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in other Western countries, the currently dominant, pro-One Percenter, neoliberal ideology has meant that Democracy has been replaced by Plutocracy, Kleptocracy, Murdochracy, Lobbyocracy, Corporatocracy and Dollarocracy in which Big Money purchases politicians, parties, policies, public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 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).
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.
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
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
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
The Guardian newspaper reported (2016): “Every reference to
2. Australian Coalition Government got the imperilled
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
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
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
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
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 Australia (116 if including its huge GHG-generating mining exports) as compared to 2.7 for Bangladesh China
Clive Hamilton on Turnbull falsehoods: “The most dangerous man in
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
Facts: (1)
[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
[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].
[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
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
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
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
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
6. Coalition Government gives $1 billion for
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,
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
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
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
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
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
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
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
Those voting for the Coalition are not just on a continuum from profound ignorance and stupidity to homicidal greed, they are betraying children, grandchildren,
The world will soon respond to continuing disproportionate greenhouse gas pollution and climate change inaction by
References.
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[12]. Gayathri Vaidynathan, “
[13]. “Climate Council”: https://www.climatecouncil.org.au/ .
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[84]. Gideon Polya
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,
) and “Ongoing Palestinian Genocide” in “The Plight of the Palestinians (edited by William Cook, Palgrave Macmillan,