Dear Friend,
This week’s edition of the Lancet—the world’s pre-eminent peer reviewed medical journal—carries a letter from 117 medical doctors in 18 countries, renewing their call for urgent action to save the life of WikiLeaks publisher Julian Assange. Their letter appears less than one week before the start of the US extradition hearing in London that may decide Assange’s fate.
On Saturday, there will be a march from Australia House in London to Parliament Square, the centre of British democracy. People will carry pictures of the Australian publisher and journalist Julian Assange who, on 24 February, faces a court that will decide whether or not he is to be extradited to the United States and a living death.
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The Lancet publishes letter from doctors: “End torture and medical neglect of Julian Assange”
by Laura Tiernan
This week’s edition of the Lancet—the world’s pre-eminent peer reviewed medical journal—carries a letter from 117 medical doctors in 18 countries, renewing their call for urgent action to save the life of WikiLeaks publisher Julian Assange. Their letter appears less than one week before the start of the US extradition hearing in London that may decide Assange’s fate.
This week’s edition of the Lancet—the world’s pre-eminent peer reviewed medical journal—carries a letter from 117 medical doctors in 18 countries, renewing their call for urgent action to save the life of WikiLeaks publisher Julian Assange. Their letter appears less than one week before the start of the US extradition hearing in London that may decide Assange’s fate.
The doctors’ two-page letter appears in the correspondence section of the Lancet under the heading “End torture and medical neglect of Julian Assange.” It was written by Dr Stephen Frost (UK), Dr Lissa Johnson, clinical psychologist (Australia), Dr Jill Stein (former leader of the US Green Party) and William Frost (UK).
A pedestrian passes pro-Assange graffitti outside Westminster Magistrates Court in London. (AP Photo/Kirsty Wigglesworth)
“The case of Assange… is multifaceted,” the doctors write. “It relates to law, freedom of speech, freedom of the press, journalism, publishing, and politics. It also, however, clearly relates to medicine and public health. The case highlights several concerning aspects that warrant the medical profession’s close attention and concerted action.”
Nearly three months ago, on November 22, more than 65 doctors issued an open letter to the UK government challenging the illegal and arbitrary detention of Assange. A follow-up letter to the Australian government was issued on December 16. Neither government has responded.
Issuing their appeal to medical colleagues throughout the world—the Lancet has 1.8 million subscribers—the letter’s authors describe multiple human rights violations by the US, UK, Swedish, Ecuadorian and Australian governments against Assange. This includes nearly a decade of “illegal and arbitrary detention” and relentless state persecution amounting to “prolonged psychological torture.”
Readers of the Lancet might be shocked to learn that doctors treating Assange in London have faced intimidation and state surveillance—methods commonly employed by military dictatorships. “There was… a climate of fear surrounding the provision of health care in the Embassy,” the letter recounts, with treating doctors forced to report their identity to police.
“Disturbingly,” they write, “it seems that this environment of insecurity and intimidation, further compromising the medical care available to Assange, was by design. Assange was the subject of a 24/7 covert surveillance operation inside the embassy, as the emergence of secret video and audio recordings has shown.
“He was surveilled in private and with visitors, including family, friends, journalists, lawyers, and doctors. Not only were his rights to privacy, personal life, legal privilege, and freedom of speech violated, but so, too, was his right to doctor–patient confidentiality.”
The signatories state emphatically, “We condemn the torture of Assange. We condemn the denial of his fundamental right to appropriate health care. We condemn the climate of fear surrounding the provision of health care to him. We condemn the violations of his right to doctor–patient confidentiality. Politics cannot be allowed to interfere with the right to health and the practice of medicine.”
Doctors for Assange (as the doctors are collectively known) have launched a new website, and their letter to the Lancet links to this, “We invite fellow doctors to join us as signatories to our letters to add further voice to our calls. Even as the world’s designated authorities on arbitrary detention, torture, and human rights added their calls to doctors’ warnings, governments have sidelined medical authority, medical ethics, and the human right to health.
“This politicisation of foundational medical principles is of grave concern to us, as it carries implications beyond the case of Assange. Abuse by politically motivated medical neglect sets a dangerous precedent, whereby the medical profession can be manipulated as a political tool, ultimately undermining our profession’s impartiality, commitment to health for all, and obligation to do no harm.”
The doctors issue a stark warning, “Should Assange die in a UK prison, as the UN Special Rapporteur on Torture has warned, he will have effectively been tortured to death. Much of that torture will have taken place in a prison medical ward, on doctors’ watch. The medical profession cannot afford to stand silently by, on the wrong side of torture and the wrong side of history, while such a travesty unfolds.”
Yesterday, Doctors for Assange sent copies of their letter to UK Home Secretary Priti Patel and to Australian Foreign Minister Marise Payne. “Mr Assange’s human rights to health care and freedom from torture must be upheld. At this late hour, we call on you to act decisively,” the doctors wrote.
Their letter to the Lancet concludes, “Our appeals are simple: we are calling upon governments to end the torture of Assange and ensure his access to the best available health care before it is too late. Our request to others is this: please join us.”
Originally published by WSWS.org
Julian Assange Must Be Freed, Not Betrayed
by John Pilger
On Saturday,
there will be a march from Australia House in London to Parliament Square, the centre of British democracy. People will carry pictures of the Australian publisher and journalist Julian Assange who, on 24 February, faces a court that will decide whether or not he is to be extradited to the United States and a living death.
On Saturday, there will be a march from Australia House in London to Parliament Square, the centre of British democracy. People will carry pictures of the Australian publisher and journalist Julian Assange who, on 24 February, faces a court that will decide whether or not he is to be extradited to the United States and a living death.
I know Australia House well. As an Australian myself, I used to go there in my early days in London to read the newspapers from home. Opened by King George V over a century ago, its vastness of marble and stone, chandeliers and solemn portraits, imported from Australia when Australian soldiers were dying in the slaughter of the First World War, have ensured its landmark as an imperial pile of monumental servility.
As one of the oldest “diplomatic missions” in the United Kingdom, this relic of empire provides a pleasurable sinecure for Antipodean politicians: a “mate” rewarded or a troublemaker exiled.
Known as High Commissioner, the equivalent of an ambassador, the current beneficiary is George Brandis, who as Attorney General tried to water down Australia’s Race Discrimination Act and approved raids on whistleblowers who had revealed the truth about Australia’s illegal spying on East Timor during negotiations for the carve-up of that impoverished country’s oil and gas.
This led to the prosecution of whistleblowers Bernard Collaery and “Witness K”, on bogus charges. Like Julian Assange, they are to be silenced in a Kafkaesque trial and put away.
Australia House is the ideal starting point for Saturday’s march.
“I confess,” wrote Lord Curzon, Viceroy of India, in 1898, “that countries are pieces on a chessboard upon which is being played out a great game for the domination of the world.””
We Australians have been in the service of the Great Game for a very long time. Having devastated our Indigenous people in an invasion and a war of attrition that continues to this day, we have spilt blood for our imperial masters in China, Africa, Russia, the Middle East, Europe and Asia. No imperial adventure against those with whom we have no quarrel has escaped our dedication.
Deception has been a feature. When Prime Minister Robert Menzies sent Australian soldiers to Vietnam in the 1960s, he described them as a training team, requested by a beleaguered government in Saigon. It was a lie. A senior official of the Department of External Affairs wrote secretly that “although we have stressed the fact publicly that our assistance was given in response to an invitation by the government of South Vietnam”, the order came from Washington.
Two versions. The lie for us, the truth for them. As many as four million people died in the Vietnam war.
When Indonesia invaded East Timor in 1975, the Australian Ambassador, Richard Woolcott, secretly urged the government in Canberra to “act in a way which would be designed to minimise the public impact in Australia and show private understanding to Indonesia.” In other words, to lie. He alluded to the beckoning spoils of oil and gas in the Timor Sea which, boasted Foreign Minister Gareth Evans, were worth “zillions”.
In the genocide that followed, at least 200,000 East Timorese died. Australia recognised, almost alone, the legitimacy of the occupation.
When Prime Minister John Howard sent Australian special forces to invade Iraq with America and Britain in 2003, he – like George W. Bush and Tony Blair – lied that Saddam Hussein had weapons of mass destruction. More than a million people died in Iraq.
WikiLeaks was not the first to call out the pattern of criminal lying in democracies that remain every bit as rapacious as in Lord Curzon’s day. The achievement of the remarkable publishing organisation founded by Julian Assange has been to provide the proof.
WikiLeaks has informed us how illegal wars are fabricated, how governments are overthrown and violence is used in our name, how we are spied upon through our phones and screens. The true lies of presidents, ambassadors, political candidates, generals, proxies, political fraudsters have been exposed. One by one, these would-be emperors have realised they have no clothes.
It has been an unprecedented public service; above all, it is authentic journalism, whose value can be judged by the degree of apoplexy of the corrupt and their apologists.
