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Climate Criminal Coalition Government Lying Endangers Australia & Planet –
Australians Must Vote 1 Green And Put The Coalition Last

By Dr Gideon Polya

17 June, 2016
Countercurrents.org

Rational risk management is crucial for societal safety and  successively  involves  (a) accurate information, (b) scientific analysis,  and (c) informed  systemic change to minimize risk. However the anti-science, anti-environment,  pro-fossil fuels  Australian Coalition Government has utterly perverted this process in relation to the worsening climate emergency through  spin, lying by commission,  lying by omission and censorship. Critically, Coalition Government mendacity endangers society  and thus  science-informed Australians will put the Coalition last in the 2 July  2016 Federal elections.  

The rational risk management protocol required for societal security  is typically perverted by corporate lobbyists and  corporate-backed politicians  by (a) lying by commission, lying by omission and censorship (that sabotage rational responses to risk),   (b) anti-science, spin-based analysis involving  slies (spin-based untruths) and the selective use of asserted facts to support a partisan position (in contrast to scientific  analysis  that involves the critical testing of potentially falsifiable hypotheses), and (c) counterproductive blame and shame that inhibits truthful reportage (in contrast to  reportage-encouraging, science-informed systemic change to minimize risk to society).

Truthful reportage  is crucial not only for science and  science-based risk management but also for Democracy that critically requires an informed electorate. However in Australia and in other Western countries, the currently  dominant, pro-One Percenter, neoliberal ideology  has meant that Democracy has been replaced by Plutocracy, Kleptocracy, Murdochracy, Lobbyocracy, Corporatocracy and Dollarocracy in which Big Money purchases politicians, parties, policies, public perception of reality, more political power and thence even more private profit at the expense of society as a whole.

This prevalence of lying is well illustrated by Murdochracy Australia in which 70% of newspaper readership is in the hands of the Murdoch  media empire headed by the former Australian but presently  US citizen Rupert Murdoch.  The Murdoch media empire has fought long and hard to deny  the science-demonstrated reality of man-made global warming and against climate change action. King-maker Rupert Murdoch supports the pro-fossil fuels  Australian Coalition Government which is effectively climate change denialist in being  opposed to urgent action on greenhouse gas (GHG) pollution. The Liberal Party-National Party Coalition  (aka the Coalition, the COALition or the KOALition) is composed of the pro-business Liberal Party and the smaller  pro-farmer National Party. About 50% of Coalition MPs are explicit, anti-science  climate change deniers but 100% are effective climate change deniers by opposing climate change action.

Australia is a Federation of 6 states and 2 Territories which have their own parliaments in addition to the bicameral Federal Parliament that has a democratic, one-person-one-vote  House of Representatives (150 MPs) that determines which party forms government,  and an undemocratic  Senate  composed of 76 senators, twelve from each of the six States and two from each of the Territories (thus, for example,  the island state of Tasmania with a population of only 0.5 million has the same number of Senators as Victoria with a population of  5.8 million).  Australia has compulsory  preferential voting in Federal elections. All adults have to vote and voting involves numerically indicating descending support for the various candidates. A late May 2016 Morgan Poll revealed primary voter intentions as 32.5% (Labor), 37.5% (Coalition), 13% (Greens) and 17% (Independents) - most Green preferences go to Labor with this yielding a “2-party-preferred vote” of 49% for the governing Coalition and 51% for Labor [1].

In relation to climate change action, the corporate-backed, neoliberal, US lackey Coalition wants minimal action on GHG pollution Domestically through an absurd  Direct Action Plan (tree planting and paying big polluters to pollute less), opposes rapid uptake of renewable energy, and wants  unlimited exports of coal, gas, iron ore and meat from methanogenic livestock production. Right-wing-dominated, neoliberal, and US lackey but Trade Union-supported  Labor  wants an empirically ineffective and fraudulent  Emissions Trading Scheme with a derisory Carbon Price, 50% renewable energy by 2030, and, like the Coalition, wants unlimited exports of coal, gas, iron ore and meat from methanogenic livestock production. The science-informed, pro-environment  Greens want urgent climate change action through a transparent Carbon Price, cutting GHG pollution domestically, 100% renewable energy ASAP and major constraints on exported GHG pollution via coal and gas.

The reason for this anti-science Australian climate change inaction is simple: greed. Australia is a major contributor  to global GHG pollution through high domestic GHG pollution, and massive GHG pollution exports via exported coal, gas, iron ore and meat from methanogenic livestock production. In 2015 Australia's Domestic GHG pollution was 0.6 Gt CO2-e (CO2 equivalent, taking other greenhouse gases into account) but its Exported GHG pollution due to coal, gas and iron ore  exports totalled 1.5Gt CO2-e . Accordingly, the annual per capita GHG pollution of Australia (population 24 million) in tonnes CO2-e per person per year is 25 (Domestic GHG pollution) and 88 (Domestic plus Exported GHG pollution) as compared to 0.9 for Bangladesh [2].  Australia with 0.3% of the world's population contributes 1.4% of global  GHG pollution (considering only its Domestic GHG pollution) or 5.0% (considering its Domestic plus Exported GHG pollution).

However it gets worse. World Bank analysts carefully re-evaluated the contribution of livestock production to world annual GHG pollution and found that the world's annual total rose from 41.76 billion tonnes CO2-equivalent (CO2-e) as estimated by the Food and Agricultural  Organisation  (FAO) to 63.80 billion tonnes CO2-e, with livestock production contributing  over 51% of the higher figure [3]. Taking land use into account, the revised annual per capita GHG pollution in tonnes per person per year is 52.9 for Australia (116 if including its huge GHG-generating mining exports) as compared to 2.7 for Bangladesh [4]. Annual per capita greenhouse gas pollution per se is a flawed measure of national culpability for this because it ignores rich countries outsourcing  industrial pollution to China, and impoverished countries compelled to pollute to barely survive.  A better measure of culpability is weighted annual per capita greenhouse gas pollution taking relative per capita income into account, this revealing that Australia is the world's third worst polluter with a score of 307 (673 if including its exported GHG pollution) as compared to 0.3 for India, Pakistan and Bangladesh [5].

