, Melbourne, 1998): http://janeaustenand.blogspot.com/ ).

These horrendous figures are consonant with the post-1950 under-5 infant mortality which has totalled about 0.88 billion for the world, 0.85 billion for the non-European world and about 0.4 billion for the Muslim world (for relevant tables see the Appendix here: http://rationalriskmanagement.blogspot.com/ ).

4. Nuclear, greenhouse and poverty threats and their solutions

According to Dr John Holdren, the President of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS, the world’s biggest general scientific association) the acute threats facing the world are (a) nuclear weapons, (b) global warming and (c) poverty (see: http://www.aaas.org/news/releases/2007_ann_mtg/88.shtml and http://rationalriskmanagement.blogspot.com/ ).

(a) Nuclear weapons

The 25,000 nuclear weapons in the world today threaten complete annihilation of humanity and there is increased risk from conflicts arising from global warming and poverty.

However Dr Tillman Ruff (Medical Association for the Prevention of War, Melbourne) says that the technical problem of nuclear disarmament has been solved: “A large body of authoritative reports from the 1996 Canberra Commission, to the 2006 Weapons of Mass Destruction Commission, describe how, through a series of binding, timebound, irreversible steps, nuclear weapons can be abolished. There are no insurmountable technical or legal obstacles. What is lacking is visionary leadership and the groundswell of irresistible pressure from mobilised citizens to make it happen.” (see “Abolishing weapons of terror”: http://www.abc.net.au/rn/ockhamsrazor/stories/2007/1995827.htm ) .

(b) Global warming and climate change

According to the 2007 IPCC Fourth Assessment Report Synthesis Report, unaddressed CO₂ pollution and global warming will have a devastating effect on global malnutrition and poverty (see: http://www.ipcc.ch/ and see http://green-blog.org/2007/11/21/summary-of-the-summary-of-the-2007-ipcc-ar4-synthesis-report/ ). According the Professor David Pimentel (2004) of Cornell University, New York, global malnutrition and poverty will be an “unimaginable” problem by 2054 (see: http://www.news.cornell.edu/releases/Feb04/AAAS.pimentel.hrs.html ), already pollution of the soil, water and air kills about 40% of the world’s population and 57% of the world’s population of 6.5 billion is already malnourished (see: http://www.news.cornell.edu/stories/Aug07/moreDiseases.sl.html ).

The 2007 IPCC Fourth Assessment report (literature cut-off date 2005) may have under-estimated the threat. Runaway Climate Change is an acute threat NOW as perceived by Dr James Hansen (Head, NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies, New York): at an atmospheric CO₂ concentration of 385 ppm the world has already reached a “tipping point” for complete loss of Arctic summer ice (some scientists say in about 5 years’ time) with huge implications for polar warming, Greenland, West Antarctic and tundra melting, further “positive feedbacks” (e.g. melt water glacier lubrication; the albedo flip of black light–absorbing water replacing white, light-reflecting ice and snow; melting tundra methane and CO₂ emissions; forest fires) and major sea level rises of ultimately about 20 metres (see “Climate Code Red”: http://www.climatecodered.net/ ).

Even very small increases in average temperature of circa 1⁰C above the 2000 value (already 0.8⁰C above the pre-industrial) can damage agriculture and bioproductivity, notably in the tropical and sub-tropical zones; at 450 ppm the coral reefs will die from ocean over-acidification; according to Professor James Lovelock FRS at 500 ppm phytoplankton photosynthetic productivity in the oceans (crucial for ocean bioproductivity and for cloud formation via dimethylsulphide production) goes into crisis.

Dr James Hansen: “There is strong evidence that the Earth is within 1^oC of its highest temperature in the past million years. Oxygen isotopes in the deep sea foraminifera reveal that the earth was last 2^oC to 3^oC warmer [relative to 2000] around 3 million years ago, with carbon dioxide levels of perhaps 350 to 450 parts per million. It was a dramatically different planet then, with no Arctic sea ice in the warm seasons and sea levels about 25 metres higher, give or take 10 metres.” (quoted in “Climate Code Red”: http://www.climatecodered.net/ ).

The atmosphere is ALREADY at 385 ppm CO₂ and CO₂ concentration is increasing at about 2.5 ppm per year; global average temperature is about 0.8^oC above the pre-industrial and increasing at about 0.3^oC per decade with an in-built “thermal inertia” due to existing GHG pollution of the atmosphere of about 0.6^oC and the possibility of another 0.3^oC due to “positive feedback effects”. The world is currently STILL on track with the “worst case” greenhouse scenario of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).

If you plot sea level (in metres) versus global mean temperature (^oC) (see Figure 2, “Climate Code Red”) there is a remarkably linear relationship as you go from the last glacial maximum 20,000 years ago (sea level minus 120 metres relative to today’s sea level, global mean temperature 9.5^oC), to TODAY (15^oC), to the Pliocene 3 million years ago (sea level plus 20 metres, mean temperature 18^oC) and the Eocene 40 million years ago (sea level plus 80 metres, mean temperature 19^oC). The IPCC projection for sea level rise is less than 1 metre rise by about 18^oC (clearly a big underestimate) and a temperature rise predicted to be 3^oC this century on a “business as usual” scenario means a 20 metre rise in sea level.

If you accept that the catastrophic loss of Arctic summer sea ice means that 385 ppm CO₂ is too much (see report of Dr Hansen’s lecture to the American Geophysical Union in December 2007: ) then what is needed is a “Negative CO₂ emissions” policy of urgent cessation of GHG pollution through a rapid shift to already available renewable technologies plus mechanisms for reducing the existing CO₂ in the atmosphere (re-afforestation, putting biomass-derived biochar back in the soil and further mechanisms for global cooling if necessary e.g. SO₂ aerosols if need be as suggested by Dr Hansen) (for suggested solutions see: http://www.climatecodered.net/ , http://climateemergency.blogspot.com/2008_01_01_archive.html and http://australia2020ideas.blogspot.com/ ).

Here are some estimates of the cost in Australian cents per kilowatt-hour (Ac/kWh) of various sources of electricity (for a detailed discussion see “Renewables: how the numbers stack up” in New Matilda: http://www.newmatilda.com/home/articledetailmagazine.asp?ArticleID=2398&CategoryID=213 ):

3-4 — coal, Australia;

18 — the real cost of coal, taking into account the environmental and health impact; according to a conservative Canadian Ontario Ministry of Energy Report (CAN$0.164);

15 — nuclear via the UK’s newest Sizewell B plant;

7.5-8.5 — wind power, Australia;

15 — concentrated solar power or CSP;

25-45 — standard silicon-based photovoltaics (PVs).

However recent advances means we must add the following to the list:

4 – the price of solar PV is set to fall dramatically to compete directly with the current “market price” of coal due to balloon, sliver and non-silicon PV technology advances. The non-silicon organic thin film technology developed by US Nobel Laureate Alan Heeger and his South Korean colleagues will reduce the cost of installing photovoltaic (PV) capacity by a factor of 20; the Swiss ETH CIGS non-silicon thin film system may be competitive with coal within 5 years (a related US Nanosolar technology is in mass production: http://www.investorideas.com/Articles/050707a_page1.asp ); Australian sliver silicon PV technology will drop silicon solar panel costs threefold. In particular, the Californian balloon solar capture technology is predicted to make PV solar competitive with “market price” coal by 2010 (see “Solar energy & the end of war. US balloon technology to slash solar energy cost 90% by 2010”: http://mwcnews.net/content/view/18667/42/ ).

4 – Australian geothermal. According to Professor John Veevers (“The Innamincka hot fractured rock project” in “Lies, Deep Fries & Statistics”, editor Robyn Williams, ABC Books, Sydney, 2007; also see energy cost-related related chapters by Dr Gideon Polya “Australian complicity in Iraq mass mortality”, Dr Mark Diesendorf “A sustainable energy future for Australia”, and Martin Mahy “Hydrogen Minibuses”): “Modelled costs are 4 cents per kilowatt hour, plus half to 1 cent for transmission to grid. This compares with 3.5 cents for black coal, 4 cents for brown coal, 4.2 cents for gas, but all with uncosted emissions. Clean coal, the futuristic technology of coal gasification combined with CO2 sequestration or burial, yet to be demonstrated, comes in at 6.5 cents, and solar and wind power at 8 cents.”

Further, wave, tidal, biomass and biofuel energy technologies are renewable technologies competitive with the “true cost” of fossil fuels. Australia’s huge reserves of economic geothermal power are expertly assessed to have the capacity to provide most of Australia’s energy needs for the best part of a millennium and Australia is blessed with huge solar, tidal, wave and wind resources.

Nuclear is not an option –it is expensive, dangerous, can be very CO₂ polluting and there are limited supplies of cheap uranium oxide.

(c) Poverty and excess death from deprivation

Avoidable mortality is fundamentally due to violence, deprivation, disease and lying (i.e. fundamental violation of rational risk management by untruth, spin and expedience instead of accurate data, scientific analysis and informed systemic change). 16 million people die avoidably each year of whom about 9.5 million are under-5 year old infants (see Appendix data).

Intolerance of dishonesty, bigotry and violence, respect for human rights, international law and our common environment and commitment to truth and a modestly decent life for everyone will end the global avoidable mortality holocaust and ensure that it will never be repeated.

In addition to modest improvements in economic wellbeing (in 2003 an annual per capita income of US $1,300 for Cuba, together with peace, high female literacy, good governance and good primary health care enabled an infant mortality of 0.17%, the same as in the US with an annual per capita income of US$38,000). In 2003 to bring all countries up to an annual per capita income of US$1,000 would have cost US$1.4 trillion or about 2.5% of the Global GDP of $55 trillion (the annual global market value then was about $1 trillion each for 5 things we do not need – arms; alcohol, tobacco; illicit drugs; unhealthy processed food). Of course highly focussed educational, infrastructure and agricultural inputs can do this even more cheaply. Modest economic security and low infant mortality coupled with female literacy has the effect of reducing population growth.

A specific suggestion related to “carbon credits” is for a system of “economic efficiency credits” with countries such as Bangladesh or peoples such as Indigenous Australians being modestly rewarded for high efficiency and low impact on the Biosphere) and other measures to limit population and Biosphere impact (see: http://globalbodycount.blogspot.com/ ).

5. Biofuel crisis

The World is facing a global food price crisis and looming mass starvation in the Developing World. The price of rice has doubled in 3 months and the price of wheat has doubled in one year. The huge increases in the price of staples such as wheat and rice are being driven by legislatively-mandated US, UK and EU diversion of food for biofuel; climate change and decreased agricultural productivity due to both inundation and drought; oil price hikes and increased costs of production; and globalization which means that 4 billion impoverished and under-fed people compete in the market place for those with the money to buy food to drive their cars or for grain-fed meat (see: http://mwcnews.net/content/view/21277/42/ and http://www.countercurrents.org/polya310308.htm ).

Already 16 million people due avoidably each year (9.5 million being under-5 year old infants) from deprivation and deprivation-exacerbated disease on a Spaceship Earth dominated by a profligate and unresponsive First World (see “Body Count. Global avoidable mortality since 1950”, G.M. Polya, Melbourne, 2007: http://globalbodycount.blogspot.com/ ) – and this is increasingly being impacted by climate change through drought, increased temperature and mega-delta inundation by storm surges.

