Review: “Four Seasons in Rome” – US Genocide-Ignoring Exampled

“Four Seasons in Rome” by Anthony Doerr is an absorbing account of a year spent in Rome in 2004-2005 by a young American couple and their new-born twins. This book touches on WW2 Normandy, victims of the 2004 Tsunami, the wounding of an Italian journalist in Iraq, and death of the Pope, but it avoids mentioning any of the huge Iraqi and Afghan war deaths inflicted by a serial war criminal America – American genocide-ignoring unwittingly exampled.

four seasons in romeAnthony Doerr’s 2007 book “Four Seasons in Rome: On Twins, Insomnia and the Biggest Funeral in the History of the World” [1] is well-written, very readable and eminently suitable for a middle-class  Anglosphere Book Club. It goes further than the routine tourist gush about lovely people, food, landscape, architecture, and art, and repeatedly deals with the serious subject of death. However, as detailed in this review, the book carefully avoids any explicit or implicit criticism of America for causing massive mortality in its wars from WW2 onwards, despite being contemporaneous with the horrendously deadly US invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan.

The author was on a 12-month fellowship at the American Academy in Rome with fellow writers, scholars and artists simply pursuing their projects with no teaching obligations. Anthony Doerr’s project was writing a novel about the German occupation of a French village in Normandy, France, in 1940-1944. However while he suffered “writer’s block” over this particular project and made little progress, he did succeed  in writing and perfecting over 6 months a 9,000-word short story that occasioned some publishing publicity travel.

Doerr was evidently aware of US-caused civilian deaths in the Allied Normandy invasion but could not bring himself to quantify them. Thus he simply writes: “According to a two-sentence project summary I had to send the Academy, I’ve come to Rome to continue writing my third book, a second novel, this one about the German occupation of a village in Normandy between 1940 and 1944. I have brought maybe fifty pages of prose, some photos of B-17s dropping fire-bombs, and a mess of scribbled notes” (p12 [1]) and  “I try to research German occupation, revivify my characters, coax my imagination onto a hillside in Normandy, but my brain is tired, my eyes are sandy. Words unmoor from their locations on the page and drift, turn, slide toward the margin” (page 29 [1]).

Note #1. “Four Seasons in Rome” ignored horrendous deaths in the liberation of Normandy by the US-led Allies in 1944.  Wikipedia reports: “During the liberation of Normandy, between 13,632 and 19,890 French civilians were killed,  and more were seriously wounded. In addition to those who died during the campaign, 11,000 to 19,000 Normans are estimated to have been killed during pre-invasion bombing.  A total of 70,000 French civilians were killed throughout the course of the war.  Land mines and unexploded ordnance continued to inflict casualties upon the Norman population following the end of the campaign… Many cities and towns in Normandy were totally devastated by the fighting and bombings. By the end of the Battle of Caen there remained only 8,000 liveable quarters for a population of over 60,000. Of the 18 listed churches in Caen, four were seriously damaged and five were destroyed, along with 66 other listed monuments. In the Calvados department (location of the Normandy beachhead), 76,000 citizens were rendered homeless” [2].  In the German Blitz on Britain 41,000- 43,000 Brits were killed,  46,000-139,000 were wounded, and more than a million houses were destroyed or damaged in London alone [3]. In the Allied bombing of Germany 353,000–635,000 civilians were killed, including foreign workers [4].

Andrew Doerr had a busy time writing his short story, travelling and speaking for his publisher, keeping a detailed journal about the stay in Rome, and helping his wife Shauna care for the new born twins, Henry and Owen, who were born on 18 March 2004 (pages 119, 120 [1]), on the first anniversary of the  illegal, war criminal, deadly and American-led  US, UK and Australian invasion of Iraq on 19 March 2003.  Not least because of this conjunction, Doerr was obviously aware of the US invasion of Iraq. However he makes no reference to the US Alliance invasion and occupation of Afghanistan (2001-2011), nor to  the deadly Sanctions War on Iraq (1990-2003). Doerr  mentions the death of a British soldier in Iraq (page 78 [1]), and gives detailed coverage of the wounding  of Italian journalist Giuliana Sgrena (just released by her Iraqi kidnappers)   and the killing of her security officer, Nicola Calipari (father of 2) by a trigger-happy US soldier  at a Baghdad checkpoint (pages 102, 116, 117 [1]).