Egregious lying by commission, lying by omission, and censorship by Mainstream media, politician and academic presstitutes has ensured that Australians are unaware of the full extent of Australia's disproportionately high GHG pollution. The US is the world's second worst GHG polluter and massive US state subversion and massive corporate intervention in the electoral process contribute to the Mainstream Australian lying. Thus the CIA was complicit in the removal of the reformist Whitlam Labor Government in 1975 and the Americans effectively vetoed Labor leader Mark Latham in the 2004 elections for vowing to bring Australian forces back from the illegal war in Iraq (according  to Alan Greenspan,  conservative US economist who served as Chairman of the US Federal Reserve from 1987 to 2006, the Iraq War was about oil) [6]. Labor PM Kevin Rudd proposed a Mining Tax but was removed in 2010 in a US-approved,  Mining Industry-backed, pro-Zionist-led Coup. The Mining Company had threatened to use $100 million to stop the Mining Tax but the Australian Electoral Commission found that in the event they only spent $22 million to bring down a popularly-elected Prime Minister [7].  These Lobbyocracy abuses continue in Australia. Thus the  Guardian Australia commenting on a 350.org report:  “The report [by 350.org] looked at donations declared to the Australian Electoral Commission since the last federal election [2013], which amounted to $3.69 million. It then calculated the combined value of four tax rebates and credits that would be used by the fossil-fuel industry in the 2016-2017 financial year, which it estimated would amount to $7.7 billion” i.e. over $2,000 in subsidies for every $1 in political donations [8]. This would be described by Australian Mainstream media as egregious corruption if it occurred in Indonesia, China or Russia.

With this background we can now systematically analyze the climate change -related lying, spin and deception  of the  Australian Coalition that is presently ruling Australia led by PM Malcolm Turnbull, a charming, all-smiles, urbane  and articulate  politician who is nevertheless lipstick-on-a-pig in heading an extreme right-wing, anti-science, neoliberal Coalition Government that is effectively climate change denialist  through world-leading climate change inaction  and also committed to a massive wealth transfer from the poor to the rich.

(A) Coalition censorship – silencing expert opinion.

1. Australian Coalition Government success in censoring UN climate change report to remove Australian climate crimes.

Professor Will Steffen (emeritus professor at the Australian National University,  head of Australia's Climate Council and formerly  executive director of the International Geosphere Biosphere Programme) (2016): “Last year I was asked to review an international scientific report on the impacts of climate change on World Heritage sites and tourism. I reviewed a case study on the Great Barrier Reef, focussing on the increasing risks to tourism from climate change.  Overnight the report was released – but mysteriously, the Great Barrier Reef chapter had been cut completely. I was astonished, given we've just witnessed the worst coral bleaching event in the Reef's history. Australian officials have now confirmed to The Guardian that they asked the report authors to remove any reference to the Great Barrier Reef, or any Australian world heritage site. No sections about any other country were removed. As a scientist, I'm angry. As an Australian, I'm disgusted” [9].

The Guardian newspaper reported (2016): “Every reference to Australia was scrubbed from the final version of a major UN report on climate change after the Australian government intervened, objecting that the information could harm tourism. Guardian Australia can reveal the report “World Heritage and Tourism in a Changing Climate”, which Unesco jointly published with the United Nations environment program and the Union of Concerned Scientists on Friday, initially had a key chapter on the Great Barrier Reef, as well as small sections on Kakadu and the Tasmanian forests. But when the Australian Department of Environment saw a draft of the report, it objected, and every mention of Australia was removed by Unesco. Will Steffen, one of the scientific reviewers of the axed section on the reef, said Australia's move was reminiscent of “the old Soviet Union”. No sections about any other country were removed from the report. The removals left Australia as the only inhabited continent on the planet with no mentions. Explaining the decision to object to the report, a spokesperson for the environment department told Guardian Australia: “Recent experience in Australia had shown that negative commentary about the status of world heritage properties impacted on tourism.” As a result of climate change combined with weather phenomena, the Great Barrier Reef is in the midst of the worst crisis in recorded history. Unusually warm water has caused 93% of the reefs along the 2,300km site to experience bleaching. In the northern most pristine part, scientists think half the coral might have died” [10].

2. Australian Coalition Government got the imperilled Great Barrier Reef off the UNESCO in-danger list.

Guardian report on Australian Government success in getting UNESCO to keep the Great Barrier Reef off the in-danger list (2015): “On Wednesday [1 July 2015] , the 21 nations on Unesco's world heritage committee unanimously endorsed an earlier draft ruling that the reef stay off the in-danger list, although Australia must report back on its recovery plans by December next year… [Australian Environment Minister] Hunt said the reef decision, along with the world heritage committee's far more critical appraisal of the management of Tasmania's wilderness area, was a “really outstanding set of outcomes for Australia and for Australia to be held up before the world and by the world as a role model I think is a good day for Australia's environmental reputation” [11].

3. Mass sackings and redeployments of CSIRO climate scientists under Coalition Government.

The prestigious Scientific American reported (2016): “As many as 110 out of 140 positions at the atmosphere and oceans division at the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation (CSIRO) will be cut, Larry Marshall, the agency's chief executive, told staff Friday. Another 120 positions will be cut from the land and water program. Across the agency, 350 climate staff will be moved into new roles unrelated to their specialty. Scientists say the cuts would affect Australia's ability to cope with climate change. The nation is already the driest on Earth and experiencing significant shifts in rainfall. It would leave the global research community disabled, since CSIRO ran the Southern Hemisphere's most comprehensive Earth monitoring and modeling programs. And it would leave young climate scientists at CSIRO without direction” [12].

4. Coalition Government closure of the expert Climate Commission.

The Labor Government set up an expert Climate Commission to inform government and the people about the worsening climate emergency. The Abbott Coalition Government abolished the Climate Commission but it promptly reconstituted  itself as a privately-funded Climate Council in order to continue to inform the public [13].

5. Coalition Government attempted closure and constraint of the Australian Renewable Energy Agency (ARENA).

 The Labor Government set up the Australian Renewable Energy Agency (ARENA) to make renewable energy solutions more affordable and increase the supply of renewable energy in Australia [14]. The Abbott Coalition Government tried unsuccessfully to close the Australian Renewable Energy Agency (ARENA) but was blocked by the Senate.  The Turnbull Coalition Government stripped $1.3 billion from ARENA. Adam Bandt (Greens MP and Greens Treasury spokesperson): “If the Prime Minister wants to double investment in clean energy R&D, he should be doubling the budgets of ARENA [Australian Renewable Energy Agency] and the CEFC [Clean Energy Finance Corporation] , instead of trying to abolish them. After signing on to join ‘Mission Innovation', the Prime Minister must now walk away from his government's bills that aim to abolish ARENA and the CEFC, and cut research and development tax credits” [15]. Giles Parkinson reported thus on bipartisan Lib-Lab (Coalition Government and Labor Opposition) abandonment of ARENA (2016):  “A Labor government will not reinstate $1 billion in funding for the Australian Renewable Energy Agency, which has underpinned much of Australian investment in solar farms and battery storage and R&D over the past few years… a  government press release, which said that the Coalition would effectively scupper ARENA, strip it of $1.3 billion, remove its grants-based mechanism and relegate it to a role of “advising” CEFC on equity investments and loans” [16].

