Mendacious Mainstream Presstitutes Ignore Huge Carbon Debt & Horrendous Hazard Response Debt: Disasters Are Not Natural

coal Global Warming

Despite a global warming of plus 1C, the unavoidability of a catastrophic plus 2C  and now regular, high energy hurricane catastrophes in tropical Island Nations, the atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2) is relentlessly increasing as is carbon fuel burning for energy.  This climate criminal greenhouse gas (GHG) pollution and climate inaction is enabled by the remorseless mendacity of One Percenter-dominated Mainstream media, politician, commentariat and academic presstitutes who ignore horrendous current Hazard Response Debt, huge, inescapable and worsening  Carbon Debt and the palpable reality that Disasters Are Not Natural. While personal, corporate or national debt can be expunged or evaded in various ways, Hazard Response Debt and Carbon Debt are inescapable – unless that sea wall is built, the population will drown.

Whether science-informed, climate activist eco-socialists or salivating, greed-driven neoliberals, we prosperous urban citizens keep on living our normal daily lives, albeit with different carbon footprints. We get up, switch on the gas-fired central heating, shower with water warmed by gas or power from coal-fired power stations, cook breakfast with gas or carbon fuel-powered electricity and food from methanogenic animal husbandry, and then hop into our oil-driven cars that translocate  our 80 kg beings together with 1,000-2,000 kg of steel – and then  commence our working lives in a largely carbon-based economy. We know that most of our carbon footprint will vanish with 100% renewable energy, a vegetarian diet, Green public transport and 100% cessation of net greenhouse gas (GHG) pollution, but the progress is painfully slow due to One Percenter-derived lack of political will.

Behind this lack of urgency in dealing with a worsening climate crisis and climate emergency is the remorseless mendacity and lying by omission of Mainstream media, politicians, commentariat and academic presstitutes. In particular there  is resolute Mainstream ignoring of the key concept of Carbon Debt that quantitates  in dollar terms the inescapable long-term cost to future generations  of our remorseless carbon fuel burning. Put simply and clearly, Carbon Debt is  the cost of reversing greenhouse gas (GHG) pollution and its consequences [1]. However this clear definition has been subverted  in our present culture of phoney, commercial “climate change action” via “emissions trading scheme” (ETS) approaches, fraudulent “coal to gas transition” policies, and “carbon offsets” (e.g. via deforestation cessation deals with tropical Third World countries) . Thus the Cambridge Dictionary defines “Carbon Debt” as “the difference between the amount of carbon dioxide [CO2] produced by a country,  company, etc., and the amount that it offsets [by CO2-absorbing or CO2-non-producing activities]. Some studies suggested that a switch to biofuel crops would increase the world’s carbon debt” [2].

The historical Carbon Debt (or historical Climate Debt) of a country can be measured by the amount of greenhouse gas (GHG) it has introduced into the atmosphere since the start of the Industrial Revolution in the mid-18th century. Thus the total Carbon Debt of the world from 1751-2016 (including CO2 that has gone into the oceans) is about 1,850 billion tonnes CO2 (1,850 Gt CO2) [1, 3, 4]. Assuming a damage-related Carbon Price of $200 per tonne CO2-equivalent (as determined by climate economist Dr Chris Hope of the Judge Business School of 90-Nobel-Laureate Cambridge University, UK) [5]),   this corresponds (in US dollars)  to a Carbon Debt of $370 trillion  (similar to the total wealth of the world and 4.5 times the world’s total annual GDP)  that is increasing at US$13 trillion per year [1].