The worst Developed World GHG offenders are the US, Canada and Australia as can be seen from this comparison of “annual per capita fossil fuel-derived carbon dioxide (CO₂) pollution” (2004 data from the US Energy Information Administration: http://tonto.eia.doe.gov/country/index.cfm ) in tonnes CO₂/person which is 19.2 (for Australia; 40 if you include Australia’s coal exports), 19.7 (the US), 18.4 (Canada), 9.9 (Japan), 4.2 (the World), 3.6 (China), 1.0 ( India) and 0.25 (for Bangladesh) (see “Climate Emergency, Sustainability Emergency”: http://climateemergency.blogspot.com/2008_01_01_archive.html ).

According to Sir Nicholas Stern as quoted by the Guardian (2007): “[for these countries annual average CO₂] emissions a head are more than 20 tonnes each year, with European citizens producing 10-15 tonnes each. In China it is about five tonnes, in India about one, and in Africa less than one tonne each” (see: http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2007/nov/30/climatechange.carbonemissions ).

However the problems of Third World countries are now being impacted by “peak oil” and the biofuel perversion of using food to drive cars and trucks in a starving world. Indeed in the ultimate obscenity Richard Branson’s Virgin airline has recently used biofuel to partly fuel a flight from London to Amsterdam, an act that drew critical condemnation from environmentalists (see: http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2008/02/25/2171511.htm ). In short, diversion of agricultural land for biofuel has three major problems. Biofuel (A) drives up the world price of food in a global marketplace; (B) can be associated with a huge “carbon debt” from release of soil carbon, whether from ploughed savannah or from deforested land; and (C) is currently associated with huge ecosystem damage. Let us consider these 3 problems in succession .

(A) Biofuel perversion is driving up global food prices

The United States is currently using about 9% of its wheat, 25% of its corn and about 15% of its grain in general to produce biofuel. The United Kingdom (UK) has committed to large increases in the use of biofuels over coming decades, has recently announced subsidies for biofuel and supports the European Commission (EU) target requiring 10 per cent of petrol station fuel to be plant-derived biofuel within 12 years. However the huge and intrinsically genocidal current US diversion of 15% of its grain crop to biofuel production has had a huge impact already on soaring global food prices – the world is already facing a global food crisis with alarm being expressed by UN, FAO and other scientific experts. Simple Google searches for “global food crisis”, ”world food price crisis” and related phrases reveals massive current concerns.

The US expanded renewable fuels standard (RFS) requires 8.5 billion gallons of renewable fuels in 2008 and progressively increases to a 36 billion gallon requirement by 2022 (see: http://democrats.senate.gov/dpc/dpc-new.cfm?doc_name=fs-110-1-107 ).

The UK Chief Scientific Adviser, Professor John Beddington CMG, FRS (Professor of Applied Population Biology at Imperial College, London.) has described the devastating potential of food shortages as an "elephant in the room" problem commensurate with that from climate change and warns that biofuel diversion (e.g. for canola oil- or palm oil-derived biodiesel and grain- or sugar-derived ethanol) is threatening world food production and the lives of “billions” (see: http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,23336840-11949,00.html ).

Recently Finance Indian Finance Minister P. Chidambaram has said that it is "outrageous" that developed countries are turning food crops into biofuels while billions of people in the developing countries are living on the edge and trying to cope with escalating food prices (see: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/south_asia/7315308.stm ).

Numerous Mainstream media reports are describing how we now have a global food crisis with the spectre of widespread famine due to escalating grain and food prices – in a harsh, globalized market place those that cannot afford to buy food will simply starve unless rescued. Yet the UN and FAO are finding it acutely difficult to rescue such people. These food price rises in turn are because of the huge US and indeed Western biofuel diversion, complicated by climate change (impacting on drought in Australia and Canada), weather (e.g. too much rain the US), hedging speculation and diversion for livestock production.

The New York Times has recently reported that “rising prices and a growing fear of scarcity have prompted some of the world’s largest rice producers to announce drastic limits on the amount of rice they export. The price of rice, a staple in the diets of nearly half the world’s population, has almost DOUBLED on international markets in the last three months. That has pinched the budgets of millions of poor Asians and raised fears of civil unrest” (New York Times, March 29, 2008 “High rice cost raising fears of Asia unrest”: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/29/business/worldbusiness/29rice.html?hp ).

There have been food riots over food prices recently in Guinea, Mauritania, Mexico, Morocco, Senegal, Uzbekistan and Yemen. Rice export bans by rice-exporting nations (Philippines, Vietnam, Cambodia, Egypt and India) have raised world rice prices even more (see: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/29/business/worldbusiness/29rice.html?hp ) .

The price of a wheat flour-based “roti” in Pakistan has doubled in the last year and food scarcity is of major concern to the UN and UN Agencies such as FAO (see “2008 – the Year of Global Food Crisis”: http://www.sundayherald.com/news/heraldnews/display.var.2104849.0.2008_the_year_of_global_food_crisis.php ) .

For an ALARMING graph of world food and wheat prices in recent years see the following report by Australian economists showing that the price of wheat in US dollars has DOUBLED in the last year: http://www.efic.gov.au/newsletter/newsletter_display.php?secID=15&id=79 . Part of this is due to the falling value of the US dollar but the alarming message is clear.

These food price rises are fuelled by the huge US and indeed Western (UK, EU) biofuel diversion PLUS Greenhouse Gas (GHG) pollution-driven climate change (impacting on drought e.g. in Australia and Canada), weather (e.g. too much rain in the US), hedging investor speculation, oil price impacts on production costs and diversion of food for livestock production for “rich” people who can afford it (not just in the West but also in the burgeoning Asian economies of China and India).

A sad commentary is given by Dr Lester Brown (January, 2008; see: http://www.earth-policy.org/Updates/2008/Update69.htm ): “Whereas previous dramatic rises in world grain prices were weather-induced, this one is policy-induced and can be dealt with by policy adjustments. The crop fuels program that currently satisfies scarcely 3 percent of U.S. gasoline needs is simply not worth the human suffering and political chaos it is causing. If the entire U.S. grain harvest were converted into ethanol, it would satisfy scarcely 18 percent of our automotive fuel needs.”

(B) Biofuel production is currently associated with huge CO2 pollution

Advocates of biofuel argued that it was “green” because the CO₂ deriving from biofuel combustion is cancelled out by the CO₂ sequestered by solar energy-driven photosynthesis. However this facile analysis ignores the release of carbon from the soil due to ploughing; loss of CO₂sequestration as a result of de-forestation; and other CO₂-pollution inputs into biofuel production such as fertilizer manufacture, transport and mechanical agriculture.

Two major studies by US scientists and published in the prestigious US scientific journal Science have revealed the huge “carbon debt” associated with mainstream agricultural production of biofuels.

Timothy Searchinger and colleagues (“Use of U.S. Croplands for Biofuels Increases Greenhouse Gases Through Emissions from Land-Use Change”, Science 29 February 2008, Vol. 319. no. 5867, pp. 1238 – 1240: http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/abstract/1151861 ) have found the following:

“Most prior studies have found that substituting biofuels forgasoline will reduce greenhouse gases because biofuels sequestercarbon through the growth of the feedstock. These analyses havefailed to count the carbon emissions that occur as farmers worldwiderespond to higher prices and convert forest and grassland tonew cropland to replace the grain (or cropland) diverted tobiofuels. By using a worldwide agricultural model to estimateemissions from land-use change, we found that corn-based ethanol,instead of producing a 20% savings, nearly doubles greenhouseemissions over 30 years and increases greenhouse gases for 167years. Biofuels from switchgrass, if grown on U.S. corn lands,increase emissions by 50%. This result raises concerns aboutlarge biofuel mandates and highlights the value of using wasteproducts.”

Joseph Fargione and colleagues (“Land Clearing and the Biofuel Carbon Debt”, Science 29 February 2008, Vol. 319. no. 5867, pp. 1235 – 1238: http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/abstract/1152747 ) have made even more dramatic findings:

“Increasing energy use, climate change, and carbon dioxide (CO₂)emissions from fossil fuels make switching to low-carbon fuelsa high priority. Biofuels are a potential low-carbon energysource, but whether biofuels offer carbon savings depends onhow they are produced. Converting rainforests, peatlands, savannas,or grasslands to produce food crop–based biofuels in Brazil,Southeast Asia, and the United States creates a "biofuel carbondebt" by releasing 17 to 420 times more CO₂ than the annualgreenhouse gas (GHG) reductions that these biofuels would provideby displacing fossil fuels. In contrast, biofuels made fromwaste biomass or from biomass grown on degraded and abandonedagricultural lands planted with perennials incur little or nocarbon debt and can offer immediate and sustained GHG advantages.”

Biofuels can be renewable if derived from biomass from waste land e.g. through gasification of biomass to carbon monoxide (CO ) and hydrogen (H₂) (see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gasification ) and then subsequent Fischer-Tropsch catalytic conversion to hydrocarbons (see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fischer-Tropsch_synthesis ) or from oils from growth of prokaryotic organisms (cyanobacteria or blue-green algae) or eukaryotic organisms ( green and red algae) (see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Algae_fuel ).

However in the context of horrendous global poverty, a major decline in grain production, huge increases in grain price and increasing diversion of grain for biofuel generation (see: http://www.fas.usda.gov/grain/circular/2006/05-06/graintoc.htm ), current means of biofuel production from human foods (sugar- and grain-derived ethanol, palm oil-, canola- and other oil-derived biodiesel) is a perversion and a crime against humanity, the more so when alternative cheap, efficient renewable energy options are technically already available (e.g. solar energy-based hydrogen-driven transport).

(C ) Biofuel production is devastating the biosphere

As outlined in (B) above, biofuel production is increasing CO₂ pollution. The US Energy Information Administration gives a year-by-year summary of fossil fuel-derived CO₂ pollution for every country in the world (see: http://www.eia.doe.gov/emeu/iea/carbon.html ). However greenhouse gas pollution (methane, CH₄, nitrous oxide, N₂O, and carbon dioxide, CO₂) comes not just from burning hydrocarbons and coal but also from land use – specifically, agriculture, vegetative decomposition and animal husbandry. A 2000 list of countries by greenhouse gas emissions per capita provides data with and without this land use component (see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_greenhouse_gas_emissions_per_capita ). Land use contributes about 20% of global anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions. Thus out of 185 countries my own country Australia ranked 9th worst (with land use change) and 5th (without land use change). The tonnes of “CO₂ equivalent” per person per year were 25.9 (with) and 25.6 (without land use change) for Australia, indicating the preponderant importance of fossil fuel burning to Australia’s “score”. However the land use component is very large for de-foresting countries such as Brazil, Indonesia and Malaysia.

Deforestation contributes about 15-20% of annual CO₂ pollution in the world. Yet according to Sir Nicholas Stern: "For $10-15bn (£4.8-7.2bn) per year, a programme could be constructed that could stop up to half the deforestation” (see: http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2007/nov/30/climatechange.carbonemissions ).