6. Coalition Government attempted closure and constraint of the Clean Energy Finance Corporation (CEFC).

The Labor Government set up the Clean Energy Finance Corporation (CEFC) for expertly-informed investment in clean energy. The Abbott Coalition Government tried unsuccessfully to close the CEFC but was blocked in the Senate. The Turnbull Coalition Government tried a more subtle approach by setting up a new  “Clean Energy Innovation Fund” by stripping funds from ARENA and the CEFC. Giles Parkinson reporting on the Turnbull Coalition Government's retention of the CEFC: “Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull has put his own stamp on clean energy investment in Australia, dumping Coalition plans to scrap the Clean Energy Finance Corporation, but announcing new plans to essentially de-fund the Australian Renewable Energy Agency and replace it with a new “Clean Energy Innovation Fund”. The retention of the CEFC will be welcome and signals a potential shift from the anti-renewable policy stance of the Abbott regime that preceded him. But the move to de-fund ARENA and create a “new” fund using money already allocated to the CEFC is nothing but a sleight of hand, and an elaborate ruse by Turnbull to save more than a $1.3 billion and get his new pet-word “innovation” included in a financing scheme. It may also be designed to meet Australia's Paris commitment to invest “new money” in clean energy innovation” [17]. The CEFC states: “In March 2016, the Australian Government announced that the CEFC will have a greater focus around innovation, through a new $1 billion Clean Energy Innovation Fund (CEIF). The intention is that the CEIF will focus on companies, businesses and projects at early stages of development that are now seeking growth capital, or early stage capital, to assist their businesses get to the next stage of their development. The CEIF will be jointly managed by the CEFC and the Australian Renewable Energy Agency (ARENA), drawing on the complementary experience and expertise of the two organisations” [18]. Cynics could expect “clean energy” to eventually include   “clean coal” (commercially unfeasible sequestration of CO2 from coal burning ) and “cleaner energy” falsely including  gas (noting that gas burning is cleaner than coal burning CO2-wise and pollutant-wise but because gas leaks and methane has a vastly greater Global Warming Potential relative to CO2 of 105 on a 20 year time frame, gas burning  can be dirtier GHG-wise than coal burning) [19].

7. Coalition Government opposition to a big Renewable Energy Target (RET).

The Australian Renewable Energy Target (RET) was  a Labor Government -initiated  Federal Government policy to ensure at least 41,000 GWh of renewable energy by 2020. The Coalition fought this tooth and nail and under the Coalition Government Government the RET was reduced in June 2015 from the previously legislated 41,000 GWh to 33,000 GWh or at least 20% by 2020 [20]. Coalition Government intransigence had a huge negative impact on the renewable energy industry. Coalition PM Malcolm Turnbull waffles and spins about “agility”,  “innovation” and “jobs and growth” but the  hard reality is that the anti-science Coalition has an appalling record of opposing  renewable energy  and the tens of thousands of jobs associated with a transition to 100% renewable energy [2].

8. Coalition Government attacks on universities and university students (key sources of climate information and climate activism).

Expert  advice on climate change impacts comes from university scientists and economists as well as  from CSIRO and the Bureau  of Meteorology. The Coalition is fundamentally anti-science and anti-intellectual, this being linked to its  neoliberal ideology of maximizing the freedom of the advantaged to exploit natural and human resources for private profit (as opposed to social humanism that seeks to maximize happiness, dignity and opportunity for everyone) [21, 22]. A neoliberal, corporatist  ideology is now dominant among  university managers (grossly over-paid and  parasitic  refugees from scholarship) leading to unacceptable academic censorship through university Codes of Conduct limiting academic freedom of speech that might impact on corporate university “brand” [23-32 ] . The Coalition supported the Australia-United States  Defence Trade Cooperation Treaty-related Defence Trade Controls  Bill that make it an offence punishable by 10 years in prison for an academic scientist without a permit to inform non-Australians  (in conversation, tutorials, lectures, conference papers, scientific papers etc) about numerous  technologies and thousands of chemicals and organisms  listed in a presently 353-page Defence and Strategic Goods List [33]. The fervently pro-Zionist Coalition has vowed to strip any Federal funding from academics who support Boycotts, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) against democracy-by-genocide Apartheid Israel [34]. The Coalition has shown its anti-science and anti-intellectual colours by slashing funding  for research and for universities. Australia has an Educational Apartheid system that discriminates against  the two thirds of Australian children who attend State schools and the Coalition has  proposed cessation of Federal funding for State schools while retaining lavish  Federal funding for private schools. Attempts by the Coalition to deregulate universities with the prospect of $100,000 degrees was blocked by Labor, Independents  and the Greens in the Senate, noting that some 20 countries have resolved that university education can and should be free [26].      

9. Coalition Government -impelled demise of the  Australian Department of Climate Change.

 

The Department of the Environment, Water, Heritage and the Arts was set up by the Rudd Labor Government in December 2007 [35] and thence transmuted to the Department of Climate Change and Energy Efficiency under the Rudd Labor Government in March 2010 [36].  A further Department of Sustainability, Environment, Water, Population and Communities [37] was set up in December  2010 under PM Julia Gillard who came to power in June 2010 in a CIA-approved, Mining Company-backed and pro-Zionist-led Coup.  PM Gillard  was subsequently elected to lead a minority government in 2010  under the promise that “There all be no Carbon Tax under a government I lead”, a promise that was broken with the installation of a paltry $6 per tonne CO2-e Carbon Tax that was removed by Coalition PM  Tony Abbott. Labor's Department of Climate Change and Energy Efficiency became the Department of Industry, Innovation, Climate Change, Science, Research and Tertiary Education in March 2013 [38] under Labor PM Gillard, but under the subsequent Abbott  Coalition Government (September 2013- September 2014) had its industry functions transferred to the Department of Industry [39] (and thence in 2015  under the June 2014- July 2016 Turnbull Coalition Government to the Department of Innovation, Industry and Science [40] ), had its  education and training functions transferred to the Department  Education and Training [41],  and had its environment functions transferred to the Department of the Environment [42].