For example, in 2016, WikiLeaks published the leaked emails of Hillary Clinton’s campaign manager John Podesta, which revealed a direct connection between Clinton, the foundation she shares with her husband and the funding of organised jihadism in the Middle East – terrorism.
One email disclosed that Islamic State (ISIS) was bankrolled by the governments of Saudi Arabia and Qatar, from which Clinton accepted huge “donations”. Moreover, as US Secretary of State, she approved the world’s biggest ever arms sale to her Saudi benefactors, worth more than $80 billion. Thanks to her, US arms sales to the world – for use in stricken countries like Yemen – doubled.
Revealed by WikiLeaks and published in The New York Times, the Podesta emails triggered a vituperative campaign against editor-in-chief Julian Assange, bereft of evidence. He was an “agent of Russia working to elect Trump”; the nonsensical “Russiagate” followed. That WikiLeaks had also published more than 800,000 frequently damning documents from Russia was ignored.
On an Australian Broadcasting Corporation programme, Four Corners, in 2017, Clinton was interviewed by Sarah Ferguson, who began: “No one could fail to be moved by the pain on your face at [the moment of Donald Trump’s inauguration] … Do you remember how visceral it was for you?”
Having established Clinton’s visceral suffering, the fawning Ferguson described “Russia’s role” and the “damage done personally to you” by Julian Assange.
Clinton replied, “He [Assange] is very clearly a tool of Russian intelligence. And he has done their bidding.”
Ferguson said to Clinton, “Lots of people, including in Australia, think that Assange is a martyr of free speech and freedom of information. How would you describe him?”
Again, Clinton was allowed to defame Assange – a “nihilist” in the service of “dictators” – while Ferguson assured her interviewee she was “the icon of your generation”.
There was no mention of a leaked document, revealed by WikiLeaks, called Libya Tick Tock, prepared for Hillary Clinton, which described her as the central figure driving the destruction of the Libyan state in 2011. This resulted in 40,000 deaths, the arrival of ISIS in North Africa and the European refugee and migrant crisis.
For me, this episode of Clinton’s interview – and there are many others – vividly illustrates the division between false and true journalism. On 24 February, when Julian Assange steps into Woolwich Crown Court, true journalism will be the only crime on trial.
I am sometimes asked why I have championed Assange. For one thing, I like and I admire him. He is a friend with astonishing courage; and he has a finely honed, wicked sense of humour. He is the diametric opposite of the character invented then assassinated by his enemies.
As a reporter in places of upheaval all over the world, I have learned to compare the evidence I have witnessed with the words and actions of those with power. In this way, it is possible to get a sense of how our world is controlled and divided and manipulated, how language and debate are distorted to produce the propaganda of false consciousness.
When we speak about dictatorships, we call this brainwashing: the conquest of minds. It is a truth we rarely apply to our own societies, regardless of the trail of blood that leads back to us and which never dries.
WikiLeaks has exposed this. That is why Assange is in a maximum security prison in London facing concocted political charges in America, and why he has shamed so many of those paid to keep the record straight. Watch these journalists now look for cover as it dawns on them that the American fascists who have come for Assange may come for them, not least those on the Guardian who collaborated with WikiLeaks and won prizes and secured lucrative book and Hollywood deals based on his work, before turning on him.
In 2011, David Leigh, the Guardian’s “investigations editor”, told journalism students at City University in London that Assange was “quite deranged”. When a puzzled student asked why, Leigh replied, “Because he doesn’t understand the parameters of conventional journalism”.
But it’s precisely because he did understand that the “parameters” of the media often shielded vested and political interests and had nothing to do with transparency that the idea of WikiLeaks was so appealing to many people, especially the young, rightly cynical about the so-called “mainstream”.
Leigh mocked the very idea that, once extradited, Assange would end up “wearing an orange jumpsuit”. These were things, he said, “that he and his lawyer are saying in order to feed his paranoia”.
The current US charges against Assange centre on the Afghan Logs and Iraq Logs, which the Guardian published and Leigh worked on, and on the Collateral Murder video showing an American helicopter crew gunning down civilians and celebrating the crime. For this journalism, Assange faces 17 charges of “espionage” which carry prison sentences totalling 175 years.
Whether or not his prison uniform will be an “orange jumpsuit”, US court files seen by Assange’s lawyers reveal that, once extradited, Assange will be subject to Special Administrative Measures, known as SAMS. A 2017 report by Yale University Law School and the Center for Constitutional Rights described SAMS as “the darkest corner of the US federal prison system” combining “the brutality and isolation of maximum security units with additional restrictions that deny individuals almost any connection to the human world … The net effect is to shield this form of torture from any real public scrutiny.”
That Assange has been right all along, and getting him to Sweden was a fraud to cover an American plan to “render” him, is finally becoming clear to many who swallowed the incessant scuttlebutt of character assassination. “I speak fluent Swedish and was able to read all the original documents,” Nils Melzer, the United Nations Rapporteur on Torture, said recently, “I could hardly believe my eyes. According to the testimony of the woman in question, a rape had never taken place at all. And not only that: the woman’s testimony was later changed by the Stockholm Police without her involvement in order to somehow make it sound like a possible rape. I have all the documents in my possession, the emails, the text messages.”
Keir Starmer is currently running for election as leader of the Labour Party in Britain. Between 2008 and 2013, he was Director of Public Prosecutions and responsible for the Crown Prosecution Service. According to Freedom of Information searches by the Italian journalist Stefania Maurizi, Sweden tried to drop the Assange case in 2011, but a CPS official in London told the Swedish prosecutor not to treat it as “just another extradition”.
In 2012, she received an email from the CPS: “Don’t you dare get cold feet!!!” Other CPS emails were either deleted or redacted. Why? Keir Starmer needs to say why.
At the forefront of Saturday’s march will be John Shipton, Julian’s father, whose indefatigable support for his son is the antithesis of the collusion and cruelty of the governments of Australia, our homeland.
The roll call of shame begins with Julia Gillard, the Australian Labor prime minister who, in 2010, wanted to criminalise WikiLeaks, arrest Assange and cancel his passport – until the Australian Federal Police pointed out that no law allowed this and that Assange had committed no crime.
While falsely claiming to give him consular assistance in London, it was the Gillard government’s shocking abandonment of its citizen that led to Ecuador granting political asylum to Assange in its London embassy.
In a subsequent speech before the US Congress, Gillard, a favourite of the US embassy in Canberra, broke records for sycophancy (according to the website Honest History) as she declared, over and again, the fidelity of America’s “mates Down Under”.
Today, while Assange waits in his cell, Gillard travels the world, promoting herself as a feminist concerned about “human rights”, often in tandem with that other right-on feminist Hillary Clinton.
The truth is that Australia could have rescued Julian Assange and can still rescue him.
In 2010, I arranged to meet a prominent Liberal (Conservative) Member of Parliament, Malcolm Turnbull. As a young barrister in the 1980s, Turnbull had successfully fought the British Government’s attempts to prevent the publication of the book, Spycatcher, whose author Peter Wright, a spy, had exposed Britain’s “deep state”.
We talked about his famous victory for free speech and publishing and I described the miscarriage of justice awaiting Assange – the fraud of his arrest in Sweden and its connection with an American indictment that tore up the US Constitution and the rule of international law.
Turnbull appeared to show genuine interest and an aide took extensive notes. I asked him to deliver a letter to the Australian government from Gareth Peirce, the renowned British human rights lawyer who represents Assange.
In the letter, Peirce wrote, “Given the extent of the public discussion, frequently on the basis of entirely false assumptions… it is very hard to attempt to preserve for [Julian Assange] any presumption of innocence. Mr. Assange has now hanging over him not one but two Damocles swords, of potential extradition to two different jurisdictions in turn for two different alleged crimes, neither of which are crimes in his own country, and that his personal safety has become at risk in circumstances that are highly politically charged.”
Turnbull promised to deliver the letter, follow it through and let me know. I subsequently wrote to him several times, waited and heard nothing.
In 2018, John Shipton wrote a deeply moving letter to the then prime minister of Australia asking him to exercise the diplomatic power at his government’s disposal and bring Julian home. He wrote that he feared that if Julian was not rescued, there would be a tragedy and his son would die in prison. He received no reply. The prime minister was Malcolm Turnbull.
Last year, when the current prime minister, Scott Morrison, a former public relations man, was asked about Assange, he replied in his customary way, “He should face the music!”
When Saturday’s march reaches the Houses of Parliament, said to be “the Mother of Parliaments”, Morrison and Gillard and Turnbull and all those who have betrayed Julian Assange should be called out; history and decency will not forget them or those who remain silent now.
And if there is any sense of justice left in the land of Magna Carta, the travesty that is the case against this heroic Australian must be thrown out. Or beware, all of us.
The march on Saturday, 22 February begins at Australia House in Aldwych, London WC2B 4LA, at 12.30pm: assemble at 11.30pm
John Pilger is an Australian journalist and documentary maker, based in London. He has twice won Britain’s Journalist of the Year Award, and his documentaries have received academy awards in Britain and the US www.johpilger.com @johnpilger
Mississippi Pearl River’s third-highest crest on record causes flooding in Jackson
by Countercurrents Collective
The Pearl River in Jackson, Mississippi, reached its third-highest crest on record as flooding impacted homes and businesses. Hundreds of residents have fled Jackson ahead of potentially historic flooding of the Pearl River.