Doerr makes minimal and indirect reference to war criminal George W. Bush’s Iraq War thus: “It’s the second of November [2004], election day in the United States” (page 37 [1]); “Beneath the window of a wine shop, two stores farther along, someone has spray painted, in English, BUSH GO HOME” (page 46 [1]); “Then its  March 18 [2005] and the boys are one year old” (page 119 [1]), and “Two days after Henry and Owen turn one, the war in Iraq turns two [19 March 2005]. We are walking from the Pantheon toward Piazza Colonna when we catch the tail end of a protest march. Maybe three hundred carabinieri in riot gear mill between trucks; one passes what look like machine guns up through an open door. A helicopter floats above. Protesters, at the far end of street, had painted bed sheets and sing. I imagine I can feel their eyes on us, on the stroller. We are Americans I want to say, but America is a big place” (page 120 [1]. However, despite this implied assertion that they are “nice Americans”  there is no mention of the enormous Iraqi and Afghan deaths due to the invasions by America and the US Alliance.

Note #2. “Four Seasons in Rome”  ignored millions killed in the US-imposed Iraqi Genocide and Afghan Genocide.  The avoidable Iraqi deaths from US-imposed deprivation during the 1990-2003 Sanctions  totalled 1.7 million, and Gulf War violent Iraqi deaths totalled 0.2 million. Doerr was probably aware of the famous 12 May 1996 TV interview in which the American  UN Ambassador, Madeleine Albright, defended UN sanctions against Iraq.  In a “60 Minutes” segment Lesley Stahl asked her “We have heard that half a million children have died. I mean, that’s more children than died in Hiroshima. And, you know, is the price worth it?” and Albright replied “We think the price is worth it”  [5]. The invasion and occupation of Iraq (2003-2011) was associated with an estimated 1.5 million violent deaths and 1.2 million deaths  from war-imposed deprivation. The invasion of Afghanistan  (not mentioned at all by Doerr)  and the subsequent 20 year war and occupation were associated with an estimated 1.3 million violent Afghan deaths and 4.2 million deaths from war-imposed deprivation [5-10]. Data from the UN Population Division, and available on the Web for  everyone,  showed that  under-5 infant deaths  in Occupied Iraq and Occupied Afghanistan in 2003 totalled  114,000 and 289,000, respectively,  and avoidable deaths from deprivation totalled 119,000 and 414,000, respectively, this indicating gross violation by America and its allies of the Fourth Geneva Convention. Articles 55 and 56 of the Fourth Geneva Convention (the Geneva Convention relative to the Protection of Civilian Persons in Time of War) unequivocally state that an Occupier is obliged to provide life-sustaining food and medical services to the conquered Subjects “to the fullest extent of the means available to it” [8].