(B) Coalition falsehoods – some key examples.

1. False assertions re climate change by Malcolm Turnbull (now PM).

Turnbull as Howard Coalition Government Environment Minister (2007): “Australia is leading the world on climate change” [43].  Turnbull as Howard Coalition Government Environment Minister (24 May 2007): “The Australian government is leading the world in climate change policies” [44]. Fact: taking land use into account, the revised annual per capita GHG pollution in tonnes per person per year is 52.9 for Australia (116 if including its huge GHG-generating mining exports) as compared to 2.7 for Bangladesh [4]. Annual per capita greenhouse gas pollution per se is a flawed measure of national culpability for this because it ignores rich countries outsourcing  industrial pollution to China, and impoverished countries compelled to pollute to barely survive.  A better measure of culpability is weighted annual per capita greenhouse gas pollution taking relative per capita income into account, this revealing that Australia is the world's third worst polluter with a score of 307 (673 if including its exported GHG pollution) as compared to 0.3 for India, Pakistan and Bangladesh [5].

Clive Hamilton on Turnbull falsehoods: “The most dangerous man in Australia today is Malcolm Turnbull. While out in public spruiking the Government's concern about global warming, alternately aggressive and oleaginous, in private he is happy to say that he is a climate change sceptic. I know this for a fact. His public life is mired in deception. Often he becomes so tangled up in the lies he feels he must tell that one almost feels sorry for him. For in essence, Mr Turnbull is a propagandist. Propaganda often works through fabrications so audacious that opponents are shell-shocked and unable to respond. This technique has been adopted by Mr Turnbull in his frequent claim that Australia is ‘leading the world' in the response to the climate crisis. To counter the widespread view at home and abroad that Australia is a pariah nation in global efforts to tackle global warming, the Federal Government has relentlessly campaigned to persuade voters that the opposite is the case. To succeed it must somehow undo the hold of the facts, and for every fact it has developed a counter-position” [45].

Turnbull on gas as “cleaner energy” (2016): “Gas produces 50 per cent less emission than a coal-fired power station” [46]. Fact: gas burning is cleaner than coal burning CO2-wise and pollutant-wise but because gas leaks and methane has a huge Global Warming Potential relative to CO2 of 105 on a 20 year time frame, gas burning  can be dirtier GHG-wise than coal burning.  Methane (CH4) (about 85% of natural gas)  is 105 times worse than CO2 as a greenhouse gas (GHG) on a 20 year time frame and taking aerosol impacts into account. Methane leaks (3.3% in the US based on the latest US EPA data and as high as 7.9% for methane from “fracking” coal seams) and  a 2.6 % leakage of CH4 yields the same greenhouse effect as burning the remaining 97.4% CH4. Using this information one can determine that gas burning for electricity  can be much dirtier than coal burning greenhouse gas-wise (GHG-wise). While gas burning for power generates twice as much electrical energy per tonne of CO2 produced (MWh/tonne CO2) than coal burning, and the health-adverse pollution from gas burning is lower than for coal burning, gas leakage in the system actually means that gas burning for power can actually be worse GHG-wise than coal burning [19]. 

2. False assertions re climate change by  present Coalition Environment Minister Greg Hunt.

Present Coalition Environment Minister Greg Hunt “(1) While Australia accounts for less than 1.3 per cent of global emissions, we are committed to playing our part in efforts to reduce emissions… (2) Australia's air quality remains very good by world standards… (3) Contrary to the views of some, Australia's environmental achievements are widely recognised on the world stage. The Yale Environmental Performance Index ranks Australia third out of 178 countries for overall environmental performance… (4) At present, Australia is the 14th largest emitter… (5) the Emissions Reduction Fund [of the Direct Action Plan] has already had two very successful auctions… Across the first two auctions, the Government has secured 92.8 million tonnes of emissions reduction at an average price of just over $13 per tonne” [47].

Facts: (1) Australia with 0.3% of the world's population contributes 1.4% of its GHG pollution (considering only its Domestic GHG pollution) or 5.0% (considering its Domestic plus Exported GHG pollution) [4].

[2] The World Health Organization (WHO) reports that 7 million people die from air pollution each year , and this includes an estimated 10,000 Australians who die each year due to pollutants from carbon fuel burning, although  this may be a big under-estimate. Thus  18 million Australians (or  75% of Australia's 2015 population of 24 million)  live in urban areas and translating 9,416 annual pollution-related deaths in  London (population 8.6 million) ) to urban Australia corresponds  to 9,416 deaths x 18 million/ 8.6 million = 19,707 or about 20,000 urban Australian deaths annually from air pollution involving fine carbon particulates and NO2 [48].

[3] In terms of annual per capita income-weighted annual per capita greenhouse gas pollution, Australia is the world's third worst polluter with a score of 307 (673 if including its exported GHG pollution) as compared to 0.3 for India, Pakistan and Bangladesh [5]. Australia leads the world in species extinction. The species extinction rate is over 100-1,000 above normal  [49 ] and Australia  is a world leader in species extinction [50] with deforestation and man-made climate change contributing to this. Thus the habitat of the extremely endangered orange bellied  parrot includes Tasmanian forests subject to logging. The Great Barrier Reef is endangered by ocean warming and acidification effects of GHG pollution as well by adjacent agricultural, coal mining  and shipping activity. Australia is a world leader in climate change inaction. According  to the 2015 German Climate Watch Index, Australia ranks 61 out of 62 countries examined, with major oil producer Saudi Arabia ranking bottom at 62nd, and Australia “ranks very poor” in emissions level,  development of low emissions, renewable energy, energy efficiency and climate policy [51, 52]. German climate change scientists estimated in 2009 that the world must emit no more than 600 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide (CO2) before 2050 if it is to have a 75% chance of avoiding a catastrophic 2 degree Centigrade temperature rise. Australia 's annual domestic plus exported greenhouse gas (GHG) pollution is so high that it exceeded its “fair share” of this terminal GHG pollution budget by mid-2011 and is now stealing the “entitlement” of  other countries to pollute the one common atmosphere and ocean of all nations [52, 53].  Worse still, Australia 's bipartisan, Lib-Lab (Coalition Government  and Labor Opposition)  policy of unlimited gas, coal and iron ore exports means that it is committed to polluting the atmosphere with over 3 times the whole world's total terminal GHG pollution budget [54]

[4].  Taking land use into account, the revised annual per capita GHG pollution in tonnes per person per year is 52.9 for Australia (116 if including its huge GHG-generating mining exports) as compared to 2.7 for Bangladesh [4].