In addition to playing a vital role in global temperature homeostasis, forest ecosystems are sources for invaluable pharmaceutical resources (see my recent huge reference book: Gideon Polya, “Biochemical Targets of Plant Bioactive Compounds. A pharmacological reference guide to sites of action and biological effects”, CRC Press, Taylor & Francis, New York & London, 2003: http://www.amazon.com/Biochemical-Targets-Plant-Bioactive-Compounds/dp/0415308291 ).

At an even more fundamental level, Balmford et al in the prestigious scientific journal Science (see “Economic reasons for preserving wild nature”: http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/abstract/297/5583/950 ) have estimated that for a variety of “biomes” (ecological systems) the total economic value (TEV) is about 50% greater when the resource is used sustainably as opposed to destructive conversion. Further, these scientists have found that the economic benefit from preserving what is left of wild nature is OVER 100 TIMES greater than the cost of preservation.

However over-riding these economic concerns is the fundamental concern over species extinction – the rate of mammal extinction is already one thousand times greater than for the fossil record (see: http://www.greenfacts.org/en/ecosystems/figtableboxes/figure1-8-species-extinctions.htm ). We have no right to destroy the irreplaceable biodiversity that is the common property of the world and indeed of the universe.

6. Biofuel famine (2008) versus Bengal Famine (1943-1945)

The world is already seeing the commencement of a re-run - on a possibly 100-fold greater scale - of the man-made World War 2 Bengali Holocaust in which 6-7 million people perished in Bengal and in the adjoining provinces of Assam, Bihar and Orissa under the merciless British “scorched earth policy” when the price of rice doubled and finally doubled again (see: http://www.open2.net/thingsweforgot/bengalfamine_programme.html ).

Ten years ago I published a book entitled “Jane Austen and the Black Hole of British History” (see: http://janeaustenand.blogspot.com/ ) in which I described horrendous man-made, market-forces famines in British-ruled India from the 1769-1770 Great Bengal Famine (10 million deaths or one third of the Bengali population) to the World War 2 Bengal Famine (6-7 million deaths in the Bengal region).

These catastrophes have been deliberately erased from British history and from general public perception – leading to the acute danger of History ignored yielding History repeated. My pleas for action to prevent further such catastrophes have fallen on deaf ears. Bengal is now acutely threatened not only from biofuel-driven global food price rises but also from inundation from global-warming-driven sea level rises. I am revising my book for a 2008 second edition that in itself will be a further testament to “History ignored yields History repeated”.

In January 2008 I took part in a BBC radio broadcast about the “forgotten”, 6-7 million victim World War 2 Bengal Famine (WW2 Bengali Holocaust) that also involved 1998 Economics Nobel Laureate Professor Amartya Sen (Harvard, formerly Cambridge University, UK), Dr Sanjoy Bhattacharya (medical historian, Wellcome Institute, University College London) and other scholars (see: http://www.open2.net/thingsweforgot/bengalfamine_programme.html ).

Yet history ignored, the world is facing a vastly greater catastrophe.

The current catastrophic global food price rises are due to a combination of legislatively mandated biofuel diversion; global warming (and likely related drought); oil price hikes; a declining US dollar; oil price hikes and increased costs of production; globalization and increased demand for food and grain-fed meat; and market uncertainty enhanced by unilateralist cessation f food exports.

However the ultimate 4-fold increase in the market price of rice in WW2 Bengal arose from a variety of factors but before listing these it is important to note that according to Nobel Laureate Professor Amartya Sen there WAS food available to prevent starvation but cashed up Calcutta was in a war-time boom and effectively sucked food out of a starving , rice-producing countryside.

Factors that led to the huge price rise included: loss of rice imports from Japanese-occupied Burma; greatly decreased grain imports into India; Churchill’s European city bombing policies that led to a loss of shipping in the Atlantic, followed by compensatory mandated decrease in shipping in the Indian Ocean; policy from 1941 of provincial autonomy in food supplies; local storm and fungal infestation events; heavy-handed British seizure of boats vital for food acquisition and transport; hoarding and fear.

According to General Wavell (Viceroy of India and who pleaded in vain for help) the Bengal Governor Australian R.G. Casey told him that the Argentinians had burned 2 million tons of wheat to run their railways at the time of the Bengal Famine, there being a wartime coal shortage. In 2008 Europeans are compulsorily using food as fuel while millions starve (see Jane Austen and the Black Hole of British History: http://janeaustenand.blogspot.com/ ) .

I made the following general methodological point at the end of the BBC program: “This isn’t simply an argument about rubbing out history. Scientists can help society through what is called rational risk management. It successively involves A, getting the accurate data. B, doing a scientific analysis. And then C, recognising this, taking action, changing the system, whether it’s a national system or a global system, to avoid a repetition.”

However Professor Amartya Sen concluded the program with the following profound point: “I think the fact that famines happen when they’re so extraordinarily easy to prevent – nothing in the world is easier to prevent – affects me. Being a Bengali I can’t say that it adds especially to that because this seems to me to be a basic human sympathy at seeing suffering all across the world which are completely needless.” All decent people around the world must speak out to prevent this mounting, NEEDLESS global famine tragedy that is unfolding before our eyes.

Some references

Balmford et al. (2002), Economic Reasons for Conserving Wild Nature, Science 9 August 2002: 950; see: http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/abstract/297/5583/950

Brown, L.R. (2008), Why ethanol production will drive world guel prices even higher in 2008, Earth Policy Institute; see:

http://www.earth-policy.org/Updates/2008/Update69.htm .

Lovelock, J. (2006), The Revenge of Gaia. Why the Earth is fighting back and we can still save humanity (Allen Lane, London).

Mason, C. (2000), A Short History of Asia (Macmillan, London)

Polya, G.M. (1998), Jane Austen and the Black Hole of British History (Polya, Melbourne): http://janeaustenand.blogspot.com/ .

Polya, G.M. (2003), Biochemical Targets of Plant Bioactive Compounds. A pharmacological reference guide to sites of action and biological effects (Taylor & Francis, New York & London)

Polya, G.M. (2007), Body Count. Global avoidable mortality since 1950 (G.M. Polya, Melbourne) (see: http://globalbodycount.blogspot.com/ and http://mwcnews.net/Gideon-Polya ).

Reason, J. (2000), Human error: models and management, British Medical Journal, vol. 320, pp768-770

Snow, C.P. (1961), Science and Government (The New English Library, London)

Spratt, D. & Sutton, P. (2008), Climate Code Red – the case for a sustainability emergency” (Friends of the Earth, Melbourne).

Formal Complaint to International Criminal Court (ICC) over Australia and Aboriginal, Iraqi, Afghan & Climate Genocides

2008-02-29T14:59:00.001-08:00

Chief Prosecutor

International Criminal Court

Office of the Prosecutor

Post Office Box 19519

2500 CM The Hague

The Netherlands

Dear Sir,

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

For your convenience I have numbered the various sections of this formal complaint.

1. Statement of complaint

Avoidable death (excess death) is the difference between the actual deaths in a country and the deaths expected for a peaceful, decently run country with the same demographics. Excess deaths can be violent (from bombs or bullets) or non-violent (through deprivation and deprivation-exacerbated disease) (see “Body Count. Global avoidable mortality since 1950” (G.M. Polya, Melbourne, 2007: http://mwcnews.net/content/view/1375/247/ and http://globalbodycount.blogspot.com/ ). Thus 1 million of the 6 million victims of the Jewish Holocaust died from deprivation (see Gilbert, M. (1982), Atlas of the Holocaust (Michael Joseph, London)).

Successive Australian Governments have been involved in sustained, remorseless, deliberate, intentional, knowing policies that have resulted in huge avoidable death (excess death) and/or displacement among their domestic and overseas Subjects and among impoverished people around the world subject to global warming impacts due in part to Australia’s world-leading, climate criminal, greenhouse gas pollution policies:

a. Aboriginal Genocide of Indigenous Australian (Aboriginal) Subjects (9,000 avoidable Indigenous deaths each year; 90,000 avoidable deaths in the 11 years of the previous Coalition Government; current Indigenous population about 0.5 million; the annual death rate is 2.2% (for Indigenous Australians), 2.4% (Indigenous Australians in the Northern Territory and since 2007 subject to race-specific suspension of the 1975 Racial Discrimination Act in contravention of international humanitarian conventions), 0.4% (what it should be) and 2.5% (for Australian sheep) (see: June 2007 edition of the National Indigenous Times: http://www.nit.com.au/news/story.aspx?id=11555 ; “Stolen Generations’: http://mwcnews.net/content/view/19735/42/ , “Invasion & Australia Day”: http://mwcnews.net/content/view/19735/42/ , “Racism in Australia, “Bundoora Arabesque””: http://mwcnews.net/content/view/15960/42/ , “Sydney Madonna” and Aboriginal Genocide”: http://mwcnews.net/content/view/10865/26/ and “Australian Genocide”: http://mwcnews.net/content/view/12578/42/ ).

b. Iraqi Genocide in Occupied Iraq (post-invasion, roughly 1:1 violent and non-violent excess deaths total 1.5-2 million; post-invasion under-5 infant deaths 0.6 million; excess deaths; 4.5 million refugees; 1.9 million excess deaths and 1.2 million under-5 infant deaths in the Sanctions period 1990-2003) (see: http://ruddaustraliareportcard.blogspot.com/2008/01/rudd-australia-report-card-1-continued.html ; http://mwcnews.net/content/view/17066/42/ ).

c. Afghan Genocide in Occupied Afghanistan (post-invasion violent and non-violent excess deaths 6.6 million; post-invasion under-5 infant deaths 2.3 million; 4 million refugees) (see: http://ruddaustraliareportcard.blogspot.com/2008/01/rudd-australia-report-card-3-australian.html ; “Top US lawyer and UNICEF reveal Afghan Genocide”: http://www.countercurrents.org/polya080208.htm).

d. Climate Genocide. Global avoidable deaths total 16 million annually with 9.5 million being under-5 year old infants. This is increasingly impacted by global warming and Australia is the developing country with the highest annual per capita fossil-fuel-derived carbon dioxide (CO2) pollution (43 tonnes per person per year in 2007 including that due to fossil fuel exports - about 10 times greater than the annual per capita fossil-fuel-derived CO2 pollution value (2004) for the World (4.2) and China (3.6), about 40 times greater than for India (1) and 160 times greater than for Bangladesh (0.25).) (see: http://ruddaustraliareportcard.blogspot.com/2008/01/rudd-australia-report-card-2-climate.html ; http://mwcnews.net/content/view/15671/42/ ). It is predicted by UK climate expert Professor Lovelock FRS that over 6 billion will perish this century due to unaddressed global warming (see: http://www.businessandmedia.org/printer/2007/20071022221333.aspx ).

2. UN Genocide Convention and “intent to destroy in whole or in part”

Article 2 of the UN Genocide Convention (see:

http://www.edwebproject.org/sideshow/genocide/convention.html ) states that “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.”