To be fair to Doerr, he like the rest of us largely depends upon the mendacious and racist Anglosphere Mainstream media for news about what is going on in the world. However while Doerr  ignored the horrendous US-inflicted carnage  of non-European people in Iraq and Afghanistan (millions dead by 2005) he was deeply moved  by the earthquake-generated Boxing Day Tsunami that killed about 230,000 non-European people in coastal areas of East Africa, South Asia and South East Asia on 26 December 2004: “On the day after Christmas all four of us wake up ravaged by viruses [more death theme] … I switch on the computer and read that an earthquake in Sri Lanka has killed two thousand people. Fifteen minutes later CNN says the earthquake was in India and Thailand and has killed five thousand. Then ten thousand… by dinner time the earthquake toll is up to twenty five thousand and the Vatican radio station is calling it a tsunami. Tsunami Japanese for “harbour wave”… Somewhere in Iraq a British arms sergeant is killed. Somewhere on the white beaches of Indonesia a thousand bodies start to rot. All of a sudden, it seems the shadow of apocalypse has crept across everything. The tsunami death toll climbs like a deficit counter: eighty thousand, ninety thousand. I can’t take my eyes off the computer screen: trees stuffed through rooftops, orphans weeping in tents. A hotel restaurant fills with brown water. A floating log, draped in fabric, sweeps backwards, between buildings. “Shut it off, “ Shauna says. “That’s enough.” I watch it again.  The log is not a log. A giant basaltic plate, grinding across the surface  of the earth at a speed roughly comparable to the rate at which our fingernails grow, smashes into another plate, and the resulting percussion sends waves to drown a hundred thousand people. A hundred thousand. Half the population of Boise. Is that everybody I know? Everybody I’ve ever met? Even one hundred thousand is too big to fully understand… On New Year’s Eve I drink beer with some of the other fellows of the Academy. Shauna is still sick… Somewhere in Indonesia cars are still trapped in trees and people sleep stupefied in debris, and here in Rome spent rockets are kicked to the gutters” (pages 77–82 [1].

Note #3. “Four Seasons in Rome”  ignored three quarters of a million violent deaths and in subsequent decades tens of millions of  avoidable deaths from deprivation due to the US-engineered 1965 military coup in Indonesia. In the 1960s the US with Australian complicity was involved in backing Islamist rebellion in Indonesia against the Soekarno government. These machinations culminated in the 1965 military  coup in  which 750,000 progressive Indonesians and ethnic Chinese were murdered and 200,000 more imprisoned. President Soekarno, the founder of independent Indonesia, was displaced. Avoidable deaths from deprivation under the corrupt Suharto military dictatorship (1965-1999) totalled 33 million. With the backing of the US and Australia, the Indonesian military  dictatorship invaded East Timor and 200,000 East Timorese died out of a population of 600,000 in the period 1975-2000 – an East Timorese Genocide [8-10]. The Tsunami killed 200,000 Indonesians, notably in Aceh (northern Sumatra), and the carnage was so shocking that it impelled a peace agreement and cessation of over 4 decades of war between Islamist Aceh and the more secular Indonesian central government [8].

While totally ignoring massive US-backed mass killing in Iraq, Afghanistan and Indonesia, and horrendous avoidable mass mortality from deprivation in these countries linked to American intervention,  nice young Andrew Doerr from Boise, Idaho, was moved to devote many pages to Italian woman journalist, Giuliana Sgrena, who was kidnapped by Iraqis in early February 2005.  In a taped message she implored: “I beg you put an end to the occupation. I beg… the Italian people to put pressure on the government to pull out… Please do something for me” (page 102 [1]). On 4 March 2005 Giuliana Sgrena was released but on approaching a US checkpoint in Baghdad she was wounded, and her security officer, Nicola Calipari,  was killed when a US soldier opened fire. Italians were deeply upset and there was a huge state funeral (pages 102-118 [1]).

Doerr writes: “Who knows what to think? From the terrace everything looks the same, the pines [of Rome] tossing in the wind, the motorini shooting past. But in the last hour Americans will have become less welcome here. Shauna walks Henry out to join me, dangling him by his arms, her hair hanging over his, just the tips of his mocassins touching the ground. “Let’s stay in the apartment today,” she says. The next morning  our neighbour John Piasecki is at the butcher’s buying chicken when someone behind him says, “Sabato con i fascisti.” Saturday with the fascists… On Tuesday, Calipari’s coffin is set on the steps of the Vittoriano… I think of American tourists stuck on buses in the traffic this must be causing and wonder about the strange intersection of nations” (pages 116-117 [1]).