[5]. The Coalition's Direct Action Plan involves the absurdity of paying big polluters to pollute (e.g. paying bank robbers to rob fewer banks). The Direct Action Carbon Price of A$13 per tonne CO2-e (?) is derisory in comparison with the damage-related Carbon Price of US$200 (A$267) per tonne CO2-e estimated by Dr Chris Hope of  90-Nobel Laureate University of Cambridge [55].

 

3. Coalition  Government falsely and dangerously promotes unlimited coal exports.

 

Malcolm Turnbull in rejecting a coal export ban (2015): “No I don't agree with a moratorium on the idea of exploiting coal… Coal is a very important part, a very large part, the largest single part of the global energy mix and likely to remain that way for a very long time" [56]. Greg Hunt: “Coal will be used for decades and decades more” [57]. Unfortunately Labor Opposition leader Bill Shorten has the same view, stating (June 2016): “A Labor Government isn't going to ban coal mining in this country. You know, we're not going to. Coal is going to be part of our energy mix for the foreseeable future. But with the Adani mine, a government I form won't spend a dollar of taxpayer money on the mine. It has to stand up under its own commercial propositions and its own scientific and environmental propositions. Where we will spend proactively our resources is incentivising the renewable energy industry” [58]. Reality: a catastrophic plus 2 degrees Centigrade (plus 2C)  temperature rise is now unavoidable [59-63] and scientists and economists say we must cease all fossil fuel exploitation ASAP [64].

(C) Coalition lying by omission.   

1. “The Coalition's Policy for Resources and Energy” (pre-election, 2013) ignored climate change and renewable energy.

Just prior to the 2013 Federal Election, the Coalition led by Tony Abbott published “The Coalition's Policy for Resources and Energy” [65])  that remarkably (a) made zero (0) mention of man-made climate change from fossil fuel burning and (b) made zero (0) mention of renewable energy except to propose a National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC)  investigation into the climate change denialist furphy of alleged deleterious effects  of wind farms (this ignoring the reality that the NHMRC has already  found that there is “no published scientific evidence to positively link wind turbines with adverse health effects”) [66].   In stark contrast to this Coalition-promoted furphy, it is  estimated that 10,000 Australians die each year due to pollutants from carbon burning [48, 67]. Indeed comparison with recently revised estimates of London pollution deaths [68] could lift this estimate to 20,000 such Australian air pollution deaths each year [48].  

2. Coalition Government's pre-election Budget (2016) ignored climate change.

Analyst Giles Parkinson on the Coalition Government pre-election Budget (2016): “Climate change was not even mentioned as a word, or a concept, or even an issue – despite Tuesday's budget apparently being about growth and jobs for the future. There was no new money for climate initiatives and the only mention renewable energy got was to confirm that $1.3 billion in funds would be stripped from the Australian Renewable Energy Agency. “There was nothing in the speech, not a word,” Professor John Hewson, a former leader of Liberal Party, told the SolarExpo conference in 2016. “The slogan is jobs and growth. I would have though that one of the most significant sectors for economic and jobs growth is renewables – I am staggered that it didn't get a mention in the speech or in the documents.” Hewson said the decision to remove funding from ARENA was an “absolute tragedy.” In the budget papers, for instance, there is no extra funding for the Direct Action plan that Turnbull once ridiculed and dismissed as a “fig-leaf” for a climate policy and now forms the basis of the government's emissions reductions plan, including the Paris agreement it signed just a few weeks ago. Once the government has spent the current $2.5 billion allocation for handouts to polluters to do pretty much what they were doing anyway, there is zero extra funding for emissions abatement” [69].

3. Coalition Government ignores horrendous  and inescapable Carbon Debt while stressing government debt crisis.

 The Australian gross national debt was $406 billion in January 2016 and net government debt was expected to be about $278 billion in mid-2016 . Australian Federal budget deficits are presently about $40 billion annually [70]. The Australian net government debt was zero in the 2006/07 year, the first time in three decades. However The Rudd Government introduced substantial government indebtedness in its lauded response to the Global Financial Crisis that enabled Australia to avoid recession. Assuming a damage-related Carbon Price in USD of  $200 per tonne CO2-e [55],  the World has a Carbon Debt of US$360 trillion that is increasing at US$13 trillion per year,  and Australia has an inescapable  Carbon Debt of US$7.5 trillion (A$10 trillion) that is increasing at US$400 billion (A$533 billion) per year and at US $40,000 (A$53,000) per head per year for under-30 year old Australians [53]. Future generations will have to pay this inescapable Carbon Debt or suffer horrendous consequences e.g. cities will have to be drought-proofed at enormous cost; coastal towns and cities will have to be protected  by giant sea walls or drown…

4. Coalition Government rejects any Carbon Tax, ignoring climate scientist and economist proponents.

The Coalition was partly elected in 2013 on a mantra of “abolish the  Carbon Tax”. However numerous climate scientists, climate economists and informed climate activists conclude that a Carbon Tax is urgently needed to put a price on carbon [71]. Indeed scientifically-trained Pope Francis has stated that “Yet only when the economic and social costs of using up shared environmental resources are recognized with transparency and fully borne by those who incur them, not by other peoples or future generations, can those actions be considered ethical” [72, 73]. Present Australian PM Turnbull did apparently believe in a Carbon Price when he was Leader of the Opposition, albeit via an Emissions Trading Scheme (ETS) approach favoured by his former Big Bank employer Goldman-Sachs (and by Labor)  that has been criticized as empirically unsuccessful, accordingly counterproductive, open to market manipulation, and fraudulent in that it would involve the Australian Government selling licences to pollute the one common atmosphere and ocean of all nations [71].   While  Turnbull was removed by the Coalition Right as Leader of the Coalition Opposition in 2009 because   of his support for an ETS, as presently PM of Australia but held hostage by the same Coalition Right, he now publicly rejects the ETS approach and a Carbon Price.