Methane Leakage Makes Australia A World Leading Per Capita Greenhouse Gas Polluter
by Dr Gideon Polya
Methane (CH4) is 85% of natural gas, leaks, and has a Global Warming Potential (GWP) 105 times that of the same mass of carbon dioxide (CO2) on a 20 year time frame with aerosol impacts included. Such considerations reveal that Australia with 0.33 % of the world population has revised annual Domestic greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions that are 2.5% of the world’s, and annual Domestic plus Exported GHG emissions that are 5.4% of the world’s annual GHG pollution.
Methane Leakage Makes Australia A World Leading Per Capita Greenhouse Gas Polluter in Climate Change — by Dr Gideon Polya — February 18, 2020
Methane (CH4) is 85% of natural gas, leaks, and has a Global Warming Potential (GWP) 105 times that of the same mass of carbon dioxide (CO2) on a 20 year time frame with aerosol impacts included. Such considerations reveal that Australia with 0.33 % of the world population has revised annual Domestic greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions that are 2.5% of the world’s, and annual Domestic plus Exported GHG emissions that are 5.4% of the world’s annual GHG pollution.
Australia is among world leaders in annual per capita greenhouse gas (GHG) pollution [1, 2], is a major exporter of GHG pollution-implicit coal, gas and iron ore, and has become the world’s largest exporter of Liquid Natural Gas (LNG) as well as of coal. However, depending upon the degree of systemic gas leakage, burning gas for power may be worse greenhouse gas (GHG)-wise than burning coal because methane (CH4, about 85% of natural gas) has a global warming potential (GWP) that is 105 times that of the same mass of carbon dioxide (CO2) on a 20 year time frame with aerosol impacts included [3-6]. However a remorselessly neoliberal, anti-science and anti-environment Australia is committed on a bipartisan political basis (i.e. with the support of the Right-Extreme Right Liberal Party-National Party Coalition Government and the Right-Centrist Labor Party Opposition) to massive exploitation of conventional and non-conventional natural gas reserves for Export and Domestic use. Only the Greens oppose this Gadarene, ecocidal, speciescidal, and potentially omnicidal and terracidal profligacy that is driven by remorseless neoliberal greed and racism.
Australia is a world leader in annual per capita GHG pollution [1, 2] and both its Coalition Government and Labor Opposition are committed to unlimited coal and gas exploitation for Export [1, 2]. Australia is a key player in a dangerous global coal to gas transition that is a deadly and dishonest neoliberal alternative to the complete cessation of fossil fuel exploitation demanded by scientists in the face of the worsening climate emergency. The ideal target of no more than a 1.5C temperature rise agreed to at the 2015 Paris Climate Change Conference is now set to be exceeded on present trends within 10 years [3, 4]. A plus 2C temperature rise – that all governments (except for the idiotic, dangerous, anti-science and climate change denialist US Trump Administration) agree would be catastrophic – is now effectively unavoidable [5-7]. While Humanity can still take action to make the now inevitable plus 2C future “less bad”, there is a looming threat of global warming causing massive release of methane (CH4) from the Arctic, a ticking “Methane Bomb” set to utterly devastate Humanity and indeed all life on earth in the coming century because CH4 has a Global Warming Potential 105 times greater than that of carbon dioxide (CO2) on a 20 year time frame with aerosol effects included [8-11].
Australia continues to be devastated by high intensity, destructive and deadly 2019-2020 bushfires across the continent [6], conflagrations that recently threatened lives and homes in Australia’s national capital Canberra in which an unprecedented emergency was declared. Scientists have been warning for decades that global warming and consequent increased temperature, dryness and drought will increase the probability of forest fires [6, 13-19]. However this is variously contested by the climate change denialist or effective climate change denialist Coalition politicians ruling Australia [20, 21]. Indeed at the height of the Australian bushfire catastrophe, pro-coal PM Scott Morrison (who notoriously flourished a lump of coal in Parliament, idiotically declaring “This is coal. Don’t be afraid, don’t be scared” [22]) announced Government underwriting of 2 new gas-fired power stations next to population centres, and raised the possibility of backing some new coal-fired power stations as well [23]. Utter stupidity.
Thanks to the homicidal greed of climate criminal countries such as Australia, the present plus 1.1C temperature rise is already devastating Island Nations, and a catastrophic plus 2C warming is now effectively unavoidable on present trends. Climate criminal Australia is among world leaders for the following 16 climate criminal activities or parameters: (1) annual per capita greenhouse gas pollution, (2) live methanogenic livestock exports, (3) natural gas exports, (4) recoverable shale gas reserves that can be accessed by hydraulic fracturing (fracking), (5) coal exports, (6) land clearing, deforestation and ecocide, (7) speciescide or species extinction], (8) coral reef destruction , (9) whale killing and extinction threat through global warming impacting on krill stocks , (10) terminal carbon pollution budget exceedance, (11) per capita Carbon Debt], (12) ultimately GHG generating iron ore exports, (13) climate change inaction, (14) climate genocide and approach towards omnicide and terracide, (15) increasing Domestic GHG pollution despite Paris commitments to lower GHG pollution, and (16) complicity in 8 million annual air pollution deaths from burning carbon fuels, Australia’s share being 75,000 overseas and 10,000 Domestically [24-26](for detailed documentation see [27]). Australia with 0.3% of the world’s population contributes about 4.5% of global GHG pollution (including that due to the burning of Australia’s world leading gas and coal exports) [1].
Australian actions to “tackle climate change” would involve mitigatory action in all 16 areas but for the climate criminal Australian Coalition Government it is “business as usual” (BAU) – the climate criminal Australian dog-in-the-manger is simply BAU-wowing to a world facing a worsening Climate Emergency and a worsening Climate Genocide (already 1 million people die from climate change each year in a worsening Climate Genocide that will involve 10 billion deaths this century en route to a sustainable human population in 2100 of merely 0.5-1.0 billion) [28].
Now in his latest anti-science atrocity Australian PM Scott “Scomo” Morrison has announced a $2 billion [Australian dollars] “gas deal” with Premier Gladys Berejiklian of Australia’s largest state, New South Wales (NSW). Phillip Coorey of the Australian Financial Review: “The federal government and NSW have reached a $2 billion energy deal which will require NSW to free up massive amounts of gas for domestic use in return for the construction of new interconnectors, the underwriting of new non-coal power generation, and funding for emissions reduction projects.…Pivotal to the deal will be the NSW government having to find an extra 70 petajoules of gas per year [1.29 Mt gas per year] for the east coast domestic market. This could be done by either the government importing more gas through Port Kembla but it is far more likely to give the green light to extract gas from the Narrabri [NSW coal seam] gas fields” [29].
Prime Minister Scott Morrison utterly incorrectly stated: “There is no credible plan to lower emissions and keep electricity prices down that does not involve the greater use of gas as an important transition fuel” [30] . However his utterly false position has been slammed by science-informed critics. Thus Georgina Woods (from the anti-fracking, anti-coal seam gas, farmer’s group “Lock The Gate”: “Rural communities should not be forced to sacrifice land, water and their economic security in the name of quick and dirty resource exploitation. Coal seam gas is a heavily polluting industry that leaks vast amounts of methane and won’t do anything to bring down carbon emissions” [30]. NSW Greens senator Mehreen Faruqi : “It threatens the Great Artesian Basin, farmer’s livelihoods, food security and the mighty biodiverse Pilliga Forest. It’s clear that the federal and NSW governments have already made a political decision to allow this project to go ahead” [30]. Adam Bandt (Federal Greens MP): “NSW is doing a climate deal with the devil, locking in pollution that will blow Australia’s emissions targets and put us on a path to climate catastrophe. As a global warming gas, methane is up to 86 times more powerful than carbon dioxide. The Prime Minister is trying to hoodwink people with his supposed climate action, but today’s announcement amounts to little more than climate criminality” [30].
How does this latest bit of Australian Coalition climate criminality stack up with the science? Set out below is a detailed quantitative analysis showing (among many other surprising things) that the investment of a once-off A$2 billion of taxpayer funds into the PM Morrison-Premier Berejiklian “gas deal” will result in an inescapable annual Carbon Debt of A$3.1 billion for future generations, or A$31 billion over the next decade (noting that the annual Australian defence budget is about A$35 billion and a similar amount is spent annually on subsidies for organized religion).
(1). 2.6% CH4 leakage is as polluting GHG-wise as burning the remaining CH4.