“Intent” in horrific crimes is rarely “confessed” but can be convincingly established by a record of “remorseless sustained policy”. Thus the immense 1943-1945 Bengali Holocaust was a man-made, market forces famine in which the price of rice doubled and then doubled again due to a range of factors. Those living on the edge who were unable to pay for food died under the sustained, racist and remorseless policies of the British colonial régime. The Bengal Famine consumed 6-7 million lives in Bengal and the neighbouring provinces of Assam, Orissa and Bihar but has been largely deleted from British history (see: http://www.open2.net/thingsweforgot/bengalfamine_programme.html ; Polya, G.M. (1998), Jane Austen and the Black Hole of British History. Colonial rapacity, holocaust denial and the crisis in biological sustainability (Polya, Melbourne); http://janeaustenand.blogspot.com/ ).

Churchill deleted mention of the Bengal Famine (a 6-7 million death holocaust atrocity for which he was primarily responsible) from his immense history of the Second World War (see Churchill, W.S. (1954), The Second World War. Volumes I-VI (Cassell, London). However his responsibility and culpability has been revealed from the record of his remorseless, racist, “sustained policy” (e.g. as revealed by the diary of General Wavell, Viceroy of India; see Moon, P. (1973) (editor), Wavell. The Viceroy’s Journal (Oxford University Press, London; see also Mason, C. (2000), A Short History of Asia. Stone Age to 2000AD (Macmillan, London)).

The Bengal Famine was clearly a Bengal Holocaust (and indeed the first of the World War 2 atrocities to be described as a holocaust – see Jog, N.G. (1944), Churchill’s Blind-Spot: India (New Book Company, Bombay)). The “remorseless sustained policy” means that this was “intent to destroy in whole or in part” even if the destruction was “a sustained horrendous collateral in full knowledge” rather than “a vindictive desire to kill”. A bioethical analysis of this culpability is sketched below.

3. Active and passive killing and active and passive genocide

The outstanding bioethicist Professor Peter Singer (Princeton University and the University of Melbourne) has stated that “We are responsible not only for what we do but also for what we could have prevented… We should consider the consequences both of what we do and what we decide not to do” (see: Singer, P. (2000), Writings on an Ethical Life (Ecco Press, New York), ppxv-xvi).

An analogy of “passive genocide” in British-ruled Bengal and in the Genocides involving Australia can be found in the treatment of severely disabled new-born infants. Professor Peter Singer, arguably the most influential living philosopher, has controversially argued for the humane “active euthanasia” of severely disabled infants. At present many experienced hospital doctors will administer pain relief but not sustenance to such infants by way of “passive euthanasia”. However, according to Singer

“Doctors who deliberately leave a baby to die when they have the awareness, the ability, and the opportunity to save the baby’s life, are just as morally responsible for the death as they would be if they had brought it about by a deliberate , positive action.” (see: Kuhse, H. & Singer, P. (1985), Should the Baby Live? The Problem of Handicapped Infants (Oxford University Press, Oxford)).

The active massacre of Australian Aboriginals in the period from Invasion in 1788 until the late 1920s can be described as “active genocide” but the continuing Aboriginal Genocide through sustained policies of deprivation is no less deadly “passive genocide” and the same analysis can be applied to the Iraqi Genocide, the Afghan Genocide and Climate Genocide in which Australia is complicit. As outlined below Australia has grossly violated International humanitarian conventions in deliberately failing to provide life-sustaining requisites to its domestic and overseas Subjects.

4. Criminal failure to supply life-sustaining requisites

While annual per capita medical expenditure on Indigenous Australians is similar to that for the non-Indigenous Australians, it has been estimated that this expenditure needs to be at least doubled because of the huge morbidity and the remote location of many Aboriginal communities. While Australia has been prepared to spend up to 6 million dollars each time to save individual solo yachtspersons who have deliberately placed themselves in danger, it has remorselessly refused to meet its obligations towards Indigenous Australians with a consequent huge excess death rate (for details and documentation see: http://mwcnews.net/content/view/15140/42/ ).

WHO data reveal that the “annual total per capita medical expenditure” (2004) permitted by the US Coalition is $135 (in Occupied Iraq) and $19 (in Occupied Afghanistan) as compared to $2,560 (UK), $3,123 (Australia) and $6,096(the US) (see WHO: http://www.who.int/en/ ; see also: http://mwcnews.net/content/view/17066/42/ ). One can now understand why there is such horrendous infant mortality in Occupied Iraq and Occupied Afghanistan as reported by UNICEF (see: http://www.unicef.org/infobycountry/index.html ) and as summarized in section #1 above.

The sheer criminality of this Australian failure to supply life-sustaining requisites to Subject people is made clear in Articles 55 and 56 of the Geneva Convention Relative to the Protection of Civilian Persons in Time of War (see: http://www.unhchr.ch/html/menu3/b/92.htm ):

Article 55. To the fullest extent of the means available to it the Occupying Power has the duty of ensuring the food and medical supplies of the population; it should, in particular, bring in the necessary foodstuffs, medical stores and other articles if the resources of the occupied territory are inadequate.

The Occupying Power may not requisition foodstuffs, articles or medical supplies available in the occupied territory, except for use by the occupation forces and administration personnel, and then only if the requirements of the civilian population have been taken into account. Subject to the provisions of other international Conventions, the Occupying Power shall make arrangements to ensure that fair value is paid for any requisitioned goods.

The Protecting Power shall, at any time, be at liberty to verify the state of the food and medical supplies in occupied territories, except where temporary restrictions are made necessary by imperative military requirements.

Article 56. To the fullest extent of the means available to it, the Occupying Power has the duty of ensuring and maintaining, with the cooperation of national and local authorities, the medical and hospital establishments and services, public health and hygiene in the occupied territory, with particular reference to the adoption and application of the prophylactic and preventive measures necessary to combat the spread of contagious diseases and epidemics. Medical personnel of all categories shall be allowed to carry out their duties.

If new hospitals are set up in occupied territory and if the competent organs of the occupied State are not operating there, the occupying authorities shall, if necessary, grant them the recognition provided for in Article 18. In similar circumstances, the occupying authorities shall also grant recognition to hospital personnel and transport vehicles under the provisions of Articles 20 and 21.

In adopting measures of health and hygiene and in their implementation, the Occupying Power shall take into consideration the moral and ethical susceptibilities of the population of the occupied territory.

Of course under international humanitarian conventions Australia has an obligation to supply such requisites to its own citizens as well as to its Subjects through invasion, conquest and forcible occupation of other countries. However it is noteworthy that no treaty was ever signed by the invading Europeans with the conquered Indigenous Peoples of Australia.

5. Climate Genocide and ICC action

The American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS), the largest general scientific body in the world, has identified nuclear weapons, global warming and poverty as the major threats facing humanity (see: http://www.aaas.org/news/releases/2007/0216am_holdren_address.shtml ). The latest scientific discoveries about climate change make it clear that we have already passed a key “tipping point” for a major ecosystem catastrophe, the complete loss of Arctic summer ice which is now expected to be realized in several years’ time.

What we are facing is a Climate Emergency and a Sustainability Emergency as revealed by the eminent American atmosphere scientist Dr James Hansen who has recently stated that 300-350 ppm atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2) is the safe, sustainable level for the biosphere and human survival – whereas it is actually 385 ppm now and increasing by 2.5 ppm every year. Dr Hansen is effectively calling not for ZERO EMISSIONS but for NEGATIVE CO2 EMISSIONS and a cessation of coal burning (see the Friends of the Earth’s ”Climate Code Red – the case for a sustainability emergency”: http://www.climatecodered.net/ and http://climatecodered.blogspot.com/ ; see also: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/7143567.stm and http://www.thebulletin.org/columns/james-hansen/20080124.html ).

16 million people die avoidably in the world each year (see “Body Count. Global avoidable mortality since 1950” (G.M. Polya, Melbourne, 2007: http://mwcnews.net/content/view/1375/247/ and http://globalbodycount.blogspot.com/ ) but global warming is already impacting on human excess mortality. Eminent atmosphere scientist Professor James Lovelock FRS estimates that over 6 billion will die this century due to unaddressed global warming (see: http://www.businessandmedia.org/printer/2007/20071022221333.aspx ).

Unfortunately the world is now seeing the beginnings of an appalling re-run of the British famine atrocity in India in World War 2 outlined in part #2 above. The price of wheat has doubled in one year (forced up by diversion for biofuels, purchases by prosperous India and China and effects of climate change on agricultural productivity) (see: http://climateemergency.blogspot.com/ ).

Australia is steadfast in its refusal to reduce its world leading annual per capita greenhouse gas pollution and has a major responsibility for the accelerating Climate Genocide that as estimated by outstanding UK climate scientist Professor James Lovelock FRS will affect billions; as reported by the Royal Society: “Even if we act now Professor Lovelock believes that six to eight billion humans will be faced with ever diminishing supplies of food and water in an increasingly intolerable climate and wildlife and whole ecosystems will become extinct” (see his recent lecture at the Royal Society: http://royalsociety.org/news.asp?id=7226 ) .

Consideration of current rates of CO2 pollution and sea levels over millions of years past indicate that a predicted temperature rise this century of 3^oC on the current “business as usual” scenario means a roughly 20 metre rise in sea level.

According to America’s foremost climate scientist Dr James Hansen: “There is strong evidence that the Earth is within 1 ^oC of its highest temperature in the past million years. Oxygen isotopes in the deep sea foraminifera reveal that the earth was last 2^oC to 3^oC warmer [relative to 2000] around 3 million years ago, with carbon dioxide levels of perhaps 350 to 450 parts per million. It was a dramatically different planet then, with no Arctic sea ice in the warm seasons and sea levels about 25 metres higher, give or take 10 metres.” (see “Climate Code Red”, p9: http://www.climatecodered.net/ ).

The Earth’s atmosphere is ALREADY at 385 ppm CO2 and CO2 concentration is increasing at about 2.5 ppm per year; global average temperature is ALREADY about 1^oC above the pre-industrial and now increasing at about 0.25 ^oC per decade.

I understand that the International Criminal Court may be prepared to make initial investigations of formal complaints by individuals (such as this complaint) but will only act to the fullest extent of its remit in response to formal complaints by National Governments.

Countries at major risk from sea level rises due to climate change include island nations in the Caribbean, the Indian Ocean and the Pacific (some of which face total extinction) and countries with mega-deltas in Europe, Africa, the Americas and Asia (of which some face catastrophic loss of agriculture and massive population displacements). Such Nations will be receiving copies of this formal complaint and are urged to transmit formal complaints to the International Criminal Court.

Yours sincerely,

Dr Gideon Polya

Macleod, Melbourne, Victoria 3085, Australia

March 1, 2008

Dr Gideon Polya published some 130 works in a 4 decade scientific career, most recently a huge pharmacological reference text "Biochemical Targets of Plant Bioactive Compounds" (CRC Press/Taylor & Francis, New York & London, 2003). He has just published “Body Count. Global avoidable mortality since 1950” (G.M. Polya, Melbourne, 2007: http://mwcnews.net/content/view/1375/247/ and http://globalbodycount.blogspot.com/ ); see also his contribution “Australian complicity in Iraq mass mortality” in “Lies, Deep Fries & Statistics” (edited by Robyn Williams, ABC Books, Sydney, 2007): http://www.abc.net.au/rn/science/ockham/stories/s1445960.htm ).