5. Coalition Government ignores per capital GHG pollution and huge Exported GHG pollution.

On a low methane Global Warming Potential (GWP) of 21 basis, Australia with 0.3% of the world's population contributes 1.4% of its GHG pollution (considering only its Domestic GHG pollution) or 5.0% (considering its Domestic plus Exported GHG pollution) and   Australia's annual per capita GHG pollution in tonnes CO2-e per person per year is 25 (Domestic GHG pollution) and 88 (Domestic plus Exported GHG pollution) as compared to 0.9 for Bangladesh [2]. However a revised annual per capita GHG pollution in tonnes CO2-e per person per year is 53 for Australia (116 if including its huge GHG-generating  exports) when land use and methane are  properly considered – the corresponding values for India, Bangladesh and Pakistan are 2.1, 2.5 and 2.7, respectively  [4].  A politically correct racist (PC racist) Australia and the Australian Coalition Government resolutely  ignore these huge per capita GHG pollution discrepancies (racist  White Australian superiority and exceptionalist perceptions live on beneath a politically correct veneer of “we are not racists”). Similarly,  the Coalition, Labor  and Mainstream Australia (except for the pro-Humanity Greens) resolutely ignore  Australia's huge exported GHG pollution and the inescapable causal connection between extracting  and exporting fossil fuels with their ultimate combustion that contributes massively to greenhouse gas pollution, global warming, speciescide, ecocide  and 7 million annual deaths from carbon fuel burning pollutants. Australia is guilty of depraved indifference  in its endless neoliberal search for profit regardless of collateral human and environmental damage.     

6. Coalition Government gives $1 billion for Great Barrier Reef protection but ignores coral death from warming and acidification.

The  Great Barrier Reef  off the Queensland coast of Eastern Australia is a huge and  extraordinarily  complex coral ecosystem but is dying under the weight of agricultural run-off, turbidity from floods and dredging, ocean-warming-induced bleaching (from expulsion of photosynthetic algal symbiont zooanthellae) and ocean acidification from increased atmospheric CO2 (this inhibiting the formation of calcareous exoskeletons of coral, crustacea, foraminifera protozoans and coccolithophore algae) [2]. The climate criminal Coalition policy of unlimited fossil fuel usage and exports is killing the reef which will be essentially doomed when atmospheric CO2 reaches 450 ppm  in 15 years' time at the current rate of pollution of 3 ppm CO2 per year [74, 75]. The Great Barrier Reef does not belong to the Coalition, Australia or indeed Humanity to be thus destroyed.  The Coalition has given $1 billion to help stop run-off and turbidity and Labor has offered $0.5 billion  but both are  committed to unlimited fossil fuel exports. This once-off $1 billion for the reef is like the Roman soldier offering a vinegar-soaked cloth to Jesus on the Cross and is  in stark contrast to Australia's damage-related Carbon Debt of US$7.5 trillion (A$10 trillion) that is increasing at US$400 billion (A$533 billion) per year and at US $40,000 (A$53,000) per head per year for under-30 year old Australians [53]. 

7. Coalition Government ignores huge GHG impact of methanogenic livestock and promotes meat exports via Free Trade Agreements.

World Bank analysts carefully re-evaluated the contribution of livestock production to world annual GHG pollution and found that the world's annual total rose from 41.76 billion tonnes CO2-equivalent (CO2-e) as estimated by the Food and Agricultural  Organisation  (FAO) to 63.80 billion tonnes CO2-e, with livestock production contributing  over 51% of the higher figure [3]. Taking land use into account, the revised annual per capita GHG pollution in tonnes per person per year is 52.9 for Australia (116 if including its huge GHG-generating mining exports) as compared to 2.7 for Bangladesh [4]. Nevertheless the Coalition has a dangerously ignorant policy  of unlimited methanogenic dairy and livestock production and exports. The Coalition boasts of  its  Korea –Australia Free trade Agreement, Japan-Australia Economic Partnership Agreement, China-Australia Free Trade Agreement and (yet to be enforced) Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) that all mean better access to huge markets for methanogenic dairy and livestock (beef and sheep)  exports [76].  

8. Coalition Government ignores huge environmental vandalism and permits  land clearing,  land despoilation by fossil fuel extraction and criminal deforestation.

Notwithstanding its “be seen to be doing something” Direct Action policy of a Green Army planting trees, the Coalition Government has a speciescidal and   ecocidal policy of permitting land clearing,  permits massive land clearing, has approved massive coal projects (by Shenhua in the rich Liverpool Plains, in the Hunter Valley,  and by Adani in Queensland, the latter being the biggest coal mine in the world on realization), and permits huge coal seam gas (CSG) and fracking for gas throughout Australia. These Coalition-backed fossil fuel projects are triply evil – they are variously destroying  Australian ecosystems and farming,  producing fossil fuels that should not  be exploited in the first place, and generating pollutants from the burning of Australian coal exports that kill 75,000 people each year [48].  Science says that a plus 2C temperature  rise is now unavoidable and  that fossil fuel resources should be kept in the ground [64].  The Coalition Government permits criminal logging of  SE Australian eucalyptus forests that are the best  forests in the world for   carbon sequestration [2] . 

9. Coalition Government ignores 300 ppm CO2 target and negative CO2 emissions.

Numerous expert scientists and other science-informed experts opine that atmospheric CO2 concentration must be reduced from the current dangerous and damaging 400 ppm CO2 to a safe and sustainable level of less than 350 ppm CO2 (which rounds down to 300 ppm CO2) and ideally to the pre-Industrial Revolution  level of  circa 300 ppm CO2. 350,org favours “no more than 350 ppm CO2” [77] whereas 300.org argues for  the science-indicated circa 300 ppm CO2 [74, 75]. Zero emissions is not enough – having achieved zero emissions we must reduce atmospheric CO2 back tho the pre-Industrial Revolution level of circa 300 ppm CO2 (indeed some experts suggest 260 ppm CO2 or 280 ppm CO2) [74, 75]. However  the Coalition rejects even the first step of zero emissions  with its  climate criminal policy of a derisory decrease in Domestic GHG pollution (“5% off 2000 levels by 2020” and thence in 2015 "26% off 2005 by 2030"  ) and unlimited Exported GHG pollution (that is presently twice as big as the Domestic GHG pollution) [2].

 

10. Coalition Government ignores the bottom line that “tackling climate change” means reducing Domestic plus Exported GHG emissions.