“Intersection of nations”- what a phrase that, like this nice, serious, and interesting travel book, hides horrendous mass mortality realities. Americans are great at this, as exampled by “collateral damage” (32 million Muslims killed by violence, 5 million, or from war-imposed deprivation, 27 million,  in 20 countries invaded by the US Alliance since the US Government’s 9/11 false flag atrocity that killed 3,000 mostly innocent American people) [11, 12]; “We had to destroy the city in order to save it” (Caen, France [2],  Ben Tre, Vietnam [13], and Mosul and Fallujah, Iraq [14, 15]); and the “Israel-Palestine conflict” (a century-long Palestinian Genocide by the racist British, Zionists and Apartheid Israel associated  with ethnic cleansing of 90% of Palestine, successive mass population expulsions, exiling of 8 million of the 15 million Indigenous Palestinians,  0.1 million violent Palestinian deaths and  2.1 million deaths from imposed deprivation [16]). Today the Russians have got into the act by mandating description of the US-provoked but nevertheless war criminal and unconscionable Russian invasion of Ukraine as “a special operation”.

Andrew Doerr continues the “death theme” with the aging of great buildings, the four seasons, children illnesses, the brief hospitalization of Shauna (it was only due to stress and not serious), a deadly accident outside their apartment, and the recounting of historical tragedies such as the death of a too-curious, sea-borne Pliny near Pompeii during the eruption of Vesuvius. The most gruesome story was of a rich Roman who trained his pet eels to like human flesh and fed them with living human servants. However the death given the biggest coverage in “Four Seasons in Rome” is the death of Pope John Paul and the subsequent renewal with the election of Cardinal Ratzinger as Benedict XVI (pages 129-156 [1]). But even here, as set out below, Doerr again errs, and fails  as a literary do-er in relation to reporting mass human mortality.

Note #4. “Four Seasons in Rome”  ignored the horrendous prospect of Climate Genocide and papal proposals to save the planet. Pope Francis (pope from 2013 onwards) in his 2015  Encyclical  Letter “Laudato si’” demands that a “fully borne” Carbon Price be emplaced on greenhouse gas (GHG) pollution in order to prevent “millions of premature deaths”. Armed with this authoritative moral advice, the billions of Humanity must save themselves and the Biosphere by demanding that the polluters must pay in full for GHG pollution. Pope Francis, quoting Pope Benedict XVI (pope for the period 2005-2013), essentially advocates Carbon Pricing in Section 195 of his 2015 encyclical “Laudato si’”: “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 [economic] actions be considered ethical” [17-19]. While Pope Benedict XVI’s declaration was published in 2009 (2 years after publication of “Four Seasons in Rome”) the fundamental  rationality, urgency and logic  of the proposition would have been obvious for years to all sane people, and especially to popes as eminent arbiters and ex cathedra declarers of moral responsibility. One notes that both Benedict XVI and his successor Pope Francis were both quite “worldly”, the former through German military service (1943-1945), and the latter as science-trained and living under a military dictatorship.

Indeed in 1988 (when the scientific community was speaking out about the growing climate crisis, and the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change was formed),  Pope John Paul II issued a clear statement about personal and collective moral responsibility for the worsening climate crisis: “In our day, there is a growing awareness that world peace is threatened not only by the arms race, regional conflicts and continued injustices among peoples and nations, but also by a lack of due respect for nature, by the plundering of natural resources and by a progressive decline in the quality of life. The sense of precariousness and insecurity that such a situation engenders is a seedbed for collective selfishness, disregard for others and dishonesty. Faced with the widespread destruction of the environment, people everywhere are coming to understand that we cannot continue to use the goods of the earth as we have in the past… The profound sense that the earth is “suffering” is also shared by those who do not profess our faith in God. Indeed, the increasing devastation of the world of nature is apparent to all. It results from the behaviour of people who show a callous disregard for the hidden, yet perceivable requirements of the order and harmony which govern nature itself. People are asking anxiously if it is still possible to remedy the damage which has been done. Clearly, an adequate solution cannot be found merely in a better management or a more rational use of the earth’s resources, as important as these may be. Rather, we must go to the source of the problem and face in its entirety that profound moral crisis of which the destruction of the environment is only one troubling aspect [20].