Climate Emergency, Sustainability Emergency & Submission to Rudd Australia Garnaut Climate Change Review

2008-01-19T17:25:00.000-08:00

“Climate Emergency and Sustainability Emergency” - Submission from Dr Gideon Polya to the Garnaut Climate Change Review

Garnaut Climate Change Review, Level 2, 1 Treasury Place, Melbourne, VIC 3002

This submission by a senior scientist is in response to a general invitation for submissions made on the Garnaut Climate Change Review Website: http://www.garnautreview.org.au/CA25734E0016A131/pages/submissions .

Background

The Garnaut Climate Change Review is an independent study by Professor Ross Garnaut, commissioned by Australia's State and Territory Governments on 30 April 2007. A new Australian Government under Labor Party Prime Minister Kevin Rudd was sworn in on Monday 3 December, 2007 and the newly-elected PM Rudd has confirmed the participation of the Commonwealth Government in the Review.

The Review will examine the impacts of climate change on the Australian economy, and recommend medium to long-term policies and policy frameworks to improve the prospects for sustainable prosperity. The Review's final report is due on 30 September 2008, with a draft by 30 June 2008. A number of forums will also be held around Australia to engage the public on various issues relating to the Review.

This submission to the Garnaut Change Review is by a senior scientist committed to Rational Risk Management that successively involves (a) accurate data, (b) scientific analysis and (c) systemic change to minimize risk (for a detailed, expert exposition see Professor James Reason, “Human error: models and management”, British Medical Journal, vol. 320, 768-770, 2000: http://www.bmj.com/cgi/content/full/320/7237/768 ).

Indeed as a responsible pubIic service I have committed a lot of time and effort to informing governments, media and fellow citizens about important matters, of which the most critically important are Australia’s involvement in the ongoing Aboriginal Genocide (90,000 excess Indigenous deaths under 11 years of Coalition rule) , the Iraqi Genocide (1.5-2 million post-invasion excess deaths, 4.5 million refugees), the Afghan Genocide (3-6 million post-invasion excess deaths, 4 million refugees) and prospective Climate Genocide through Global Warming that threatens 6 billion avoidable deaths this century (see: http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/story/16956300/the_prophet_of_climate_change_james_lovelock ; for detailed and documented analyses see Rudd Australia Report Cards #1, #2 and #3: http://ruddaustraliareportcard.blogspot.com/; Iraqi Genocide: http://ruddaustraliareportcard.blogspot.com/2008/01/rudd-australia-report-card-1-continued.html ; Climate Genocide: http://ruddaustraliareportcard.blogspot.com/2008/01/rudd-australia-report-card-2-climate.html ; Afghan Genocide: http://ruddaustraliareportcard.blogspot.com/2008/01/rudd-australia-report-card-3-australian.html ).

16 million people die avoidably in the world each year (see “Body Count. Global avoidable mortality since 1950” (G.M. Polya, Melbourne, 2007: http://mwcnews.net/content/view/1375/247/ and http://globalbodycount.blogspot.com/ ) but global warming is already impacting human excess mortality and eminent atmosphere scientist Professor James Lovelock FRS estimates that 6 billion will die this century due to unaddressed global warming (see: http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/story/16956300/the_prophet_of_climate_change_james_lovelock ).

The world is facing a potential catastrophe due successively to industrial profligacy, greenhouse gas pollution, global warming and declining per capita sustainable resources. This potential problem of environmental pollution and impacts on biological sustainability has been familiar to scientists since the 19th century research of John Tyndall; was addressed by the Club of Rome in circa 1970; and which was further addressed by successive Assessment Reports of the Inter-governmental Panel on Climate Change since 1990 (see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intergovernmental_Panel_on_Climate_Change ).

As a chemistry-based scientist for 4 decades, I was aware of the finiteness of the atmosphere, the oceans, arable land and fossil fuel reserves from the start of my career. I was made aware of the mounting atmospheric problems back in 1972 as a Queen Elizabeth II Fellow in the department of one of Australia’s top hydrologists and biophysicists who later went on to be Chief Scientist of Australia.

In 1998 I published a book entitled “Jane Austen and the Black Hole of British History. Colonial rapacity, holocaust denial and the crisis in biological sustainability” (see: http://janeaustenand.blogspot.com/ ). In short, I argued that history ignored yields history repeated, holocaust ignored yields holocaust repeated and that the ignoring of successive Bengali Holocausts under the British - the 1769-1770 Bengal Famine (10 million deaths) and the 1943-1944 Bengal Famine (4 million deaths) - will permit a horrendous disaster in the 21st century due to industrial profligacy, man-made global warming and destructive inundation of mega-deltaic Bengal. My predictions of holocaust ignoring and irresponsible industrial profligacy are already being realized – recently formerly densely populated Bengali islands permanently disappeared under the waves, and the last major Bay of Bengal hurricane was the worst for several decades.

Indeed at the height of the “forgotten” 4 million excess death WW2 Bengal Famine (experienced and studied by 1998 Economics Nobel Laureate Professor Amartya Sen of Cambridge and thence Harvard universities) millions of tons of wheat were used to run the railways in Argentina due to the WW2 shortage a coal (see: http://janeaustenand.blogspot.com/ ) – an obscenity now mirrored in the current huge diversion of US grain production to biofuel production with (together with other factors) a consequent steep increase in food prices, the lowest number of food supply days for decades and looming famine for the 2 billion people ALREADY suffering food deprivation.

Climate change is already contributing to the 16 million avoidable deaths (including 9.6 million of under-5 year old infants) that occur each year on Spaceship Earth with the profligate First World in charge of the flight deck (2003 figures; see “Body Count. Global avoidable mortality since 1950”, G.M. Polya, Melbourne, 2007: http://janeaustenand.blogspot.com/ ). Worse is yet to come due to DECLINE in agricultural sustainability, potable water, fisheries, tropical and sub-tropical agricultural productivity, drought, developing world nutrition and even safe living space for mega-delta communities subject to sea level rise, storm surges and salinization.

A must-read document for policy makers is the 2007 “Summary for Policymakers of the Synthesis Report of the IPCC Fourth Assessment Report (AR4)” (for a Summary of the Summary see: http://green-blog.org/ and http://green-blog.org/2007/11/21/summary-of-the-summary-of-the-2007-ipcc-ar4-synthesis-report/ .

Sir Nicholas Stern his authoritative Stern report on the economics of climate change states that it will be cheaper to act now rather than later. For example, in a recent lecture Sir Nicholas Stern states: "For $10-15bn (£4.8-7.2bn) per year, a programme could be constructed that could stop up to half the deforestation” (which contributes 10-15% of greenhouse pollution) and after describing climate change as the “world’s worst market failure”, he says that there must be an 80% reduction in rich nations' greenhouse gas pollution by 2050 if the world is to avoid "destructive" consequences of global warming (see: http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2007/nov/30/climatechange.carbonemissions ).

Indeed the draft recommendation at the December 2007 Bali Conference was for a developed country 25-40% reduction on 1990 levels of greenhouse gas pollution by 2020 – a position opposed by climate criminal countries the US, Canada, Japan and Rudd Australia (see:

http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,22910382-5013871,00.html ).

Unfortunately Rudd Labor, while having secured an urgently needed victory in the elections over the greenhouse sceptic and greenhouse unresponsive Bush-ite Coalition, is simply not green enough (see: link ). While Rudd Labor has ratified Kyoto, it is using the otherwise sensible need for “evidence before policy change” as an EXCUSE not to commit to short-term greenhouse reduction targets until the final form of the Garnaut Report in late 2008. With due respect to the eminent and respected Professor Garnaut and his Report-in-Progress we ALREADY have the Stern Report (see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stern_Review ) from a former Chief Economist of the World Bank (endorsed and indeed criticized as too conservative by former World Bank Chief Economist and 2001 Economics Nobel Laureate Professor Joseph Stiglitz of Columbia University) and the 2007 IPCC Fourth Assessment Report (see: http://www.ipcc.ch/ ) endorsed by leading climate change scientists from essentially all countries.

Indeed the likely target of Stern (500-550 ppm atmospheric CO2 ) is a catastrophe for the planet – according to Professor James Lovelock FRS at 500 ppm atmospheric CO2 the Greenland Ice Sheet goes and so does the ocean phytoplankton system that is crucial for cloud formation (through dimethyl sulphide production), planetary temperature homeostasis (through CO2 sequestration) and oceanic food chains (J. Lovelock, The Revenge of Gaia”, Penguin, London, 2006).

PM Rudd has stated that before making a decision on short term targets his Government needs to have the “facts”. Well, the World has had the “facts” for a dozen years and what follows is a scientist’s assessment of the “facts” drawn from authoritative American and European technical sources. Unfortunately in the Australian Murdochracy, the politically correct racist (PC racist) Land of Lies and Flies, Australia’s world #1 coal exports that contribute over 50% of Australia’s total annual greenhouse gas pollution are not even a matter for public discussion (except for the ethical and responsible Australian Greens) (for how a mature society regards the matter see George Monbiot’s “The real answer to climate change is to leave fossil fuels in the ground”: http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/story/0,,2225387,00.html ).

Indeed any specifically “economic impact” research in 2007-2008 by the eminent Professor Ross Garnaut Climate Change Review will be instantly trashed if the Rest of the World (i.e. other than the US-Australia-Canada-Japan quartet opposing 25-40% reduction in CO2 pollution by 2020) decides officially or unofficially to impose Sanctions, Boycotts or Green Tariffs on the goods and services of climate criminal countries.

Further, what we are facing is a Climate Emergency and a Sustainability Emergency as revealed by the eminent American atmosphere scientist Dr James Hansen who has recently stated that 300-350 ppm atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2) is the safe, sustainable level for the biosphere and human survival – whereas it is actually 383 ppm now and increasing by 2.5 ppm every year. Dr Hansen is effectively calling not for ZERO EMISSIONS but NEGATIVE CO2 EMISSIONS (see the Friends of the Earth’s ”Climate Code Red – the case for a sustainability emergency”: http://www.climatecodered.net/ and http://climatecodered.blogspot.com/ ).

Australia and the World are already experiencing mass flora and fauna extinctions. Qualitatively, this huge destruction of what we can never replace is utterly unacceptable. This economic barbarism is dramatically illustrated by the Great Barrier Reef of Australia.

A recent paper in the prestigious journal Science reveals that at 450 ppm CO2 world coral reefs will start dying from ocean acidification (see: http://www.abc.net.au/rn/scienceshow/stories/2007/2115399.htm ). The coal industry (that is helping to destroy world coral reefs) is worth about A$25 billion pa to Australia (A$2 billion to 25,000 workers and at 30% company tax, about A$8 billion to the taxpayer) - as compared to A$7 billion pa from tourism and 63,000 jobs associated with the Great Barrier Reef (Access Economics: http://www.gbrmpa.gov.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0017/22661/rp_87-GBRCA-economic-contribution-2005-06-final-report.pdf ).

However what is INESTIMABLY more important than a mere circa 1% of Australia’s annual GDP is the prospective destruction of organisms that have been around for half a billion years, the destruction of complex coral ecosystems that have been around for tens of millions of years and the attendant devastation of the ecosystems crucially required for numerous other marine organisms and crucial, humanity-sustaining fisheries.