 

The Coalition's and Labor's common climate criminal policy of unlimited coal, gas and iron ore exports means that Australia's Domestic plus Exported GHG pollution will increase from 1,512 Mt CO2-e in 2009 to 2,578 Mt CO2-e in 2020 and that Australia will exceed by a factor of three (3) the whole world's terminal greenhouse gas (GHG) pollution budget of 600 Gt CO2 that must not be exceeded if the world is to have a 75% chance of avoiding a catastrophic plus 2C temperature rise [2, 54]. Indeed Australia exceeded its fair share of this terminal carbon pollution budget in 2011 in relation to its Domestic plus Exported GHG pollution and in 2013 in relation to its Domestic GHG pollution [4]. The Coalition Government has a Direct Action plan that absurdly involves paying polluters not to pollute and which means that Australia's Domestic plus Exported GHG pollution will actually increase in relation to 2005 levels. In August 2015 the Coalition Government  offered a 2030 "target" of "26% off 2005 level by 2030" i.e. 423 Mt CO2-e of Domestic GHG pollution. If due to international pressure Australia's 2030 Exported  GHG pollution  remains at the level predicted for 2020 (1,950 Mt CO2-e) then Australia's  2030 Domestic plus Exported GHG pollution will be 423 + 1,950  = 2,373 or 112% of the 2015 value and 164% of the 2005 value i.e. Australia is promising the World that its 2030  Domestic plus Exported GHG pollution  will be 1.1 times bigger than that in 2015 [2].

 

11. Coalition Government ignores horrendous air pollution deaths and worsening climate genocide.

 

WHO estimates that 7 million people die each year from the effects of pollutants from carbon fuel burning  (this including  about 10,000 Australians) [48] and it is estimated that presently about 0.4 million people die from climate change each year [78]. However 17 million people  die avoidably each year from deprivation in the Developing World (minus China) [79]  and it is likely that this Global  Avoidable Mortality Holocaust is impacted by global warming. It is estimated that climate change inaction may result in the avoidable deaths of 10 billion people this century [80]. The effective climate change denialist Australian Coalition  Government rules a country that is among the  world leaders in  per capita GHG pollution, and  is accordingly disproportionately  complicit in this worsening climate genocide.

12. Coalition Government promotes Business As Usual (BAU) and ignores expert advice for urgent action on man-made climate change .

The Coalition has a climate criminal policy of a derisory decrease in Domestic GHG pollution (“5% off 2000 levels by 2020”) and unlimited Exported GHG pollution (that is presently twice as big as the Domestic GHG pollution). The Coalition policy of effective climate change denialist climate change inaction flies in the face of an overwhelming scientific consensus that we must take urgent action on climate change. Thus, for example, the Synthesis Report of the 2000-delegate March 2009 Copenhagen Scientific Climate Change Conference concluded   “Inaction is inexcusable” [81] and a 2010 Open Letter signed by 255 members of the prestigious US National Academy of Sciences, including 11 Nobel Laureates, concluded: “Delay is not an option” [82].  One notes that there  are 1 billion Catholics in the world - including  former Australian Coalition PM Tony Abbott, his successor as Australian Coalition PM Malcolm Turnbull and the present Labor Opposition leader Bill Shorten -  and that in relation to climate change Pope Francis in his 2015  Encyclical  Letter "Laudato si" demands that in order to save “millions of premature deaths” a “fully borne” Carbon Price be emplaced on greenhouse gas (GHG) pollution and that “there is an urgent need to develop policies so that, in the next few years, the emission of carbon dioxide and other highly polluting gases can be drastically reduced” [72, 73].  Armed with this science-informed and authoritative  moral advice, the billions of Humanity must save themselves and the Biosphere by demanding that fossil fuel burning must rapidly cease and  the polluters must pay in full by a Wealth Tax (for historical GHG pollution) [83] and a Carbon Tax (for ongoing GHG pollution). However the Catholic leaders of the climate criminal Australian Lib-Labs (Coalition and Labor ) reject the technical and moral  advice of their scientifically-trained spiritual leader in favour of that of dominant, climate criminal, speciescidal, ecocidal, omnicidal and terracidal neoliberalism.

(D) The  lipstick-on-a-pig Turnbull Deception.

The Murdoch mnedia-brainwashed, scientifically-illiterate  Australian public are largely unaware of much of the Coalition lying. However they are beginning to wise up to what must be described as the Turnbull Deception. Charming, articulate, urbane and all-smiles Malcolm Turnbull was formerly leader of the Coalition Opposition but his support for an Emission Trading Scheme  (ETS) to “tackle climate change” raised the ire of the circa 50% climate change denialist Coalition MPs  and was replaced as Coalition leader by a similarly  right-wing but aggressive   Tony Abbott in 2009 (the ostensibly progressive Turnbull losing by just 1 vote). Tony Abbott was an abusive and highly negative attack dog in Opposition and was elected as Prime Minister of Australia in September 2013. However Abbott's aggressive style, while effective in Opposition, was increasingly obnoxious in Government and his crude attempts to shift wealth from the poor to the rich caused a massive drop in popularity. Faced with several dozen disastrous polls in succession, the Coalition MPs  mounted a coup and crudely replaced first-term Prime Minister Abbott as PM with Malcolm Turnbull in September 2015, this latest political assassination making Turnbull Australia's 5th PM in 6 years.

The electoral polls  immediately bounced back in favour of the Coalition but it soon became apparent that Turnbull had done a deal with the extreme Right – he would be the charming and attractive face of a Coalition Government  that would nevertheless retain the appalling neoliberal policies of its extreme right faction, especially those of climate change inaction, highly abusive incarceration of refugees in offshore concentration camps, illegal wars, expansion of US military  presence in Australia, massive transfer of Federal funding to the  rich from the poor, sick, elderly, children, mothers, students, schools and hospitals. The biggest single wealth redistribution was about $50 billion in tax breaks for the rich and a compensatory stripping of $50 billion from hospitals, and this in a country in which 85,000 people die preventably each year, the breakdown including (1) 26,000 annual Australian deaths from adverse hospital events, (2) 17,000 obesity-related Australian deaths, (3) 15,500 smoking-related Australian deaths, (4) 10,000 carbon burning pollution-derived Australian deaths, (5) 4,000 avoidable Indigenous Australian deaths, (6) 5,600 Australians die alcohol-related deaths, (7) 2,100 Australian suicides, (8) 1,400 Australian road deaths, (9) 630 Australian opiate drug-related deaths with 570 linked to US restoration of the Taliban-destroyed Afghan opium industry, and (10) 300 Australian homicides (80 being of women killed domestically) [84].