In 2006 (a year before “Four Seasons in Rome” was published), a 700-page Report was released for the British Government by eminent economist Sir Nicholas Stern, who had been commissioned by the British Government in 2005 to report on the economic consequences  of climate change.  In launching the Report in  2006 (a year before publication of “Four Seasons in Rome” in 2007) Sir Nicholas Stern  famously stated: “Our emissions affect the lives of others. When people do not pay for the consequences of their actions, we have market failure. This is the greatest market failure the world has seen” [21].

Sir Nicholas Stern, delivering the Royal Economic Society (RES) public lecture in Manchester (2007), reiterated  that global warming is a prime example of the consequences of ignoring an “externality” (a significant cost that should not be  ignored by the market): “The problem of climate change involves a fundamental failure of markets: those who damage others by emitting greenhouse gases generally do not pay. Climate change is a result of the greatest market failure the world has seen. The evidence on the seriousness of the risks from inaction or delayed action is now overwhelming. We risk damages on a scale larger than the two world wars of the last century. The problem is global and the response must be a collaboration on a global scale. That means adopting ambitious emissions reduction targets; encouraging effective market mechanisms; supporting programmes to combat deforestation; promoting rapid technological progress to mitigate the effects of climate change; and honouring their aid commitments to the developing world” [22].

As early as 2007 the eminent climate scientist, the  late Dr James Lovelock (26 July 1919 – 26 July 2022), was quoted thus: “By 2100… the Earth’s population will be culled from today’s 6.6 billion to as few as 500 million, with most of the survivors living in the far latitudes — Canada, Iceland, Scandinavia, the Arctic Basin” [23]. Humanity and the Biosphere are existentially threatened by nuclear weapons, poverty and climate change. In the absence of urgent requisite action the world faces the prospect of a worsening Climate Genocide en route to a sustainable human population in 2100 of only about  billion. You can understand why one of the world’s greatest minds, Stephen Hawking, declared (2007): “We foresee great peril if governments and societies do not take action now to render nuclear weapons obsolete and to prevent further climate change” [23-25].

Fundamental to tackling climate change are addressing the “profound moral crisis” perceived by Pope John Paul II, and the imposition on polluters of  a damage-related Carbon Price as advocated by Pope Benedict XVI and as reiterated by his successor Pope Francis. GHG pollution will only stop when we make the polluters pay – the full, damage-related  cost of  ongoing GHG pollution (estimated to be $200 per tonne CO2-equivalent ) must be “fully borne” by the polluters.

Final comments and conclusions

The undoubted virtues of “Four Seasons in Rome” are that it is a well-written, absorbing, entertaining and in many ways a serious book about a young mid-West American writer and his family in Rome. The book is a pleasure to read for a variety of reasons, including (1) the joys and tribulations of parenthood (sleepless nights, illness scares, joys of first crawling, first walking and first words); (2) the warmth of Italian strangers, (especially to the twins); (3) the four seasons (no doubt inspired in part by Vivaldi’s famous work); (4)  warm descriptions of the buildings and landscapes of Rome (the old and the new, the historical scavenging of the old to build new palaces and churches, architectural gems such as the Sant’Ivo della Sapienza); (5) the history of Rome (remarkable people, events and stories, the surprisingly massive accretion of rubbish and rubble over the centuries, the writings of Pliny the Elder), and (6) throughout the book the warmth, vibrancy and pace of this great city and its people (impossible traffic, much higher traffic accident mortality than in Los Angeles, mass sorrow of millions over the death of the pope, and mass enthusiasm over the installation of his successor).

For all that this is a joyous book that skilfully and warmly celebrates life and love of humanity, it is serious in that it makes it clear that death is part of the story of this ancient city. Indeed the Four Seasons theme makes this explicit. Thus, for example, the life expectancy in Imperial Rome was only about 25 years and Doerr recounts some dreadful stories (the death of Pliny while rashly investigating the eruption of Vesuvius that destroyed Pompei; Jews being run down by stampeding horses; the rich Roman who trained eels to eat humans so he could throw slaves into their tank to be eaten alive; the death of Saint Cecilia). However while life in Rome is “basic” from a middle class US perspective, it is culturally rich, and the hospital service is free.