A crucial paper in the top scientific journal Science of major importance for the Garnaut Review is the seminal, multi-author paper by Balmford et al entitled “Economic reasons for conserving wild nature” (Science, 9 August 2002, 950: http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/reprint/297/5583/950.pdf ; http://www.envirosecurity.org/conference/working/ReasonsConservWildNature.pdf ). These authors estimate that for a number of ecosystems (biomes) studied the total economic value (TEV) is about 50% greater if the natural resource is used sustainably as opposed to irreversibly and destructively. They have further found that the economic benefit from preserving what is left of wild nature exceeds the cost of doing so by a factor of over 100 (one hundred).

The outstanding Australian bioethicist Professor Peter Singer (Princeton University and University of Melbourne) has stated that: “We are responsible not only for what we do but also for what we could have prevented… We should consider the consequences both of what we do and what we decide not to do.”

(Singer, P. (2000), Writings on an Ethical Life (Ecco Press, New York; ppxv-xvi ). Accordingly we must act NOW in the face of what can be reasonably decribed by sober, informed, economically conservative scientists as a Climate Emergency and a Sustainability Emergency.

A few days ago at a social function I was asked by a top US atmosphere scientist - in Australia to work with top Australian atmospheric scientists - what would I do NOW. My answer in short was as follows: Australia has 50 Gigawatt (50 billion watt) electricity generating capacity (85% fossil fuel-driven at present); it currently spends about A$10 billion pa on fossil fuel subsidies; the installation cost for large-scale wind farms is about A$2 per watt of installed capacity; simply diverting this unconscionable fossil fuel subsidy to wind farm installation would yield A$10 billion pa /A$2 per watt = 5 billion watt capacity pa = 50 billion watt (50 Gigawatt) wind power electricity capacity in a mere 10 years, i.e. by 2017.

As detailed below, stated and committed Rudd Government policy means that it will INCREASE Australia’s fossil annual fuel-derived per capita CO2 pollution (already over 10 times higher than the world average if you include our fossil fuel exports) by about 50% by 2050. Every year is important. We must act urgently NOW. “Waiting for Godot” or, with the utmost respect, “waiting for Garnaut” is not an option.

1. Committed Rudd Labor Policy is effective Climate Racism from a per capita CO2 pollution standpoint

In the recent election campaign Rudd committed to “20% renewables by 2020”, “”60% reduction on 2000 greenhouse gas pollution by 2050” and no constraint on fossil fuel extraction for export. What this ACTUALLY means (based on US Energy Information Administration data, assuming current constant coal, gas and CO2 pollution growth rates, constant population and INCLUDING Australia’s fossil fuel EXPORTS) is the following pattern of “total annual per capita fossil fuel-derived CO2 emission in tonnes per person per year” (i.e. “Total Annual Per Capita Pollution” or TAPCP) of 43 (2007), 56 (2020) and 65 (2050).

If Australia agrees to “25% reduction on 1990 domestic levels by 2020” this will mean a TAPCP of 44 (2020); a 40% reduction would mean 42. These values are still about 10 times greater than the “Annual Per Capita Pollution” (APCP) value (2004) for the World (4.2) and China (3.6), about 40 times greater than for India (1) and 160 times greater than for Bangladesh (0.25).

Australia’s TAPCP is already 10 times that of China’s 2004 value and Rudd Labor’s “do nothing, set up a committee” approach means a startling continuation in 2008 of Labor’s 2007 5-fold greater version of the racist Labor Immigration Minister Arthur Calwell’s notorious 1947 declaration: “Two Wongs do not make a White” (see: http://mwcnews.net/content/view/17999/42/ and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arthur_Calwell ) – indeed on the above figures, assuming that China keeps its 2050 APCP to something like 2004 figure, Rudd Labor, for all its ostensible Philosinensis (indeed Arthur Calwell had Chinese friends and spoke Mandarin) is heading for a 2050 TAPCP (65.2) 18 times that of China’s 2004 APCP value (3.6).

2. Professor Garnaut’s “all men are created equal” position (December 2007)

Professor Garnaut (ABC, Lateline, 10 December 2007) stated: (from my notes): “Australia will be pulling its full weight”. “Pulling its full weight” means (if one accepts “all men are created equal” ) that Australia achieves APCP parity (including our fossil fuel exports) with the rest of the world – something that Rudd Labor absolutely refuses to do (see #1). One hopes that the finalized Garnaut Report in late 2008 is able to convince Rudd Labor to eschew the Climate Racism of APCP non-parity.

3. Australian Greens policy consonant with non-Bush-ite “Rest of the World” consensus

The Australian Greens policy is to rapidly phase out fossil fuel extraction and to have an “80% reduction of greenhouse gas pollution by 2050”. This yields an APCP of 2.4 in 2050 and consonant both with the IPCC and Stern 2007 demands for “80% reduction on 1990 levels by 2050”, “Pulling its full weight” (Professor Garnaut, 2007) and “all men are created equal” (Thomas Jefferson, American Declaration of Independence, 1776).

4. US Energy Information Administration data and the climate criminal Bush-ite Coalition legacy

The US Energy Information Administration (EIA; see: http://tonto.eia.doe.gov/country/index.cfm ) provides very detailed information about energy usage by all countries of the world for the last 10 years. Back in 1997 the decent world was so concerned about mounting evidence for anthropogenic, greenhouse gas-driven, climate change that it signed on to the Kyoto Protocol. Not only did climate criminal Australia (together with climate criminal US) not sign the Kyoto Protocol, but Australia’s “annual coal exports”, “annual natural gas extraction”, “annual domestic fossil fuel-derived CO2 production” and “annual total fossil fuel-derived CO2 production” plotted versus time yield beautiful straight lines UPWARDS.

Indeed this beautiful linearity gives greater confidence for extrapolation at either end of these graphs. For the convenience of the reader with some graph paper the estimates of “DOMESTIC annual fossil fuel-derived CO2 production” (millions of tonnes) versus time (with per capita estimates of tonnes per person per year in parenthesis, assuming post-2007 population stasis at 21 million) are: 256 (12.2, 1990), 348 (18.2, 2000), 424 (20.2, 2007), 554 (26.3, 2020) and 853 (40.6, 2050); using the same assumptions the “TOTAL annual fossil fuel-derived CO2 production, TAPCP” (with per capita estimates of tonnes per person per year and year in parentheses) is 435 (25.7, 1990), 698 (36.5, 2000), 910 (43.3, 2007), 1,277 (60.8, 2020) and 2,122 (101.0, 2050).

In relation to the above estimates, the Bush-ite Coalition policy of BAU (business as usual) and no constraint on fossil fuel exports would, on the above assumptions, lead to a “total annual per capita fossil fuel-derived CO2 pollution, TAPCP” of 101 tonnes per person per year in 2050, 27 times China’s 2004 APCP value and 2.5 times Australia’s present TAPCP value.

5. Major international comparisons – Australia is the world’s worst developed country per capita greenhouse polluter

Despite the rhetoric, rational approaches to save the Planet are being resolutely opposed by racist, greedy Bush America (the world’s worst greenhouse gas polluter and stand-out Kyoto non-signatory) and previously Bush-ite and presently neo-Bush-ite Australia (the world’s developed country with the worst annual per capita greenhouse gas pollution and the world’s biggest coal exporter).

Thus 2004 data from the US Energy Information Administration (EIA; see: http://tonto.eia.doe.gov/country/index.cfm ) reveal that “annual per capita fossil fuel-derived CO2 pollution, APCP” in tonnes CO2/person is 19.2 (for Australia; 40 if you include Australia’s coal exports), 19.7 (the US), 18.4 (Canada), 9.9 (Japan), 4.2 (the World), 3.6 (China), 1.0 ( India) and 0.25 (for Bangladesh). Neither Bush America nor Bush-ite Australia will sign Kyoto nor cut greenhouse gas pollution – the countries facing devastation from global warming are the mega-delta, below-World-average polluting countries of China, India and Bangladesh.

Australia is the world’s big country with the highest annual per capita greenhouse polluter and is currently playing “dog in the manger” (together with the US, Canada and Japan) in opposing short-term greenhouse gas pollution reduction targets at the December 2007 Bali Conference.

6. Germanwatch index places Australia #54 in the list of the worst CO2 polluters (#56 being worst)

Of course “annual per capita fossil fuel-derived CO2 pollution” is but one – albeit a very important – indicator of climate criminality. The Germanwatch Climate Change Index 2008, a comparison of the 56 top CO2 emitting nations (see: http://www.germanwatch.org/ccpi.htm ), takes other parameters into account in ranking. In this ranking of 56 top CO2 emitting nations, Sweden and Germany are #1 and #2 for greenhouse responsibility, while shale-oil-rich Canada (a US satrap), coal-rich Australia (a US satrap), the USA and oil-rich Saudi Arabia (a puppet of anti-Arab anti-Semitic, Islamophobic Bush US ) rank #53, #54, #55 and #56, respectively (see: http://www.germanwatch.org/ccpi.htm ) .

7. Annual per capita greenhouse gas pollution for the world and Australia with and without land use change (2000)

The US Energy Information Administration gives a year-by-year summary of fossil fuel-derived CO2 pollution for every country in the world (see: http://www.eia.doe.gov/emeu/iea/carbon.html ). However greenhouse gas pollution (methane, CH4, nitrous oxide, N2O, and carbon dioxide, CO2) comes not just from burning hydrocarbons and coal but also from land use – specifically, agriculture, vegetative decomposition and animal husbandry. A 2000 list of countries by greenhouse gas emissions per capita provides data with and without this land use component (see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_greenhouse_gas_emissions_per_capita ). Land use contributes about 20% of global anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions. Out of 185 countries Australia ranked 9th worst (with land use change) and 5th (without land use change). The tonnes of “CO2 equivalent” per person per year were 25.9 (with) and 25.6 (without land use change) for Australia, indicating the preponderant importance of fossil fuel burning to Australia’s “score”.

8. Annual per capita GDP is directly proportional to annual per capita CO2 emission

If you plot “annual per capita fossil fuel-derived CO2” (2004) versus “annual per capita GDP” (2003) the data from most countries fall on a straight line (not quite going through zero on the “annual per capita GDP” axis) and with a slope of about 0.3 kilograms/US dollar of GDP or 300 grams per US dollar (300 g/US$). However many countries fall ABOVE this line, most notably the oil-rich Gulf States (2.5 kg/US$), world’s #1 coal exporter Australia (1.9 kg/US$), Kyoto-violator Canada (0.8 kg/US$) and Kyoto non-signatory US (0.5 kg/US$).

This analysis shows that GDP is currently directly proportional to CO2 emission and the consequence is that to cut emissions it is necessary to (a) cut GDP and/or (b) cut CO2-polluting energy generation for GDP generation i.e. urgently promote renewables or suffer a declining GDP.

9. IPCC summary

The Inter-governmental Panel on Climate Change has delivered 4 Assessment reports since 1990, the latest being the 2007 Fourth Assessment Report. The prognosis of the latest IPCC Report is very bleak but the situation is actually even worse than they state because of (a) the cut off in scientific papers considered and (b) obfuscatory inputs by climate criminal countries such as the US. For a Summary of the Summary of the 2007 IPCC Synthesis Report of the Fourth Assessment Report see: http://green-blog.org/2007/11/21/summary-of-the-summary-of-the-2007-ipcc-ar4-synthesis-report/ .