Methane (CH4) is the major constituent of natural gas and has a molecular weight of about 16, CO2 has a molecular weight of about 44, and carbon (C) has an atomic weight of 12. Combustion of CH4 yields CO2 and H2O ( CH4 + 2O2 -> CO2 + 2H2O) and thus 16 tonne CH4 yields 44 tonnes of CO2 and combustion of 1 tonne CH4 yields 2.75 tonne CO2. By way of comparison, combustion of coal (carbon, C) yields CO2 (C + O2 -> CO2) and thus 12 tonnes C yields 44 tonnes CO2 and combustion of 1 tonne C (coal) yields 3.7 tonnes CO2. Thus per tonne combusted, coal yields 1.3 times more CO2 than gas. Further, coal burning produces more toxic pollutants than gas burning, notably carbon monoxide (CO), sulphur dioxide (SO2), nitrous oxide (N2O), nitrogen dioxide (NO2), radioactivity, heavy metals and fine carbon particulates ( notably PM2.5). Accordingly the fossil fuel industry and their Mainstream media, politicians, academic and commentariat supporters advocate a transition from coal to an assertedly “cleaner” gas en route to an eventual zero fossil fuels future. However they are wrong – while gas burning produces less toxic pollutant than coal burning, massive systemic gas leakage(5.4% in the US) and a Global Warming Potential for CH4 105 times that of CO2 (on a 20 year time frame) means that gas burning can be dirtier than coal burning GHG-wise, as set out below.
(2) At 2.6% systemic gas leakage, burning gas yields 2 times more CO2-equivalent as burning coal.
CH4 is a gas, leaks and has a Global Warming Potential (GWP) 105 times that of the same mass of CO2 on a 20 year time frame and with aerosol impacts considered [8]. One can readily calculate (assuming gas to be 100% CH4 or CH4 equivalent) that on this basis a systemic gas leakage of 2.6% would contribute as much GHG pollution as generating the greenhouse gas CO2 by burning the remaining 97.4% of the gas [9]. Thus burning 1 tonne carbon yields 3.7 tonnes CO2 and combustion of CH4 with zero leakage yields yields 2.75 tonne CO2. However combustion of 1 tonne CH4 with 2.6% leakage yields 2.68 tonne CO2 (from burning 97.4% of the CH4) plus 2.68 tonne CO2-equivalent (from the GHG effect of the leaked CH4) = 7.2 tonnes CO2-equivalent . One can crudely estimate that with a mere 2.6% of systemic leakage, burning 1 tonne of gas generates nearly 2 times the CO2-equivalent produced from burning 1 tonne of coal.
(3). Australian Government and business grossly under-estimate CH4 leakage from unconventional production at 0.1% (54 times less than overall gas leakage in the US).
One notes that systemic gas leakage in the Boston urban region in the US is about 2.7% [31]. It is estimated that gas leakage in the US is about 2.3% of overall production [34]. Dr Robert Howarth ( Nobel Laureate Cornell University) in an extensive review states (2015): “Over the past decade, shale gas production has increased from negligible to providing .40% of national gas and 14% of all fossil fuel energy in the USA in 2013… emissions from the natural gas industry, including both conventional gas and shale gas, could best be characterized as averaging 5.4% (±1.8%) for the full life cycle from well to consumer” [33, 34]. However according to a report from the Melbourne Energy Institute authored by gas expert Tim Forcey, Australia claims gas leakage from unconventional gas production at a mere 0.1% [35], 54 times less than the 5.4% overall gas leakage in the US [33, 34]. Tim Forcey: “Looking specifically at methane emission rates from unconventional gasfields, measurements in the US are up to 10-25 times higher than rates reported by the Australian Government to the UNFCCC [United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change]“ [35].
(4). Damage-related Carbon Price US$200 per tonne CO2-equivalent (considering all major GHGs excepting H2O).
Climate economist Dr Chris Hope of 90-Nobel-Laureate Cambridge University has estimated a damage-related Carbon Price (in US dollars) of $200 per tonne CO2-equivalent [16]. Professor James Hansen (of 96 Nobel Laureate Columbia University): “One ppm of CO2 is 2.12 billion tons of carbon or about 7.77 billion tons of CO2. Recently Keith et al. (2018) achieved a cost breakthrough in carbon capture, demonstrated with a pilot plant in Canada. Cost of carbon capture, not including the cost of transportation and storage of the CO2, is $113-232 per ton of CO2. Thus the cost of extracting 1 ppm of CO2 from the atmosphere is $878-1803 billion. In other words, the cost, in a single year, of closing the gap between reality and the IPCC scenario that limits climate change to +1.5°C is already about $1 trillion. And that is without the cost of transporting and storing the CO2, or consideration of whether there will be citizen objection to that transportation and storage. This annual cost will rise rapidly, unless there is a rapid slowdown in carbon emissions… cost of CO2 storage… has been estimated as $10-20/tCO2” [37]. Taking Professor Hansen’s data, and including his estimates of the cost of transport and storage of CO2, indicates that this “best so far” cost of atmospheric CO2 draw-down is $123-252/tCO2, similar to Dr Chris Hope’s econometrics-based estimate of $200 per tonne CO2-equivalent [36].
(5). For a 300 ppm CO2 draw-down target, the world has an upper estimate Carbon Debt of $200 trillion that is increasing at $13 trillion per year.
Many scientists and science-informed activists demand a reduction of atmospheric CO2 to a safe and sustainable level for all peoples and all species of about 300 ppm CO2 (roughly the pre-Industrial Revolution level and the maximum observed over the last 1 million years until recent decades) [38, 39]. The upper estimate of the Carbon Debt for a transition from the present monthly mean of 412 ppm CO2 (and increasing a 2-3 ppm CO2 per year) [40] to 300 ppm CO2 is 112 ppm CO2 x $1,803 billion per ppm CO2 = $202 trillion.
This inescapable Carbon Debt for future generations is increasing at 2-3 ppm per year x $1,803 billion per ppm CO2 = $3.6-5.4 trillion per year. [40]. However this estimate does not take other GHGs, notably CH4, into account. World Bank analysts have reconsidered annual GHG pollution taking land use into account and assuming a GWP for CH4 of 86 on a 20 year time frame, this estimate increasing annual GHG pollution from 41.8 Gt O2-e per year to 63.8 Gt CO2-e per year [41]. Thus on this basis the global Carbon Debt is increasing annually at 63.8 billion tonnes CO2-e x $200 per tonne CO2-e = $12.8 trillion per year.
(6). Australia’s 2017-18 Domestic and Exported GHG emissions from natural gas exploitation alone totalled 471 Mt CO2-e.
Australian liquefied natural gas (LNG) exports totalled 59.7 Mt in 2017–18 [42]. Assuming for computational and didactic simplicity that this is all CH4 (or CH4 equivalents) , then on combustion it would yield 59.7 Mt CH4 x 44 t CO2/ 16 t CH4 = 164.2 Mt CO2. However assuming a gas leakage of only 2.6%, the warming effect of the leaked CH4 equals that from burning the remaining CH4 (see (1)). Thus the total warming effect of Australia’s LNG Exports in 2017-18 is that of 2 x 0.974 x 164.2 Mt CO2 = 320 Mt CO2.
However gas used Domestically in Australia in 2017-18 totaled 28.2 Mt CH4 [43] that on combustion yielded 28.2 Mt CH4 x 44 t CO2/ 16 t CH4 = 77.6 Mt CO2. The total warming effect of Australia’s Domestic gas use in 2017-18 is that of 2 x 0.974 x 77.6 Mt CO2 = 151.2 Mt CO2.
Accordingly the GHG emissions due to Australia’s Domestic and Exported gas alone in 2017-18 = 320 Mt CO2 + 151 Mt = 471 Mt CO2 as compared to the total annual GHG emissions of about 535 Mt CO2-e in 2017-18 reported by the Australian Government (it has been steadily rising contrary to Paris Agreement demands since the Coalition Government was elected in 2013) [44-48]. One notes that the Australian Government conveniently ignores Australia’s huge Exported GHG emissions, largely ignores huge fugitive CH4 emissions, ignores huge GHG contributions from bushfires [49], and assumes a GWP for CH4 on a 100 year time frame (initially 21, now 25 and 4-5 times lower than the 105 on a 20 year time frame with aerosol impacts considered).
(7). Australia’s 2018-19 Domestic and Exported GHG emissions from natural gas exploitation alone totalled 502 Mt CO2-e (similar to the government’s asserted total Domestic emissions of 540 Mt CO2-e in 2018-19).
In 2018-19 total Australian gas production was 93.6 Mt CH4 (5,082 petajoules) and there was a record LNG output of 75 Mt million tonnes ( 4,070PJ). Domestic gas use in 2018-2019 was accordingly 18.6 Mt CH4 (1,012 PJ) [50]. In 2019 Australia exported 77.5 Mt LNG worth A$49 billion and became the largest LNG exporter in the world [51].
The 75 Mt gas exported in 2018-19 would on combustion yield 75 Mt CH4 x 44 t CO2/ 16 t CH4 = 206.3 Mt CO2. Again, assuming a gas leakage of only 2.6%, the warming effect of the leaked CH4 equals that from burning the remaining CH4 (see (1)). Accordingly the total warming effect of Australia’s LNG Exports in 2017-18 is that of 2 x 0.974 x 206.3 Mt CO2 = 401.9 Mt CO2.