Climate criminal Australia – that is among world leaders in annual per capita GHG pollution [6, 7], coal exports [4, 8], gas exports [4, 8], land clearing [9, 10], species extinction [10] and climate change inaction [11] –  has a 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 [1]. Young Australians  live in a prosperous country (per capita GDP US$54,000) [12] but face a miserable future of  a huge education debt (although tertiary education can and should be free) [13], exclusion from the national ideal of home ownership,  an increasingly aged population to care for, zero real wage growth, galloping wealth and income inequality, huge and increasing work-force casualization, increasing climate change impacts, increasing need for multiple career changes,  and adumbrated displacement from employment in numerous areas by robots (Artificial Intelligence).  The young of Australia have yet to revolt but surely they will (non-violently, one hopes) [14, 15] once they realize that their inescapable and unavoidable Carbon Debt is increasing at US$40,000 per head per year for under-30 year olds – however remorseless lying by omission over Carbon Debt by Mainstream media, politicians, commentariat and academic presstitutes ensures that the young are kept in the dark about their steadily worsening Carbon Debt dilemma and the urgent need for Climate Revolution now (that hopefully will be non-violent) [14, 15]. Ditto young Americans, Canadians, Brits etc.

The repayment of Carbon Debt (i.e. the “calling in” or demand for immediate repayment of the debt) is not just something for our children and future generations in a distant future world – it is already happening NOW on an enormous scale.  The world is already suffering massive hazardous events that fall into 2 categories, (1) primary events with no human agency   (earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, tsunamis ) and (2) events  variously involving human agency, notably through GHG pollution ( hurricanes (cyclones), storm surges, extreme temperatures, forest fires, droughts, floods, avalanches, landslides and famine).  However this distinction – based on whether or not there was human agency in the primary physical event – simply evaporates when one realizes that disasters occur when there has been inadequate investment to protect human populations from potentially disastrous hazards.  This default human agency in all disasters is succinctly summarized in the message: “Disasters are not natural” [16-20]. The cost of  hazard reduction can be quantitated as   Hazard Response Debt, and in the context of the world’s present Carbon Economy this Hazard Response Debt contributes to an ever-increasing Carbon Debt.

This present huge failure of hazard reduction is most palpably evident  in impoverished Developing countries (minus China) in which 16 million people die avoidably from deprivation each year, with 1,500 million people having died thus from avoidable mortality (avoidable death, excess mortality, excess death, preventable death) since 1950 [21]. Indeed it is estimated that a 4% Annual Wealth Tax could bring all countries up to the per capita GDP of China and Cuba (countries with zero annual avoidable deaths from deprivation)  and thus abolish this  appalling Global Avoidable Mortality Holocaust [22, 23]. By way of further example, much of the Netherlands is below sea level and threatened with storm surges,  flooding and indeed (presently) drought, but is rich and has emplaced expensive protective measures – but in contrast, impoverished Island Nations and impoverished, populous mega-delta countries are presently subject to recurrent massive storm surges,  flooding and indeed drought disasters [24-28]. As many  as 10 billion people may perish this century in a worsening Climate Genocide and a worsening Climate Emergency [27].

Australian academic Dr Jason Van Meding provides a telling, quantitative earthquake disaster example of Hazard Response inadequacy:In February 2010 Chile experienced an 8.7 earthquake. Sadly 525 people were killed. A month earlier Haiti had experienced a 7.0 earthquake, and over 160,000 people lost their lives. The 8.7 earthquake in Chile released 500 times more energy than the 7.0 earthquake in Haiti, yet there 35 times less fatalities. Although the Chile earthquake was much larger, the big difference in these cases was peoples’ vulnerability. Because of how an earthquake impacts buildings, the seismic design incorporated in Chile’s building codes saved lives. In Haiti, the first free black republic and the first country in the western hemisphere to abolish slavery, survived hundreds of years of exploitation and imperialism, but one of the legacies of this historical oppression is that access to opportunities and resources are extremely limited” [16].

Given the huge seriousness of the problem of worsening Carbon Debt and the related Hazard Response Debt, one is appalled by the lying by omission and lying by commission over these issues by mendacious, One Percenter-dominated Mainstream media.  Thus a Google Search for the term “risk management” yields 84 million results overwhelmingly related to risk management for increased business profitability. Google Searches for the following socially- or  medically-related terms yield  the results given in brackets: “preventable death” (306,000), “excess mortality” (541,000), “premature death” (2,790,000) and “untimely death” (4,030,000).  However Google Searches for key terms relating to avoidable human mass mortality as discussed above yield markedly  fewer results, e.g. (results in brackets) “hazard response debt” (0), “global avoidable mortality” (7,790), “climate genocide”  (16,500), “disasters are not natural” (19,900), “excess death” (32,300),  “carbon debt” (38,300), “hazard response” (53,800), “avoidable mortality” (61,700), “avoidable death” (73,500), and “climate emergency” (112,000).