The IPCC (2000) has defined various possible scenarios which are summarised in New Scientist, with the worst case scenario being the fast economic growth and globalization, fossil fuel-intensive A1F1 scenario in which global population peaks in mid-century and declines thereafter, and involving the rapid introduction of new and more efficient technologies (see: http://environment.newscientist.com/channel/earth/dn11090). Of various scenarios discussed in the latest IPCC Synthesis Report (see: http://www.ipcc.ch/ ) “Category IV” seems the most favoured in public discussion (e.g. in report by Sir Nicholas Stern) and involves stabilization at 485-570 ppm CO2 , 3.2-4.0 degrees centigrade temperature rise above pre-industrial temperature (2-3 degrees above today’s) and 0.6-2.4 metres sea level above the pre-industrial sea level or 0.4 – 2.2 metres above today’s). However Professor Lovelock (“The Revenge of Gaia”) thinks that 500ppm CO2 would cause disastrous phytoplankton and Greenland ice losses with irreversible loss of major global temperature controls.

Recent data from 2 independent sources (see: “Recent CO2 rises exceed worst case scenarios”, New Scientist) reveal that ACTUAL rates of CO2 emission are the same or worse than in the worst case scenario A1F1 that, according to the 2007 IPCC Summary, will lead to catastrophic, long-term stabilization at (upper estimates) 790 ppm CO2, and a 6 degree centigrade higher temperature and 3.7 meter sea level rise relative to pre-industrial levels i.e. CO2 catastrophically at twice today’s level of 379 ppm , temperatures 4-5 degree centigrade above today’s and sea level 0.8-3.5 metres above today’s.

Thanks to climate criminal, climate genocidal countries, notably Bush America (the world’s #1 GHG polluter) and Bush-ite Australia (the world’s #1 coal exporter) – noting that neither of these will constrain GHG (greenhouse gas) pollution - the world is on track to deliver this predicted catastrophe or even WORSE to our children and grandchildren.

10. The Rudd Labor “Garnaut Report excuse”, “waiting for Garnaut” gambit contradicts the expert, IPCC-endorsed Stern injunction to “Act Now”

Both the IPCC Fourth Assessment report and the Stern Report say “act NOW”. However, stripped of mellifluous rhetoric (e.g. “there is no plan B”) the Rudd Labor position involves a roughly 1 year delay (ONE YEAR DELAY) on any concrete action to constrain greenhouse gas (GHG) pollution. After nearly 12 years of sustained upward growth of CO2 pollution under the climate criminal Bush-ite Coalition this is simply not good enough. If indeed “there is no plan B” why won’t Rudd Australia sign up to the “Plan A” endorsed by every country in the world except for the US and its satraps Australia, Canada and Japan i.e. “25-40% reduction by 2020”?

According to Stern as quoted by the Guardian (2007): “The average emissions a head must fall from seven tonnes to two to three tonnes of carbon dioxide a year by 2050, he says. US emissions a head are more than 20 tonnes each year, with European citizens producing 10-15 tonnes each. In China it is about five tonnes, in India about one, and in Africa less than one tonne each” (see: http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2007/nov/30/climatechange.carbonemissions ).

Australia is currently producing 43 tonnes each per annum (including fossil fuel exports) and according to the public committed Rudd Labor scenario projects 65 tonnes each per annum by 2050 i.e a 50% INCREASE.

11. Rudd Australia greenhouse pollution scenarios

As indicated above (#1) the “solid”, “committed” Rudd Labor Policy indicates “total annual fossil fuel-derived CO2 pollution (million tonnes per year )” of 910 (2007), 1,277 (2020) and 2,122 (2050).

However it is salutary to consider the scenario if Rudd Labor accepted ”25% reduction on 1990 levels by 2050 - “total annual fossil fuel-derived CO2 pollution (million tonnes per year )” would be 910 (2007), 915 (2020) and 1,371 (2050).

If Rudd Labor accepted”40% reduction on 1990 levels by 2050 - “total annual fossil fuel-derived CO2 pollution (million tonnes per year )” would be 910 (2007), 877 (2020) and 1,371 (2050).

Even under Rudd Labor’s “20% renewable by 2020” and “”60% on 2000 levels by 2050”, the “domestic annual fossil fuel-derived CO2 pollution (million tonnes per year )” would be 345 (2000), 424 (2007), 443 (2020) and 138 (2050).

12. Rudd Australia greenhouse pollution scenarios - per capita projections

As indicated above (#1) the “solid” Rudd Labor Policy indicates “total annual per capita pollution (TAPCP, tonnes per person per year)” of 43 (2007), 56 (2020) and 65 (2050);

If Rudd Labor accepted ”25% reduction on 1990 levels by 2050” , “total annual per capita pollution (TAPCP, tonnes per person per year)” would be 43 (2007), 44 (2020) and 65 (2050).

If Rudd Labor accepted “40% on 1990 levels by 2020” the “total annual per capita pollution (TAPCP, tonnes per person per year)” would be 43 (2007), 42 (2020) and 65 (2050).

Even under Rudd Labor’s CURRENTLY PROPOSED “20% renewable by 2020” and “”60% reduction on 2000 levels by 2050” the “DOMESTIC annual per capita pollution (DAPCP, tonnes per person per year)” would be 18 (2000), 21 (2007) and 6.6 (2050) (still nearly twice that of China in 2004).

13. Who pays? Australia benefits from CO2 pollution, the World suffers

I repeat that one of the world's leading bioethicists Professor Peter Singer (Princeton University and University of Melbourne) is unequivocal in his expert judgment that “We are responsible not only for what we do but also for what we could have prevented… We should consider the consequences both of what we do and what we decide not to do.”

(Singer, P. (2000), “Writings on an Ethical Life”, Ecco Press, New York; ppxv-xvi).

Unfortunately there is a major bipartisan agreement in Australia to ignore the global cost of Australia’s world #1 coal exports. The Australian Green proposal in the recent federal election campaign to rapidly phase out this highly irresponsible and planet-threatening industry was howled down by both the Bush-ite Coaltion and the neo-Bush-ite Labor Party.

At the next elections the Bush-ite Coalition will still have the support of about half the voters yet the former Coalition PM described as “crazy” the Rudd Labor proposal to cut emissions in 2050 to 60% of the 2000 value (a proposal that, as shown in #11 and #12 above, falls so far short of what is needed that Rudd Labor might just as well have not bothered except for the purpose of garnering the votes of the gullible).

According to the 2007 IPCC Synthesis report, unaddressed CO2 pollution and global warming will have a devastating effect on global malnutrition and poverty (see: http://green-blog.org/2007/11/21/summary-of-the-summary-of-the-2007-ipcc-ar4-synthesis-report/ ). According the Professor David Pimentel (2004), global malnutrition and poverty will be an “unimaginable” problem by 2054 (see: http://www.news.cornell.edu/releases/Feb04/AAAS.pimentel.hrs.html ), already pollution of the soil, water and air kills about 40% of the world’s population and 57% of the world’s population of 6.5 billion is already malnourished (see: http://www.news.cornell.edu/stories/Aug07/moreDiseases.sl.html ).

Already 16 million people due avoidably each year (9.6 million being under-5 year old infants) on a Spaceship Earth dominated by a profligate and unresponsive First World (see “Body Count. Global avoidable mortality since 1950”, G.M. Polya, Melbourne, 2007: http://globalbodycount.blogspot.com/ ) – and Australia is on a per capita basis is one of the world’s worst offenders. As indicated above, according to Professor James Lovelock FRS unaddressed global warming will kill 6 billion people this century – Climate Genocide (“intent to destroy in whole or in part” according to Article 2 of the UN Genocide Convention: http://www.edwebproject.org/sideshow/genocide/convention.html )

14. Who pays? The true environmental and human cost of coal-based electricity can be over 4 times the present market cost

According to a Ministry of Energy Report from Ontario, Canada, coal plants kill 668 people per year in Ontario (population 12.7 million), and cause 1,100 emergency room visits, and more than 300,000 minor illnesses per year. These and previous findings by the Ontario Medical Association were behind bi-partisan will to close Ontario’s coal-fired electricity plants. This Report estimated that a “market” cost of about 4 cents/kWh increases to a “true cost” of about 16 cents/kWh (see: http://www.evworld.com/news.cfm?newsid=8836 ): “The study estimated that the total net present value of coal-fired generation is costing Ontario $0.164 CAD/kWh. Environmental and health costs accounted for 77% to total generation costs”.

15. “True cost” of fossil fuels versus bearable cost, corporate/government-determined cost and A$10 billion pa subsidies for Australian fossil fuel burning

While the “true cost” of coal-based electricity can be over 4 times the “market” cost, this will be ignored in corporate, government and diplomatic “horse-trading” to set carbon price – just as society in practice ignores the “annual death rate” due to cigarette smoking (about 1,000 per million) or due to cars (about 100 per million) in assessing the “true cost” of tobacco or cars. Extrapolating from Ontario, the annual death rate from coal-fired power generation is about 50 per million.

If the true environmental and human cost of fossil fuel-derived power were taken into account then (a) economics would dictate “keep fossil fuels in the ground” (as advocated by the Australian Greens and by George Monbiot: http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/story/0,,2225387,00.html ), (b) subsidies would be immediately removed and (c) compensation ordered by the courts for the victims of this technological perversion (as has happened already in relation to victims of industrial use of asbestos).

16. Renewables are the way – keep fossil fuels in the ground

3-4 — coal, Australia;

18 — the real cost of coal, taking into account the environmental and health impact; according to a conservative Canadian Ontario Ministry of Energy Report (CAN$0.164);

15 — nuclear via the UK’s newest Sizewell B plant;

7.5-8.5 — wind power, Australia;

15 — concentrated solar power or CSP;

25-45 — standard silicon-based photovoltaics (PVs).

However recent advances means we must add the following to the list:

17. Nuclear is not an option

The Bush-ite Coalition had an unerring knack of being resolutely incorrect or in denial about so many crucial matters – anthropogenic climate change, the reasons for war in Iraq and Afghanistan, the terrorist threat to Australia, and the cost of meeting the climate change crisis. They are also incorrect in relation to the nuclear option. As summarized in #16 above the nuclear option is more expensive than current renewable wind and geothermal technologies and as expensive as current concentrated solar technology. Further, the FULL nuclear cycle (from uranium mining and processing to waste disposal and plant de-commissioning) can be as expensive in terms of CO2 emissions as a gas-fired power station – and we still have the intractable security and waste disposal problems.

18. Mandated efficient energy PROVISION as well as USAGE

Australia has mandated replacement of incandescent globes with high efficiency electric lights over the next year or so. If Australia can legislatively mandate efficient energy USAGE it should also mandate the highest efficiency, lowest REAL cost energy PROVISION - currently geothermal, followed by wind with both of these set to be shortly supplanted by exciting low-cost solar technologies.

Failure of Australia to mandate minimum price energy provision simply reflects entrenched dishonesty and corruption in our society. This is briefly discussed further below in relation to the Australian and global impact of fossil fuel burning.