The gas used Domestically in 2018-19 = 18.6 Mt CH4 x 44 t CO2/ 16 t CH4 = 51.2 Mt CO2 on combustion. The total warming effect of Australia’s Domestic gas use in 2018-19 is that of 2 x 0.974 x 51.2 Mt CO2 = 99.7 Mt CO2. Accordingly the GHG emissions due to Australia’s Domestic and Exported gas alone in 2018-19 = 402 Mt CO2 + 100 Mt = 502 Mt CO2. By way of comparison, the Australian Government’s asserted total annual GHG emissions totalled about 540 Mt CO2-e in 2018-19 [52].
Several scholars have predicted that Australia’s Domestic GHG emissions are set to fall to about 530 Mt CO2-e by mid-2021 if renewables deployment continues at the present rate [52]. However Australian LNG export production may max out at about 88 Mt LNG per year [53] with this translating (if realized in the coming decade) to an annual 472 Mt CO2-e Exported plus about 100 Mt CO2-e from Domestic use for a total of 572 Mt CO2-e in emissions from gas alone in the coming few years.
(8). Australian Coalition Government’s one-off A$2 billion investment for gas exploitation in New South Wales (NSW) will add an estimated Carbon Debt of A$2 billion per year, A$20 billion per decade…
Australian PM Scott Morrison is spending $2 billion on a “gas deal” that will a inject an extra 70 petajoules of gas per year (1.29 Mt gas per year) for Domestic use [28, 29]. This means CO2 release on combustion of 1.29 Mt CH4 x 44 t CO2/ 16 t CH4 = 3.5 Mt CO2. Assuming a leakage of 2.6% the GHG effect of this = 2 x 0.974 x 3.5 Mt CO2 = 6.8 Mt CO2-e. At a damage-related Carbon Price of US$200 per tonne CO2-e (A$299) the cost of this climate criminal adventure to future generations will be A$299 per tonne CO2-e x 6.8 Mt CO2-e per year = A$2.0 billion per year. However while the Australian Government is making a once-off investment of A$2 billion, the cost to young Australians of the future will be A$2 billion per year, A$20 billion for the next decade, and A$100 billion over the 50 year life-time of the gas-exploiting infrastructure (coal seam gas extraction systems, pipelines and gas-fired power stations) [54-56].
(9). Revised annual GHG emissions (Gt CO2-e): 1.57 (Australia Domestic), 3.15 (Australia Domestic plus Exported) and 63.8 (world).
Australia’s annual per capita GHG pollution as reported by the Australian Government is presently (2018-19) 538.9 Mt CO2-e / 25.2 million people = 21.4 tonnes CO2-e per person per year [57]. The world population is presently 7.7 billion (2019) and the world’s greenhouse gas emissions total 43.1 Mt CO2 (2019) [58, 59]. Wikipedia reports that in 2017 Australia’s GHG emissions totalled 580 Mt CO2-e and represented 1.3% of the world’s total of 45.3 Gt CO2-e [60], noting that Australia’s population is 25.2 million x 100/ 7,700 million = 0.33% of the world’s population i.e. rich Australia disproportionately pollutes the world GHG-wise by a factor of 3.9. However this disparity gets much worse if one considers the global warming impact of fugitive emissions (leakage) of CH4 from natural gas exploitation as set out below.
The present Australian Government in estimating annual GHG emissions of 540 Mt CO2-e conveniently ignores or underestimates GHG contributions from (a) land use (Australia is among world leaders in land clearing [61, 62], (b) fugitive emissions of CH4 (it formerly estimated this at 0.1%, and more recently revised this to 0.7% [57, ] whereas it is 5.4% in the US [33, 34]), (c) global warming potential of CH4 (it assumed 21 and revised this recently to 25 relative to the same mass of CO2 on a 100 year time frame, whereas it is 105 on a 20 year time frame with aerosol impacts included [8]), and (d) it ignores emissions from bushfires (that have, so far, added an estimated 750 Mt CO2-e to Australia’s annual GHG pollution in financial year 2019-2020 [63]).
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 [41]. A key element of their analysis was to use a Global Warming Potential (GWP) of methane (CH4) relative to that of carbon dioxide (CO2) of 72 on a 20-year time frame rather than the 25 on a 100 year time frame used by the FAO [41]. Indeed the World Bank analysis evidently still understates the GHG pollution because NASA scientists have re-evaluated the GWP of CH4 as 105 on a 20 year time frame with aerosol impacts considered [8].
Accordingly, more properly taking land use into account Australia’s revised annual per capita GHG pollution was estimated in 2015 (t CO2-e per person) at 52.9 and 116 if including its huge GHG-generating exports [1, 2]. Assuming a population of 25 million this adjusts Australia’s annual GHG pollution to 1,323 Mt (Domestic) and 2,900 Mt (Domestic plus Exported).
However to this we must add a further 250 Mt CO2-e due to the fugitive emissions of CH4 from gas exploitation (assuming 2.6% leakage and thus contributing about 50% of Australia’s 500 Mt CO2-e of GHG emissions due to Australia’s Domestic use and Export of gas as set out in (7) above). Assuming Australian responsibility for gas fugitive emissions both at home and on route to foreign consumers, then this adjusts Australia’s annual GHG pollution to 1,573 Mt (Domestic) and 3,150 Mt (Domestic plus Exported).
(10). Australia (0.33% of world population) generates 2.5% of upwardly revised global GHG emissions (Australian Domestic use only) and 5.4% (Australian Domestic plus Exported GHG emissions).
Assuming the revised estimate of global GHG emissions of 63.8 Gt CO2-e [1, 2, 41], and revised estimates of Australia’s GHG pollution taking land use into account [1, 2], one can estimate that Australia (0.33% of world population) has Domestic emissions that are 1.573 Gt x 100/63.8 Gt = 2.5% of the world total, and Domestic plus Exported emissions that are 3.15 Gt x 100/63.8 = 4.9% of global emissions. Thus Australia disproportionately pollutes GHG-wise 7.6 fold more (Domestic pollution) and 14.8-fold more (considering Domestic plus Exported pollution). However it gets worse on closer inspection.
(a). The land use-accommodating, revised estimate of Australian annual Domestic GHG emissions (1,323 Mt CO2-e; see section 9) must be revised upwards by adding the fugitive emissions from Domestic gas exploitation (99.7 Mt CO2-e; see section 7) to yield a total of 1,423 Mt CO2-e.
(b). The revised estimate of Exported GHG emissions (1,577 Mt CO2-e ; see section 9) must be updated as follows:
(i). Australian coal exports totalled 391.2 Mt (2016) and on combustion generated 996.8 Mt CO2-e [64].
(ii). Australian oil crude exports totalled 10.3 Mt (2016), and on combustion generated 33.4 Mt CO2-e [64].
(iii) Australian exported liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) in 2016 that on combustion generated 3.5 Mt CO2-e [64].
(iv) Australia exported 75 Mt LNG in 2017-18 corresponded on combustion to 401.9 Mt CO2-e (this taking an assumed 2.6% leakage into account; see section 7 ).
(v) Australia exported 830 Mt of iron ore (Fe2O3) in 2018 [65], this corresponding to 579.2 Mt CO2-e (based on an upper estimate of steel manufacture being responsible for an upper estimate of 5% of global CO2 emissions)[65, 66] .
The total Exported GHG emissions is 2015 Mt CO2-e. Domestic GHG plus Exported GHG = 1,423 + 2015 = 3, 438 Mt CO2-e , this corresponding to 3,438 x100/ 63,800 = 5.4% of the global annual total of 63,800 Mt CO2-e [41].
(11). Australia’s Domestic plus Exported GHG pollution make it the third worst annual per capita GHG polluter in the world.
Australia’s annual per capita GHG pollution (t CO2-e per person per year) taking fugitive emissions into account is 1,423 Mt CO2-e/25 million persons = 56.9 (considering Domestic pollution only) and 137.5 (considering Domestic plus Exported GHG pollution). By way of comparison, 137.5 t per person per year puts Australia third in the world after Belize (366.9) and, Guyana (203.1). In t CO2-e per person per year China is 7.4 and India 2.1 (2015 analysis) [1, 2].
This is set to get worse. Thus Australia’s Domestic and Exported GHG pollution through gas exploitation is set to increase significantly in coming years [53], notwithstanding pleas from scientists that the world must rapidly stop fossil fuel exploitation [9, 11, 67-71]. Eminent physicist and cosmologist Professor Stephen Hawking (90-Nobel–Laureate University of Cambridge) has succinctly identified the 2 existential threats to Humanity and the solutions: “We see great peril if governments and societies do not take action now to render nuclear weapons obsolete and to prevent further climate change” [71].
(12). Gas is dirty energy, gas burning can be dirtier GHG-wise than coal burning, a coal-to-gas transition is disastrous: stop burning all fossil fuels ASAP.