Searching the endlessly censoring  but highly-self-regarding ABC (Australia’s taxpayer-funded equivalent of the UK BBC) for the term “risk management” yields 1,176 results overwhelmingly related to risk management for increased  business profitability. ABC Searches for the following socially- or  medically-related terms yield  these results given in brackets: “premature death” (340) and “untimely death” (254).  However ABC Searches for key terms relating to avoidable human mass mortality as discussed above yield markedly  fewer results, e.g. (results in brackets) “hazard response debt” (0),  “climate genocide”  (37 results but 0 results for “climate genocide”  per se), “disasters are not natural” (3 about the same program), “excess death” (3),  “carbon debt” (20 results but 0 about “carbon debt” per se), “hazard response” (0), “avoidable mortality” (80 but only 1 in the above global context) and “global avoidable mortality” (78 but 0 for “global avoidable mortality” per se)

Similarly, Searching the endlessly censoring but paradoxically highly regarded UK BBC for the term “risk management” yields over 300 results overwhelmingly related to risk management for increased  business profitability. BBC Searches for the following accident-, homicide- , socially- or  medically-related terms yield  the results given in brackets: “premature death” (over 300) and “untimely death” (over 300).  However BBC Searches for key terms relating to human mass mortality as discussed above yield markedly  fewer results, e.g. (results in brackets) “global avoidable mortality” (0), “hazard response debt” (0), “climate genocide”  (8 results but only 3 results for “climate genocide”  per se), and “carbon debt” (9 results but with only 1 giving a quantitative estimate) and “hazard response” (230 results but 0 for “hazard response debt”).

The remorseless mendacity of One Percenter-dominated Mainstream media, politician, commentariat and academic presstitutes means that Humanity is living in a fool’s paradise in which urgently required action is blocked in the interests of deadly, neoliberal One Percenter greed. Numerous scientists  and  science-informed humanitarian  activists argue not merely for a rapid cessation of  fossil fuel burning but also for a drawing-down of atmospheric CO2 (“negative GHG emissions”) from the present damaging and dangerous 410 parts per million CO2 (410 ppm CO2 and increasing at 2 ppm CO2 per year) to the pre-Industrial Revolution level of about 300 ppm CO2 that is required for a safe and sustainable  environment for all peoples and all species [29, 30] – and most critically now for the Arctic, global coral reefs, Island Nations, low-lying mega-delta countries and presently drought- and fire-impacted nations.

However global fossil fuel use is still remorselessly increasing [31], as is global fossil fuel use in the energy sector in particular that is most readily amenable to effective climate action [32]. Thus Australian paleoclimate and earth scientist Dr Andrew Glikson (2018): “There was a time when the contamination of drinking water constituted a punishable crime. Nowadays those who wilfully ignore or promote the destruction of the Earth’s atmosphere and ocean acidification through the rise in emission of carbon gases (2014 ~36.08 billion ton CO2/year ; 2017 ~36.79 billion ton CO2/year), hold major sway in the world. Consequently the rise rate of atmospheric CO2 at 2 ppm/year (from 408.84 ppm in June 2014 to 410.79 ppm in June 2018) is the fastest observed in the geological record since 66 million years ago, when an asteroid hit the Earth, wiping out the dinosaurs” [31].