19. Oil, strategic hegemony and 5-8 million post-invasion excess deaths in the Bush Wars in the Occupied Iraqi and Afghan Territories

The strategic importance of the Middle East in terms of oil and global hegemony is the core reason for the Bush Asian Wars that have so far been associated with 5-8 million post-invasion excess deaths in the Occupied Iraqi and Afghan Territories. This explanation has been argued cogently by outstanding anti-war humanitarian Professor Noam Chomsky (from 63-Nobel- Laureate Massachusetts Institute of Technology, MIT) in an article entitled “Imminent Crises: Threats and Opportunities ” in which he says of the Middle East : “the huge energy resources of the region were recognized by Washington sixty years ago as a “stupendous source of strategic power,” the “strategically most important area of the world,” and “one of the greatest material prizes in world history.”[reference] 1 Control over this stupendous prize has been a primary goal of U.S. policy ever since, and threats to it have naturally aroused enormous concern.”

Total post-invasion excess deaths in the Occupied Iraqi and Afghan Territories now stand at about 5-8 million. There has been a horrendous human cost of the ongoing Palestinian Genocide, Iraqi Genocide and Afghan Genocide (post-invasion excess deaths 0.3 million, 1.5-2 million and 3-6 million, respectively; post-invasion under-5 infant deaths total 0.2 million, 0.6 million and 2.2 million, respectively; and refugees total 7 million, 4.5 million and 4 million, respectively) (updated figures from MWC News).

However there is a further huge cost in the US$2.5 trillion accrual cost of the Bush wars (according to 2001 Economics Nobel Laureate Professor Joseph Stiglitz) that has recently been updated to $3.5 trillion by a Congressional Report (see: http://mwcnews.net/content/view/13099/26/ ) ; the $2.6 trillion post-1956 accrual cost of US aid for Zionist colonization of Palestine, Lebanon and Syria (see: http://mwcnews.net/content/view/533/26/ ); the huge human cost of the US-expanded opiate trade – 0.6 million post-2001 global opiate drug-related deaths (about 2,000 in Australia) due to US Alliance restoration of the Taliban-destroyed Afghan opium industry from about 5% of world market share in 2001 to 93% in 2007; and huge diversion of financial support from alleviation of global warming-exacerbated poverty (the “War on Terror” has cost Australia alone about $20 billion in corporate and government domestic security measures and billions more in overseas military deployments).

20. Huge environmental cost and environmental economic cost of fossil fuel burning and deforestation for Australia and the World

It has been estimated by Balmford et al in the prestigious scientific journal Science (see “Economic reasons for preserving wild nature”: http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/abstract/297/5583/950 ) that for a variety of “biomes” (ecological systems) the total economic value (TEV) is about 50% greater when the resource is used sustainably as opposed to destructive conversion. Further, these scientists have found that the economic benefit from preserving what is left of wild nature is OVER 100 TIMES greater than the cost of preservation.

However these estimates are IGNORED by Lib-Lab Australian Governments in the interests of “current jobs” and corporations as we see in the ongoing deforestation of Victoria and Tasmania. The true economic value of State-owned assets are not being considered – these citizen-owned public resources are effectively being given away to private corporations.

These ugly realities of dishonesty and environmental vandalism reach a pinnacle in relation to greenhouse gas pollution. The polluters are not being charged the full cost of what they are destroying. Indeed quite the reverse is happening – fossil fuel burning is actually SUBSIDIZED to the tune of about $10 billion annually in Australia (see: http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,22873649-12377,00.html ).

A further concrete Australian example is the threat to the Great Barrier Reef from global warming as spelled out in the latest 2007 IPCC Synthesis Report (see: http://www.ipcc.ch/ ) – this is of course a major tourist asset in an economic sense.

21. Biofuels represent a perversion with 57% malnourished, grain production peaking and grain price rising due to Biofuels and Meat

As outlined in #13, According to the 2007 IPCC Synthesis report, unaddressed CO2 pollution and global warming will have a devastating effect on global malnutrition and poverty (see: http://www.ipcc.ch/). According the Professor David Pimentel (2004) of Cornell University, New York, global malnutrition and poverty will be an “unimaginable” problem by 2054 (see: http://www.news.cornell.edu/releases/Feb04/AAAS.pimentel.hrs.html ), already pollution of the soil, water and air kills about 40% of the world’s population and 57% of the world’s population of 6.5 billion is already malnourished (see: http://www.news.cornell.edu/stories/Aug07/moreDiseases.sl.html ).

Biofuels are formally CO2 neutral and renewable – however in the context of horrendous global poverty, a major decline in grain production, huge increases in grain price and increasing diversion of grain for biofuel generation (see: http://www.fas.usda.gov/grain/circular/2006/05-06/graintoc.htm ) this is a perversion and a crime against humanity, the more so when alternative cheap, efficient renewable energy options are technically already available (see #16).

22. Oil is the feedstock for sophisticated organic chemical industry – it should NOT be burned

Forty years ago my organic chemistry lecturer told us that we are actually BURNING the feedstock for sophisticated chemical industry, the material used to make pharmaceuticals and plastics that dominate modern life. Today this wanton destruction of an immensely valuable resource is continuing. The “real cost” and the “real value” are ignored because of the political might of fossil fuel burning corporations.

I am acutely aware of this travesty as the author of a huge pharmacological reference text (Gideon Polya, “Biochemical Targets of Plant Bioactive Compounds. A pharmacological reference guide to sites of action and biological effects” CRC Press, Taylor & Francis, New York & London, 2003:

http://www.amazon.com/Biochemical-Targets-Plant-Bioactive-Compounds/dp/0415308291 ).

23. Deforestation can be halved by investing US$15 billion per annum

Further to the points made in relation to environmental impacts of global warming, deforestation contributes about 15-20% to increased net global greenhouse gas production annually. Yet according to Sir Nicholas Stern: "For $10-15bn (£4.8-7.2bn) per year, a programme could be constructed that could stop up to half the deforestation” (see: http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2007/nov/30/climatechange.carbonemissions ).

24. Climate criminal countries such as Australia face Sanctions, Boycotts, Green Tariffs and Reparations Demands

The science and technology has been well reviewed internationally (see the 2007 IPCC Reports: http://www.ipcc.ch/ and a recent review of renewable scenarios: http://www.martinot.info/Martinot_et_al_AR32_prepub.pdf ) as indeed has the economic of climate change via the Stern Report (see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stern_Review ).

The Rudd Government intransigence in not supporting the draft Bali proposal of “25-40% reduction by 2020” is ostensibly because of the economic review by Professor Garnaut due in first draft in mid-2008 and presumably finalized by late 2008.

Yet one boundary condition of Professor Garnaut’s report is already clear – in his own words (December 2007) “Australia will be pulling its full weight” which means (if one accepts “all men are created equal” ) that Australia achieves “annual per capita greenhouse gas pollution” parity with the rest of the world. However the other boundary condition (perceived “affordability” in the light of Australia-specific economic analysis) is completely uncertain for the simple reason that the World may decide to take action against climate criminal countries such as Australia and the US through imposition of Sanctions, Boycotts, Green Tariffs and Reparations Demands.

Indeed a SOLUTION to greedy, climate criminal US, Canada, Japan and Australian intransigence at Bali would be international Sanctions and Boycotts or, more precisely, "Green Tariffs" and Reparations Demands that recognize the REAL environmental and human cost of goods produced by these irresponsible and intrinsically RACIST climate criminal countries.

It is notable that these 4 countries have ANOTHER intrinsically racist and genocidal activity in common - various participation in the genocidal Bush Asian Wars - post-invasion excess deaths in the Iraqi Genocide and Afghan Genocide now total 1.5-2 million and 3-6 million, respectively; post-invasion under-5 infant deaths total 0.6 million and 2.2 million, respectively; and refugees total 4.5 million and about 4 million, respectively) (see: "Solar energy & the end of war": http://mwcnews.net/content/view/18667/42/ ).

What Australia and the US are doing is far more serious and intrinsically racist than the crimes of Apartheid South Africa, a system that was eventually disposed of through international Sanctions and Boycotts. Sanctions, Boycotts, Green Tariffs and Reparations Demands may well be applied to Australia, the US and like climate criminal countries that are threatening the Planet with climate genocide. Indeed a model for this comes from outstanding American academic, writer, editor and economist, Father of Reaganomics Dr Paul Craig Roberts who explicitly demands that the world should stop the “Iraqi genocide” by “dumping the dollar” (see: http://www.counterpunch.org/roberts02122007.html ). The World is evidently doing just that – and may well act similarly towards an intransigent Australia, on a per capita basis the world’s worst developed country greenhouse gas polluter.

Summary

On a per capita basis and including our fossil fuel exports, Australia is the developed country with the highest greenhouse gas pollution. Thus 2004 data from the US Energy Information Administration reveal that “annual per capita fossil fuel-derived CO2 pollution” in tonnes CO2/person is 19.2 (for Australia; 40 if you include Australia’s coal exports), 19.7 (the US), 18.4 (Canada), 9.9 (Japan), 4.2 (the World), 3.6 (China), 1.0 ( India) and 0.25 (for Bangladesh).

The Rudd Labor commitment to “20% renewables by 2020”, “”60% reduction on 2000 greenhouse gas pollution by 2050” and no constraint on fossil fuel extraction for export ACTUALLY means (based on US Energy Information Administration data, assuming current constant coal, gas and CO2 pollution growth rates, constant population and including Australia’s fossil fuel EXPORTS) “annual per capita fossil fuel-derived CO2 emission in tonnes per person per year” of 43 (2007), 56 (2020) and 65 (2050).

If Australia continues to refuse to act on both domestic and exported greenhouse gas pollution it will very likely face international action through Sanctions, Boycotts, Green Tariffs and Reparations Demands. The Rudd “Garnaut Report” excuse for inaction at Bali is contradicted by Professor Garnaut’s recent very clear and highly ethical declaration that ““Australia will be pulling its full weight” which, given the equality of all Men, surely means massive reduction of CO2 pollution to per capita parity with countries such as India and China.

Simple notional calculations tell us that Australia could completely replace its current 50 Gigawatt electricity generating capacity with wind power within 10 years by simply investing its current $10 billion annual fossil fuel subsidies into wind farms (noting of course, that other renewable options are now ALREADY much cheaper than the “true cost” of fossil-fuel-based electricity).

In short, the world is facing a Climate Emergency and a Sustainability Emergency that requires urgent action NOW to REDUCE atmospheric CO2 from a current 383 ppm to a level of 300-350 ppm required for biosphere sustainability. The science, technology and economics all instruct (subject to transition and related qualifications) that we should keep the fossil fuels in the ground – indeed we need to have a NEGATIVE atmospheric CO2 growth.

This has been written in the public interest.

Dr Gideon Polya
Melbourne, Australia

Truth, Reason and Words having failed in the Western Murdochracies, as an artist as well as a scientist he has painted several huge paintings relating to the Climate Emergency, namely “Terra”: http://mwcnews.net/content/view/15671/42/ and “Apocalypse Now”: http://mwcnews.net/content/view/17652/42/ .