Gas is not clean energy [9-12, 64] and, as outlined above, gas burning can be dirtier GHG-wise than coal burning. However pro-gas politicians and commentators arguing for a coal-to-gas transition are arguing for massive investment in 30-year-lifetime gas-fired power plants that may be worse GHG-wise than coal-fired power plants depending upon the degree of gas leakage [9]. Yet in climate criminal Australia the Coalition PM Scott Morrison responded to the horrific bushfire tragedy by promising government support for 2 new gas-fired power stations and indeed did not rule out such support for new coal-fired power stations [23, 72]. Indeed President Barack Obama oversaw a massive shift from coal to gas in the US based on the false premise that gas was “clean-er” whereas it is not only dirty but can in fact be much dirtier than coal GHG-wise depending on the degree of gas leakage (see section 2 above) [73].
There is indeed a strictly limited interim role for gas as an emergency back-up for solar and wind-based power until hydrological, battery, solar thermal and hydrogen-based storage systems are emplaced on a large scale. Australia’s Chief Scientist Dr Alan Finkel: “But, there is a limit to how much solar and wind we can use and still retain a reliable system. Ultimately, we will need to complement solar and wind with a range of technologies such as high levels of storage, long-distance transmission, and much better efficiency in the way we use energy. But, while these technologies are being scaled up, we need an energy companion today that can react rapidly to changes in solar and wind output. An energy companion that is itself relatively low in emissions, and that only operates when needed. In the short-term, as the Prime Minister and Minister [for Energy and Emissions Reduction] Angus Taylor have previously stated, natural gas will play that critical role. In fact, natural gas is already making it possible for nations to transition to a reliable, and relatively low emissions, electricity supply” [74]. However as demonstrated in this essay, gas is not “relatively low in emissions” as asserted by Dr Finkel because (a) combustion of 1 tonne of CH4 (85% of natural gas) yields 2.75 tonne CO2 as compared to combustion of 1 tonne of carbon (about 90% of coal) yielding 3.7 tonne CO2, and (b) depending upon the degree of gas systemic leakage, gas burning can actually be much dirtier GHG-wise than coal burning (see section 2).
Final comments on combatting falsehood, deceit and climate change inaction.
As perceived by the 2-day Australian National Climate Emergency Summit 2020 held on Friday 14 and Saturday 15 February 2020, Australia and the world are facing a Climate Emergency demanding urgent action (see [75, 76]). Unfortunately the fossil fuel Lobby supported by an army of Mainstream journalist, politician, academic, commentariat and lobbyist supporters has the political upper hand, most notably in climate criminal Trump America under climate change denialist Donald Trump and in its pro-coal, pro-gas lackey Australia under an effective climate change denialist pro-coal Coalition Government. Nevertheless the science is clear and indeed is obvious to any sensible, science-informed high school student, as exampled by the wonderfully articulate and straight-talking Greta Thunberg [77].
The success of the denialists and effective climate change denialists is a deadly and disastrous example of Polya’s Second Law of Economics, to whit ”Deceit about the Cost of Production strives to a maximum”. The Second Law of Economics is based on the fundamental Second Law of Thermodynamics that states that entropy (disorder, chaos, lack of information content) strives to a maximum [78]. The International Monetary Fund (IMF) has exposed massive deceit in stating that while a damage-related Carbon Tax of $75 per tonne CO2 would be an effective way of addressing the climate threat, the present global average Carbon Price is only $2 per tonne CO2. The average price on global emissions is currently $2 a ton, a tiny fraction of what is needed for the 2°C target” [25, 54, 79]. Science-trained Pope Francis has stated: “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” [54, 80, 81]. Climate economist Dr Chris Hope (of 120-Nobel-Laureate Cambridge University) and climate scientist Professor James Hansen (of 96-Nobel-Laureate Columbia University) have independently estimated a damage-related Carbon Price of about $200 per tonne CO2-e [36, 37, 54].
Eminent economist Lord Nicholas Stern has described this massive deceit thus: “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” [82]. This massive corporate and political deceit in ignoring the gigantic economic externality measured by a damage-related Carbon Price has created a huge, inescapable and assiduously ignored Carbon Debt for future generations of $200-250 trillion that is increasing each year by 63.8 Gt CO2-e per year x $200 /t CO2-e = $13 trillion annually [55, 64].
Young Australians will have to pay a gigantic Carbon Debt that has been estimated at $40,000 per head per year for under-30 year old Australians [54]. However this estimate needs correction taking fugitive emissions, land use and a 20 year-based Global Warming Potential (GWP) for CH4 into account. Thus Australia’s revised annual Domestic plus Exported GHG pollution is 3,438 Mt CO2-e that corresponds to 3,438 Mt CO2-e x $200 /t CO2-e = $688 billion per year. The Carbon Debt for Australian is thus increasing at $27, 520 (A$41,000) per head per year for every Australian, at $70,000 (A$105,000) per head per year for 9.816 million under-30 year old Australians [83], and at $146,000 (A$218,000) per head per year for 4.7 million 0-14 year old Australian children [84]. The annual increase in Australia’s Carbon Debt of $688 billion will ultimately be borne by these 0-14 year old children and is increasing at the rate of $146,000 per head per year (A$218,000).
Young Australians are increasingly aware of how badly they have been betrayed by their profligate elders but when they are cognizant of an inescapable Carbon Debt that is increasing at over A$100,000 per head per year for under-30s they will be out in the streets in their millions. Unlike Conventional Debt , which can be expunged by default, bankruptcy or printing money, Carbon Debt is inescapable because, for example, unless sea walls are built at huge expense, arable land and cities will be inundated as the world heads towards a long-term equilibrium sea rise of 25 +/- 12 metres from present conditions of increased CO2 and warming similar to those of the Pliocene era 4 million years ago [85]. Young Greta Thunberg’s “How dare you!” just begins to express the indignation to come over this massive intergenerational injustice [55, 86] that is heading towards a Climate Revolution (peaceful and non-violent one hopes) [84]. For the world as a whole (population 7.6 billion) the inescapable Carbon Debt is increasing at about $12.8 trillion annually or at $1,684 per head per year, noting that the GDP (nominal) per capita for the World is merely $11, 355 and that for India is merely $2, 171 [87]. Global warming is a commonly shared imposition and many countries are already failing to match the Carbon Debt imposed on them annually by rich, profligate countries like Australia.
A damaging plus 1.5C of warming will come in the coming decade, and a catastrophic plus 2C temperature rise is now effectively unavoidable [68-71], but we are obliged to do everything we can to make the future “less bad” for future generations. In Australia and other profligately climate criminal countries, decent people will utterly reject the climate criminal climate change deniers and effective climate change deniers at the ballot box. Decent people around the world will subject disproportionately climate criminal people, politicians , parties, collectives, corporations and countries to Boycotts, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS). Decent countries will subject climate criminal people, corporations and countries to legal actions via the International Criminal Court and the International Court of Justice. Time is running out.
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[46]. Penny Timms and Michael Slezak, “Australia’s greenhouse gas emissions rise again, according to delayed Federal Government data”, ABC News, 6 June 2019: https://www.abc.net.au/news/2019-06-06/australian-emissions-rise-again-delayed-government-data-shows/11184906 .
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[49]. Gideon Polya, “Trumpist climate change denial, Australian bushfires, fuel reduction, biochar & Carbon Debt”, Countercurrents, 10 January 2020: https://countercurrents.org/2020/01/trumpist-climate-change-denial-australian-bushfires-fuel-reduction-biochar-carbon-debt .
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[52]. Andrew Blakers and Matthew Stocks, “Some good news for a change: Australia’s greenhouse gas emissions are set to fall”, The Conversation, 24 October 2019: https://theconversation.com/some-good-news-for-a-change-australias-greenhouse-gas-emissions-are-set-to-fall-125559 .
[53]. Rachel Williamson, “Australia is the new queen of LNG exports, but can it last?”, Stockhead, 6 January 2020: https://stockhead.com.au/energy/australia-is-the-new-queen-of-lng-exports-but-can-it-last/ .
[54]. “Carbon Debt Carbon Credit”: https://sites.google.com/site/carbondebtcarboncredit/ .
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[56]. “Stop climate crime”: https://sites.google.com/site/300orgsite/stop-climate-crime .
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[58]. Chelsea Harvey, “CO2 emissions will claim another record in 2019”, Scientific American, 4 December 2019: https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/co2-emissions-will-break-another-record-in-2019/ .
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[61]. “Fact check: is Queensland clearing land as fast as Brazil?”, Fact Check, 16 July 2018: http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-12-01/fact-check-queensland-land-clearing-brazilian-rainforest/9183596 .
[62]. Michael Slezak, ““Global deforestation hotspot”: 3m hectares of Australian forest to be lost in 15 years”, Guardian, 5 March 2018: https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/mar/05/global-deforestation-hotspot-3m-hectares-of-australian-forest-to-be-lost-in-15-years .