It is now too late to avoid a catastrophic plus 2C temperature rise [33, 34] but decent people must do everything they can to make the future “less bad” for our children and future generations. The fate of Humanity’s billions is book-ended by the worsening Global Avoidable Mortality Holocaust (16 million Third Worlds deaths annually from deprivation) [21] and the worsening Climate Genocide (10 billion may die prematurely this century due to unaddressed climate change, or 100 million to die thus annually this century) [27],  but the remorseless mendacity of One Percenter-dominated Mainstream media, politician, commentariat and academic presstitutes means suppression of quantitative analysis of these horrendous realities.  This massive lying by omission amounts to holocaust ignoring, holocaust denial and depraved indifference in the interests of One Percenter greed. Decent Humanity must (a) expose and eschew the deadly mendacity of  “fake news through lying by omission” Mainstream media [35-42], (b) attempt to inform everyone they can, and  (c) urge and apply  Boycotts, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) against all people, politicians, parties, companies, corporations  and  countries disproportionately complicit in a worsening Hazard Response Debt, Carbon Debt, Climate Genocide and Global Avoidable Mortality Holocaust.

References.

[1]. “Carbon Debt Carbon Credit”: https://sites.google.com/site/carbondebtcarboncredit/ .

[2]. “Carbon Debt”, Cambridge Dictionary: https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/carbon-debt .

[3]. James Hansen, “Letter to PM Kevin Rudd by Dr James Hansen”, 2008: http://www.aussmc.org.au/documents/Hansen2008LetterToKevinRudd_000.pdf .

[4]. “2011 Climate Change Course”: https://sites.google.com/site/300orgsite/2011-climate-change-course .

[5]. Chris Hope, “How high should climate change taxes be?”, Working Paper Series, Judge Business School, University of Cambridge, 9.2011: http://www.jbs.cam.ac.uk/fileadmin/user_upload/research/workingpapers/wp1109.pdf  ; “Carbon Debt Carbon Credit”: https://sites.google.com/site/carbondebtcarboncredit/ .

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

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

[8]. Gideon Polya, “Australia ‘s Huge Coal, Gas & Iron Ore Exports Threaten Planet”, Countercurrents, 15 May 2012: https://countercurrents.org/polya150512.htm .

[9]. “Fact check: Is Queensland clearing land as fast as Brazil?”ABC News, 23 February 2018: http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-12-01/fact-check-queensland-land-clearing-brazilian-rainforest/9183596 .

References.

 

[10]. Frances Pike, “Australia: world leader in deforestation and species extinction”, Independent Australia, 3 June 2015: https://independentaustralia.net/environment/environment-display/australian-logging-and-the-end-of-species,7788  .

 

[11].  Climate Change Performance Index 2018: https://www.climate-change-performance-index.org/

[12]. “List of countries by GDP (nominal) per capita”, Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_(nominal)_per_capita .

[13]. “Free university education”: https://sites.google.com/site/freeuniversityeducation/home .

[14]. “Climate Revolution Now”: https://sites.google.com/site/300orgsite/climate-revolution .

[15]. “Climate Justice & Intergenerational Equity”: https://sites.google.com/site/300orgsite/climate-justice .

[16]. Jason Von Meding, “Disasters are not natural”, ABC Radio National, Ockham’s Razor, 12 August 2018: http://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/ockhamsrazor/disasters-are-not-natural-jason-von-meding/9920536#transcript .

[17]. Martin Ras, “Natural disasters don’t exist but natural hazards do”, United Nations Development Program, 18 May 2017: http://www.undp.org/content/undp/en/home/blog/2017/5/18/Natural-disasters-don-t-exist-but-natural-hazards-do.html .

[18]. Ksenia Chmutina, Jason Von Meding, J.C. Gaillard, and Lee Bosher, “Why natural disasters aren’t all that natural”, Open Democracy, 14 September 2017: https://www.opendemocracy.net/ksenia-chmutina-jason-von-meding-jc-gaillard-lee-bosher/why-natural-disasters-arent-all-that-natural .

[19]. Greg Bankoff, “No such thing as natural disasters”, Harvard International Review, 23 August 2010: http://hir.harvard.edu/article/?a=2694 .

[20]. Global Network of Civil Society Organisations for Disaster Reduction (GNDR), “Disasters are NOT natural”, 14 September 2015: https://www.gndr.org/news/item/1499-disasters-are-not-natural.html .