This book, perhaps unwittingly, reveals the moral dichotomy in prosperous Western and American “civilization” – travel, good food, art, and rich lives in the First World while there is massive suffering and untimely death from war, hegemony and deadly poverty in the impoverished Developing World. As of 2020, 7.4 million people died avoidably from deprivation on Spaceship Earth with rich One Percenters in charge of the flight deck [8].  Andrew Doerr is no doubt a decent fellow and was moved by the 230,000 victims of the 2004 Boxing Day Tsunami, but when it came to 70,000 French lives lost in the liberation of France in WW2, and millions of  Iraqi  and Afghan lives lost in US invasions and occupations there was total silence. Afghanistan was not even mentioned, nor US complicity in tens of millions of avoidable Indonesian deaths in the decades after the US-backed 1965 coup. The only people killed in  Iraq that were mentioned in “Four Seasons in Rome” were a British soldier and an Italian security officer. And there was no mention of the worsening Climate Genocide that in the absence of requisite action is set to kill 10 billion people this century, overwhelmingly non-Europeans (even the threatened but rich Dutch will be able to find and afford technological solutions to greatly increased sea levels and temperatures) [23, 25].

It isn’t just Andrew Doerr, an evidently educated, sensitive, and caring person. It is the whole uncaring Western culture. The prosperous West simply looks the other way, confirmed daily in this immorality by utterly mendacious oligopoly Mainstream media, and by Mainstream  journalist, editor, politician, academic and commentariat presstitutes. As exposed by Professor Edward Herman and Noam Chomsky in “Manufacturing Consent”, mendacious American Mainstream media serve governments. According to famous anti-racist Jewish American journalist I.F. Stone: “Governments lie”, noting that such lying involves lying by commission and lying by omission [26-28]. As attributed to Edmund Burke, “Evil happens when good men do nothing” . And, of course, history ignored yields history repeated, and genocide ignored yields genocide repeated [29].

One continues to plead in response to horrendous past, present and predicted future atrocities, albeit with little hope of effectiveness, that black lives matter, brown lives matter, Palestinian lives matter, non-European  lives matter, and indeed all lives matter. At the end of the book Andrew Doerr comments about his WW2 Normandy project: “In the Tom Andrews Studio [of the American Academy] I pull down the photo of B-17s and bombed out cities… I’ll finish it in Idaho, I tell myself, although I might be lying” (page 185[1]).  We must bear witness to both beauty and horror. Peace is the only way but silence kills and silence is complicity.

References

[1]. Anthony Doerr, “Four Seasons in Rome: On Twins, Insomnia and the Biggest Funeral in the History of the World”, Scribner 2007, 2008.

[2]. “Operation Overlord”, Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Overlord .

[3]. “The Blitz”, Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Blitz .

[4]. “Strategic bombing during World War II”, Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strategic_bombing_during_World_War_II .

[5]. “Iraqi Genocide, Iraqi Holocaust”: https://www.sites.google.com/site/iraqiholocaustiraqigenocide/home .

[6]. “Muslim Genocide Muslim Holocaust”: https://sites.google.com/site/muslimholocaustmuslimgenocide/ .

[7].  “Afghan Holocaust Afghan Genocide”: https://sites.google.com/site/afghanholocaustafghangenocide/ .

[8]. Gideon Polya, “Body Count. Global avoidable mortality since 1950”, 2nd edition, Korsgaard Publishing, Germany, 2021.

[9]. Gideon Polya, “US-imposed Post-9/11 Muslim Holocaust & Muslim Genocide”, Korsgaard Publishing, Germany, 2020.

[10]. Gideon Polya, chapters in Søren Korsgaard, editor, “The Most Dangerous Book Ever Published – Deadly Deception Exposed”, Korsgaard Publishing, Germany, 2020.