[63]. Gideon Polya, “Trumpist climate change denial, Australian bushfires, fuel reduction, biochar & Carbon Debt”, Countercurrents, 10 January 2020: https://countercurrents.org/2020/01/trumpist-climate-change-denial-australian-bushfires-fuel-reduction-biochar-carbon-debt ).
[64]. Reserve Bank of Australia, “Box B. The recent increase in iron ore prices and implications for the Australian economy”, August 2019: https://www.rba.gov.au/publications/smp/2019/aug/box-b-the-recent-increase-in-iron-ore-prices-and-implications-for-the-australian-economy.html
[65]. Gideon Polya , “Australia ‘s Huge Coal, Gas & Iron Ore Exports Threaten Planet”, Countercurrents, 15 May, 2012: https://www.countercurrents.org/polya150512.htm .
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[72]. Simon Holmes à Court, “Scott Morrison is stuck in a time warp – more gas is not the answer”, Guardian, 2 February 2020: https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/feb/01/scott-morrison-is-stuck-in-a-time-warp-more-gas-is-not-the-answer .
[73]. Gideon Polya, “Pro-gas Obama’s EPA-based Plan To Reduce Coal-based Pollution Amounts To Climate Change Inaction”, Countercurrents, 7 June, 2014: https://www.countercurrents.org/polya070614.htm .
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[80]. Pope Francis , Encyclical Letter “Laudato si’”, 2015: http://w2.vatican.va/content/francesco/en/encyclicals/documents/papa-francesco_20150524_enciclica-laudato-si.html .
[81]. Gideon Polya, “ Green Left Pope Francis Demands Climate Action “Without Delay” To Prevent Climate “Catastrophe””, Countercurrents, 10 August, 2015: https://countercurrents.org/polya100815.htm .
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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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Methane (CH4) is 85% of natural gas, leaks, and has a Global Warming Potential (GWP) 105 times that of the same mass of carbon dioxide (CO2) on a 20 year time frame with aerosol impacts included. Such considerations reveal that Australia with 0.33 % of the world population has revised annual Domestic greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions that are 2.5% of the world’s, and annual Domestic plus Exported GHG emissions that are 5.4% of the world’s annual GHG pollution.
Australia is among world leaders in annual per capita greenhouse gas (GHG) pollution [1, 2], is a major exporter of GHG pollution-implicit coal, gas and iron ore, and has become the world’s largest exporter of Liquid Natural Gas (LNG) as well as of coal. However, depending upon the degree of systemic gas leakage, burning gas for power may be worse greenhouse gas (GHG)-wise than burning coal because methane (CH4, about 85% of natural gas) has a global warming potential (GWP) that is 105 times that of the same mass of carbon dioxide (CO2) on a 20 year time frame with aerosol impacts included [3-6]. However a remorselessly neoliberal, anti-science and anti-environment Australia is committed on a bipartisan political basis (i.e. with the support of the Right-Extreme Right Liberal Party-National Party Coalition Government and the Right-Centrist Labor Party Opposition) to massive exploitation of conventional and non-conventional natural gas reserves for Export and Domestic use. Only the Greens oppose this Gadarene, ecocidal, speciescidal, and potentially omnicidal and terracidal profligacy that is driven by remorseless neoliberal greed and racism.
Australia is a world leader in annual per capita GHG pollution [1, 2] and both its Coalition Government and Labor Opposition are committed to unlimited coal and gas exploitation for Export [1, 2]. Australia is a key player in a dangerous global coal to gas transition that is a deadly and dishonest neoliberal alternative to the complete cessation of fossil fuel exploitation demanded by scientists in the face of the worsening climate emergency. The ideal target of no more than a 1.5C temperature rise agreed to at the 2015 Paris Climate Change Conference is now set to be exceeded on present trends within 10 years [3, 4]. A plus 2C temperature rise – that all governments (except for the idiotic, dangerous, anti-science and climate change denialist US Trump Administration) agree would be catastrophic – is now effectively unavoidable [5-7]. While Humanity can still take action to make the now inevitable plus 2C future “less bad”, there is a looming threat of global warming causing massive release of methane (CH4) from the Arctic, a ticking “Methane Bomb” set to utterly devastate Humanity and indeed all life on earth in the coming century because CH4 has a Global Warming Potential 105 times greater than that of carbon dioxide (CO2) on a 20 year time frame with aerosol effects included [8-11].
Australia continues to be devastated by high intensity, destructive and deadly 2019-2020 bushfires across the continent [6], conflagrations that recently threatened lives and homes in Australia’s national capital Canberra in which an unprecedented emergency was declared. Scientists have been warning for decades that global warming and consequent increased temperature, dryness and drought will increase the probability of forest fires [6, 13-19]. However this is variously contested by the climate change denialist or effective climate change denialist Coalition politicians ruling Australia [20, 21]. Indeed at the height of the Australian bushfire catastrophe, pro-coal PM Scott Morrison (who notoriously flourished a lump of coal in Parliament, idiotically declaring “This is coal. Don’t be afraid, don’t be scared” [22]) announced Government underwriting of 2 new gas-fired power stations next to population centres, and raised the possibility of backing some new coal-fired power stations as well [23]. Utter stupidity.
Thanks to the homicidal greed of climate criminal countries such as Australia, the present plus 1.1C temperature rise is already devastating Island Nations, and a catastrophic plus 2C warming is now effectively unavoidable on present trends. Climate criminal Australia is among world leaders for the following 16 climate criminal activities or parameters: (1) annual per capita greenhouse gas pollution, (2) live methanogenic livestock exports, (3) natural gas exports, (4) recoverable shale gas reserves that can be accessed by hydraulic fracturing (fracking), (5) coal exports, (6) land clearing, deforestation and ecocide, (7) speciescide or species extinction], (8) coral reef destruction , (9) whale killing and extinction threat through global warming impacting on krill stocks , (10) terminal carbon pollution budget exceedance, (11) per capita Carbon Debt], (12) ultimately GHG generating iron ore exports, (13) climate change inaction, (14) climate genocide and approach towards omnicide and terracide, (15) increasing Domestic GHG pollution despite Paris commitments to lower GHG pollution, and (16) complicity in 8 million annual air pollution deaths from burning carbon fuels, Australia’s share being 75,000 overseas and 10,000 Domestically [24-26](for detailed documentation see [27]). Australia with 0.3% of the world’s population contributes about 4.5% of global GHG pollution (including that due to the burning of Australia’s world leading gas and coal exports) [1].
Australian actions to “tackle climate change” would involve mitigatory action in all 16 areas but for the climate criminal Australian Coalition Government it is “business as usual” (BAU) – the climate criminal Australian dog-in-the-manger is simply BAU-wowing to a world facing a worsening Climate Emergency and a worsening Climate Genocide (already 1 million people die from climate change each year in a worsening Climate Genocide that will involve 10 billion deaths this century en route to a sustainable human population in 2100 of merely 0.5-1.0 billion) [28].
Now in his latest anti-science atrocity Australian PM Scott “Scomo” Morrison has announced a $2 billion [Australian dollars] “gas deal” with Premier Gladys Berejiklian of Australia’s largest state, New South Wales (NSW). Phillip Coorey of the Australian Financial Review: “The federal government and NSW have reached a $2 billion energy deal which will require NSW to free up massive amounts of gas for domestic use in return for the construction of new interconnectors, the underwriting of new non-coal power generation, and funding for emissions reduction projects.…Pivotal to the deal will be the NSW government having to find an extra 70 petajoules of gas per year [1.29 Mt gas per year] for the east coast domestic market. This could be done by either the government importing more gas through Port Kembla but it is far more likely to give the green light to extract gas from the Narrabri [NSW coal seam] gas fields” [29].
Prime Minister Scott Morrison utterly incorrectly stated: “There is no credible plan to lower emissions and keep electricity prices down that does not involve the greater use of gas as an important transition fuel” [30] . However his utterly false position has been slammed by science-informed critics. Thus Georgina Woods (from the anti-fracking, anti-coal seam gas, farmer’s group “Lock The Gate”: “Rural communities should not be forced to sacrifice land, water and their economic security in the name of quick and dirty resource exploitation. Coal seam gas is a heavily polluting industry that leaks vast amounts of methane and won’t do anything to bring down carbon emissions” [30]. NSW Greens senator Mehreen Faruqi : “It threatens the Great Artesian Basin, farmer’s livelihoods, food security and the mighty biodiverse Pilliga Forest. It’s clear that the federal and NSW governments have already made a political decision to allow this project to go ahead” [30]. Adam Bandt (Federal Greens MP): “NSW is doing a climate deal with the devil, locking in pollution that will blow Australia’s emissions targets and put us on a path to climate catastrophe. As a global warming gas, methane is up to 86 times more powerful than carbon dioxide. The Prime Minister is trying to hoodwink people with his supposed climate action, but today’s announcement amounts to little more than climate criminality” [30].