[21]. Gideon Polya, “Body Count. Global avoidable mortality since 1950”, that includes a succinct history of every country and is now available for free perusal on the web: http://globalbodycount.blogspot.com/  .

[22]. Gideon Polya, “4 % Annual Global Wealth Tax To Stop The 17 Million Deaths Annually”,  Countercurrents, 27 June, 2014: http://www.countercurrents.org/polya270614.htm .

[23]. “1% ON 1%: one percent annual wealth tax on One Percenters”: https://sites.google.com/site/300orgsite/1-on-1 .

[24]. Gideon Polya, “Jane Austen and the Black Hole of British History. Colonial rapacity, holocaust denial and the crisis in biological sustainability”, G.M. Polya, Melbourne, 1998, 2008 that  is now available for free perusal on the web: http://janeaustenand.blogspot.com/  .

[25]. Gideon Polya, “The forgotten holocaust – the 1943/44 Bengal Famine”, Global Avoidable Mortality, 1995: http://globalavoidablemortality.blogspot.com/2005/07/forgotten-holocaust-194344-bengal.html .

[26]. Gideon Polya, “The famine of history: Bengal 1943. International Network on Holocaust and Genocide vol.10, 10-15, 1995: http://globalavoidablemortality.blogspot.com/2005/07/forgotten-holocaust-194344-bengal.html .

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

[28]. Pacific Islands Development Forum 4 September  2015 “Suva Declaration on Climate Change”: http://pacificidf.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/06/PACIFIC-ISLAND-DEVELOPMENT-FORUM-SUVA-DECLARATION-ON-CLIMATE-CHANGE.v2.pdf .

[29]. 300.org: . https://sites.google.com/site/300orgsite/300-org .

[30]. “300.org – return atmosphere CO2 to 300 ppm CO2”: https://sites.google.com/site/300orgsite/300-org—return-atmosphere-co2-to-300-ppm .

[31]. Andrew Glikson, “Global fires, droughts and Orwellian Newspeak while Nero fiddles”, Countercurrents, 3 August 2018: https://countercurrents.org/2018/08/03/global-fires-droughts-and-orwellian-newspeak-while-nero-fiddles/ .

[32]. David Spratt, “Our energy challenge in 6 eye-popping charts”, Climate Code Red, 17 June 2018: http://www.climatecodered.org/2018/06/our-energy-challenge-in-6-eye-popping.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+ClimateCodeRed+%28climate+code+red%29 .

[33]. “Are we doomed?”: https://sites.google.com/site/300orgsite/are-we-doomed .

[34]. “Too late to avoid global warming catastrophe”: https://sites.google.com/site/300orgsite/too-late-to-avoid-global-warming .

[35]. Gideon Polya, “Australian ABC and UK BBC fake news through lying by omission”, Countercurrents, 2 May 2017: https://countercurrents.org/2017/05/02/australian-abc-and-uk-bbc-fake-news-through-lying-by-omission/ .

[36]. Gideon Polya, “Fake news: “Fake realities” and “Lying by omission””, Global Research, 18 April 2017: https://www.globalresearch.ca/mainstream-media-fake-news-through-lying-by-omission/5582944 .

[37]. Gideon Polya, “Mainstream media: fake news through lying by omission:, MWC News, 1 April 2017: http://www.mwcnews.net/focus/analysis/64626-mainstream-media.html .

[38]. “Censorship by the BBC”: https://sites.google.com/site/censorshipbythebbc/  .

[39]. “Mainstream media censorship”: https://sites.google.com/site/mainstreammediacensorship/home  .

[40]. “Mainstream media lying”: https://sites.google.com/site/mainstreammedialying/  .

[41]. “ABC fact-checking unit & incorrect reportage by the ABC (Australia’s BBC)”: https://sites.google.com/site/mainstreammediacensorship/abc-fact-checking-unit .

[42]. “Lying by omission is worse than lying by commission because at least the latter permits refutation and public debate”, Mainstream media lying: https://sites.google.com/site/mainstreammedialying/lying-by-omission .

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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