[11]. Gideon Polya, “Paris atrocity context: 27 Million Muslim Avoidable  Deaths From Imposed Deprivation In 20 Countries Violated By US Alliance Since 9-11”, Countercurrents, 22 November, 2015: https://countercurrents.org/polya221115.htm .

[12]. “Experts: US did 9-11”: https://sites.google.com/site/expertsusdid911/ .

[13]. Alistair Farrow, “Vietnam’s blow to US empire”, Socialist Worker,  22 January 2018: https://socialistworker.co.uk/features/vietnam-s-blow-to-us-empire/ .

[14]. Patrick Cockburn, “The massacre of Mosul: 40,000 feared dead in battle to take back city from Isis as scale of civilian casualties revealed ”, Independent, July, 2017: http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/mosul-massacre-battle-isis-iraq-city-civilian-casualties-killed-deaths-fighting-forces-islamic-state-a7848781.html .

[15]. Gideon Polya, “Review: “The Sacking Of Fallujah. A People’s History” – Ongoing Iraqi Genocide”, Countercurrents, 30 January 2020: https://countercurrents.org/2020/01/review-the-sacking-of-fallujah-a-peoples-history-ongoing-iraqi-genocide/ .

[16]. Gideon Polya, “Australia must stop Zionist subversion and join the World in comprehensive Boycotts, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) against Apartheid Israel and all its supporters”, Subversion of Australia, 15 April 2021: https://sites.google.com/site/subversionofaustralia/2021-04-15  .

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

[18]. Pope Francis , Encyclical Letter “Laudato si”, 2015: http://w2.vatican.va/content/francesco/en/encyclicals/documents/papa-francesco_20150524_enciclica-laudato-si.html .

[19]. Pope Benedict XVI, Encyclical Letter “Caritas in Veritate”, 29 June 2009: http://w2.vatican.va/content/benedict-xvi/en/encyclicals/documents/hf_ben-xvi_enc_20090629_caritas-in-veritate.html .

[20]. Pope John Paul II, “Peace with God the Creator, peace with all of creation”, 1 January 1990: https://www.vatican.va/content/john-paul-ii/en/messages/peace/documents/hf_jp-ii_mes_19891208_xxiii-world-day-for-peace.html .

[21]. John Cassidy, “High Costs”, The New Yorker, 5 November 2006: https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2006/11/13/high-costs .

[22]. Alison Benjamin, “Stern: climate change a “market failure””, Guardian, 29 November 2007: https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2007/nov/29/climatechange.carbonemissions .

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

[24].  “Nuclear weapons ban, end poverty and reverse climate change”: https://sites.google.com/site/drgideonpolya/nuclear-weapons-ban.

[25]. Gideon Polya, “Climate Crisis, Climate Genocide & Solutions”, Korsgaard Publishing, Germany, 2020.

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

[27]. “Lying by omission”: https://sites.google.com/site/mainstreammedialying/lying-by-omission .

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

[29]. Gideon Polya, “Jane Austen and the Black Hole of British History. Colonial rapacity, holocaust denial and the crisis in biological sustainability”, 3rd edition  being edited for publication; for the 2nd  edition see: http://janeaustenand.blogspot.com/ .

Dr Gideon Polya taught science students at La Trobe University, Melbourne, Australia over 4 decades. He published some 130 works in a 5 decade scientific career, notably a huge pharmacological reference text “Biochemical Targets of Plant Bioactive Compounds”. He has also published “Body Count. Global avoidable mortality since 1950” (2007, 2022) and “Jane Austen and the Black Hole of British History” (1998, 2008). He has recently published “US-imposed Post-9-11 Muslim Holocaust & Muslim Genocide” (2020), and “Climate Crisis, Climate Genocide & Solutions” (2020). For images of Gideon Polya’s huge paintings for the Planet, Peace, Mother and Child see: http://sites.google.com/site/artforpeaceplanetmotherchild/

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