Charming, urbane and articulate Malcolm Turnbull is extremely wealthy (a 200-million-dollar-man castigated by Tasmanian Senator Jacqui Lambie as Mr-Harborside-Mansion) and is increasingly seen as the charming and hence vote-winning face of an illiberal, anti-science, anti-environment, and ruthlessly neoliberal regime that has much the same regressive, pro-One Percenter policies under PM Turnbull as under PM Abbott. Notwithstanding  his all-smiles casuistry, Turnbull is increasingly seen as an Abbott-lite, Abbott-in-sheep's-clothing, lipstick-on-a-pig PM and is referred to as Tony Turnbull, Malcolm Abbott and Malcolm Turncoat for betraying his former ostensible support for  climate change action in favour of the effective climate change denialism of climate change inaction.  The Coalition and Labor are now 50-50 in terms of the “2-party preferred vote” of Australia's    preferential voting system. Through  ignorance, stupidity or greed, presently  about 50% of the Australian voters still support  lipstick-on-a-pig Malcolm Turnbull and ignore the Turnbull Deception.

Summary.

To return to a safe and sustainable world   we must achieve the following:

1. Change of societal philosophy to one of scientific risk management and biological sustainability with complete cessation of species extinctions and zero tolerance for lying about the real cost of pollution (Carbon Price).

2. Urgent reduction of atmospheric CO2 to a safe level of about 300 ppm as recommended by leading climate and biological scientists.

3. Rapid switch to the best non-carbon and renewable energy (solar, wind, geothermal, wave, tide and hydro options that are currently roughly the same market price as coal burning-based power) and to energy efficiency, public transport, needs-based production, re-afforestation,  large-scale return of carbon as biochar to soils and large-scale oxidation-proof storage of waste wood and biochar coupled with correspondingly rapid cessation of fossil fuel burning, deforestation, methanogenic livestock production and population growth.

Unfortunately the anti-science, neoliberal, climate criminal Australian Coalition Government is doing the opposite by:

1. Sabotaging  scientific risk management by ignoring the mounting,  real, damage-related cost of pollution (Carbon Price, Carbon Debt)  and by lying in support of corporate speciescide and ecocide  leading to climate genocide and terracide (planet-killing) in the neoliberal pursuit of private profit using public resources (the common atmosphere and oceans of all nations).

2. Ignoring expert scientific  opinion and remorselessly increasing  atmospheric CO2  to dangerous and damaging levels above 400 ppm rather than zero CO2  emissions and thence negative CO2 emissions to restore  the pre-Industrial Revolution  level of circa 300 ppm CO2 ASAP.

3. Resolute, Business As Usual (BAU)  opposition to   rapid implementation of 100% renewable energy; opposition to  energy efficiency, public transport, needs-based production, large-scale re-afforestation,  large-scale return of carbon as biochar to soils and oxidation-proof storage of waste wood and biochar; and opposition to  rapid cessation of fossil fuel burning, deforestation, methanogenic livestock production and population growth.

The Australian Coalition Government has an election slogan of “Jobs and Growth” but in the context of Australia as one of the world's most extreme Carbon Economies  this means more pollution-based jobs,  more greenhouse gas pollution and hence resolute climate change inaction.  

Fundamentally, it is remorseless  Coalition lying in support of climate change inaction  in the face of a worsening climate emergency that makes the neoliberal Coalition such  a major threat to Australia and the world and thus utterly unfit to govern. Unfortunately  about half the Australian electorate give 2-party-preferred support to the climate criminal Coalition and are on a continuum between egregious ignorance and/or  stupidity and  homicidal greed. Science and scientific risk management insist on zero tolerance for lying.

Those voting  for the Coalition are not just on a continuum from profound ignorance and stupidity to homicidal greed, they are betraying children, grandchildren,  Australia, future generations, Humanity and the Biosphere. They must expect that children, grandchildren,  future generations and Humanity will despise them for their  unconscionable greed and depraved indifference  to the worsening climate emergency and climate genocide that will see 10 billion people perishing  this century if climate change is not requisitely addressed and reversed.  

The world will soon respond to continuing disproportionate greenhouse gas pollution  and climate change inaction by Australia and similarly climate criminal countries with Green Tariffs, International Criminal Court prosecutions, International Court of Justice litigations and Boycotts, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS). On 2 July 2016 (Election Day in Australia),  decent , science-informed Australians who care for the environment, children and future generations will utterly reject the climate criminal, pro-coal Coalition (aka the COALition or KOALition), vote 1 Green and put the Coalition last.   

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[73]. Gideon Polya, “Pope Francis Demands “Fully Borne” Cost of Pollution (Carbon Price) To Prevent “Millions Of Premature Deaths”,  Countercurrents, 29 July, 2015: http://www.countercurrents.org/polya290715.htm .

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[79]. Gideon Polya, “Body Count. Global avoidable mortality since 1950”, that includes  an avoidable mortality-related history of every country from Neolithic times and is now available for free perusal  on the web: http://globalbodycount.blogspot.com.au/  .

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Dr Gideon Polya taught science students at a major Australian university for 4 decades. He published some 130 works in a 5 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 published “Body Count. Global avoidable mortality since 1950” (G.M. Polya, Melbourne, 2007: http://globalbodycount.blogspot.com/ ); see also his contributions “Australian complicity in Iraq mass mortality” in “Lies, Deep Fries & Statistics” (edited by Robyn Williams, ABC Books, Sydney, 2007: http://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/ockhamsrazor/australian-complicity-in-iraq-mass-mortality/3369002#transcript

) and “Ongoing Palestinian Genocide” in “The Plight of the Palestinians (edited by William Cook, Palgrave Macmillan, London, 2010: http://mwcnews.net/focus/analysis/4047-the-plight-of-the-palestinians.html ). He has published a revised and updated 2008 version of his 1998 book “Jane Austen and the Black Hole of British History” (see: http://janeaustenand.blogspot.com/  ) as biofuel-, globalization- and climate-driven global food price increases threaten a greater famine catastrophe than the man-made famine in British-ruled India that killed 6-7 million Indians in the “forgotten” World War 2 Bengal Famine (see recent BBC broadcast involving Dr Polya, Economics Nobel Laureate Professor Amartya Sen and others: http://www.open.edu/openlearn/history-the-arts/history/social-economic-history/listen-the-bengal-famine  ;  Gideon Polya: https://sites.google.com/site/drgideonpolya/home  ; Gideon Polya Writing: https://sites.google.com/site/gideonpolyawriting/ ; Gideon Polya, Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gideon_Polya ) . When words fail one can say it in pictures - for images of Gideon Polya's huge paintings for the Planet, Peace, Mother and Child see: http://sites.google.com/site/artforpeaceplanetmotherchild/ and http://www.flickr.com/photos/gideonpolya/

 




 



 

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