How does this latest bit of Australian Coalition climate criminality stack up with the science? Set out below is a detailed quantitative analysis showing (among many other surprising things) that the investment of a once-off A$2 billion of taxpayer funds into the PM Morrison-Premier Berejiklian “gas deal” will result in an inescapable annual Carbon Debt of A$3.1 billion for future generations, or A$31 billion over the next decade (noting that the annual Australian defence budget is about A$35 billion and a similar amount is spent annually on subsidies for organized religion).
(1). 2.6% CH4 leakage is as polluting GHG-wise as burning the remaining CH4.
Methane (CH4) is the major constituent of natural gas and has a molecular weight of about 16, CO2 has a molecular weight of about 44, and carbon (C) has an atomic weight of 12. Combustion of CH4 yields CO2 and H2O ( CH4 + 2O2 -> CO2 + 2H2O) and thus 16 tonne CH4 yields 44 tonnes of CO2 and combustion of 1 tonne CH4 yields 2.75 tonne CO2. By way of comparison, combustion of coal (carbon, C) yields CO2 (C + O2 -> CO2) and thus 12 tonnes C yields 44 tonnes CO2 and combustion of 1 tonne C (coal) yields 3.7 tonnes CO2. Thus per tonne combusted, coal yields 1.3 times more CO2 than gas. Further, coal burning produces more toxic pollutants than gas burning, notably carbon monoxide (CO), sulphur dioxide (SO2), nitrous oxide (N2O), nitrogen dioxide (NO2), radioactivity, heavy metals and fine carbon particulates ( notably PM2.5). Accordingly the fossil fuel industry and their Mainstream media, politicians, academic and commentariat supporters advocate a transition from coal to an assertedly “cleaner” gas en route to an eventual zero fossil fuels future. However they are wrong – while gas burning produces less toxic pollutant than coal burning, massive systemic gas leakage(5.4% in the US) and a Global Warming Potential for CH4 105 times that of CO2 (on a 20 year time frame) means that gas burning can be dirtier than coal burning GHG-wise, as set out below.
(2) At 2.6% systemic gas leakage, burning gas yields 2 times more CO2-equivalent as burning coal.
CH4 is a gas, leaks and has a Global Warming Potential (GWP) 105 times that of the same mass of CO2 on a 20 year time frame and with aerosol impacts considered [8]. One can readily calculate (assuming gas to be 100% CH4 or CH4 equivalent) that on this basis a systemic gas leakage of 2.6% would contribute as much GHG pollution as generating the greenhouse gas CO2 by burning the remaining 97.4% of the gas [9]. Thus burning 1 tonne carbon yields 3.7 tonnes CO2 and combustion of CH4 with zero leakage yields yields 2.75 tonne CO2. However combustion of 1 tonne CH4 with 2.6% leakage yields 2.68 tonne CO2 (from burning 97.4% of the CH4) plus 2.68 tonne CO2-equivalent (from the GHG effect of the leaked CH4) = 7.2 tonnes CO2-equivalent . One can crudely estimate that with a mere 2.6% of systemic leakage, burning 1 tonne of gas generates nearly 2 times the CO2-equivalent produced from burning 1 tonne of coal.
(3). Australian Government and business grossly under-estimate CH4 leakage from unconventional production at 0.1% (54 times less than overall gas leakage in the US).
One notes that systemic gas leakage in the Boston urban region in the US is about 2.7% [31]. It is estimated that gas leakage in the US is about 2.3% of overall production [34]. Dr Robert Howarth ( Nobel Laureate Cornell University) in an extensive review states (2015): “Over the past decade, shale gas production has increased from negligible to providing .40% of national gas and 14% of all fossil fuel energy in the USA in 2013… emissions from the natural gas industry, including both conventional gas and shale gas, could best be characterized as averaging 5.4% (±1.8%) for the full life cycle from well to consumer” [33, 34]. However according to a report from the Melbourne Energy Institute authored by gas expert Tim Forcey, Australia claims gas leakage from unconventional gas production at a mere 0.1% [35], 54 times less than the 5.4% overall gas leakage in the US [33, 34]. Tim Forcey: “Looking specifically at methane emission rates from unconventional gasfields, measurements in the US are up to 10-25 times higher than rates reported by the Australian Government to the UNFCCC [United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change]“ [35].
(4). Damage-related Carbon Price US$200 per tonne CO2-equivalent (considering all major GHGs excepting H2O).
Climate economist Dr Chris Hope of 90-Nobel-Laureate Cambridge University has estimated a damage-related Carbon Price (in US dollars) of $200 per tonne CO2-equivalent [16]. Professor James Hansen (of 96 Nobel Laureate Columbia University): “One ppm of CO2 is 2.12 billion tons of carbon or about 7.77 billion tons of CO2. Recently Keith et al. (2018) achieved a cost breakthrough in carbon capture, demonstrated with a pilot plant in Canada. Cost of carbon capture, not including the cost of transportation and storage of the CO2, is $113-232 per ton of CO2. Thus the cost of extracting 1 ppm of CO2 from the atmosphere is $878-1803 billion. In other words, the cost, in a single year, of closing the gap between reality and the IPCC scenario that limits climate change to +1.5°C is already about $1 trillion. And that is without the cost of transporting and storing the CO2, or consideration of whether there will be citizen objection to that transportation and storage. This annual cost will rise rapidly, unless there is a rapid slowdown in carbon emissions… cost of CO2 storage… has been estimated as $10-20/tCO2” [37]. Taking Professor Hansen’s data, and including his estimates of the cost of transport and storage of CO2, indicates that this “best so far” cost of atmospheric CO2 draw-down is $123-252/tCO2, similar to Dr Chris Hope’s econometrics-based estimate of $200 per tonne CO2-equivalent [36].
(5). For a 300 ppm CO2 draw-down target, the world has an upper estimate Carbon Debt of $200 trillion that is increasing at $13 trillion per year.
Many scientists and science-informed activists demand a reduction of atmospheric CO2 to a safe and sustainable level for all peoples and all species of about 300 ppm CO2 (roughly the pre-Industrial Revolution level and the maximum observed over the last 1 million years until recent decades) [38, 39]. The upper estimate of the Carbon Debt for a transition from the present monthly mean of 412 ppm CO2 (and increasing a 2-3 ppm CO2 per year) [40] to 300 ppm CO2 is 112 ppm CO2 x $1,803 billion per ppm CO2 = $202 trillion.
This inescapable Carbon Debt for future generations is increasing at 2-3 ppm per year x $1,803 billion per ppm CO2 = $3.6-5.4 trillion per year. [40]. However this estimate does not take other GHGs, notably CH4, into account. World Bank analysts have reconsidered annual GHG pollution taking land use into account and assuming a GWP for CH4 of 86 on a 20 year time frame, this estimate increasing annual GHG pollution from 41.8 Gt O2-e per year to 63.8 Gt CO2-e per year [41]. Thus on this basis the global Carbon Debt is increasing annually at 63.8 billion tonnes CO2-e x $200 per tonne CO2-e = $12.8 trillion per year.
(6). Australia’s 2017-18 Domestic and Exported GHG emissions from natural gas exploitation alone totalled 471 Mt CO2-e.
Australian liquefied natural gas (LNG) exports totalled 59.7 Mt in 2017–18 [42]. Assuming for computational and didactic simplicity that this is all CH4 (or CH4 equivalents) , then on combustion it would yield 59.7 Mt CH4 x 44 t CO2/ 16 t CH4 = 164.2 Mt CO2. However assuming a gas leakage of only 2.6%, the warming effect of the leaked CH4 equals that from burning the remaining CH4 (see (1)). Thus the total warming effect of Australia’s LNG Exports in 2017-18 is that of 2 x 0.974 x 164.2 Mt CO2 = 320 Mt CO2.
However gas used Domestically in Australia in 2017-18 totaled 28.2 Mt CH4 [43] that on combustion yielded 28.2 Mt CH4 x 44 t CO2/ 16 t CH4 = 77.6 Mt CO2. The total warming effect of Australia’s Domestic gas use in 2017-18 is that of 2 x 0.974 x 77.6 Mt CO2 = 151.2 Mt CO2.
Accordingly the GHG emissions due to Australia’s Domestic and Exported gas alone in 2017-18 = 320 Mt CO2 + 151 Mt = 471 Mt CO2 as compared to the total annual GHG emissions of about 535 Mt CO2-e in 2017-18 reported by the Australian Government (it has been steadily rising contrary to Paris Agreement demands since the Coalition Government was elected in 2013) [44-48]. One notes that the Australian Government conveniently ignores Australia’s huge Exported GHG emissions, largely ignores huge fugitive CH4 emissions, ignores huge GHG contributions from bushfires [49], and assumes a GWP for CH4 on a 100 year time frame (initially 21, now 25 and 4-5 times lower than the 105 on a 20 year time frame with aerosol impacts considered).
(7). Australia’s 2018-19 Domestic and Exported GHG emissions from natural gas exploitation alone totalled 502 Mt CO2-e (similar to the government’s asserted total Domestic emissions of 540 Mt CO2-e in 2018-19).
In 2018-19 total Australian gas production was 93.6 Mt CH4 (5,082 petajoules) and there was a record LNG output of 75 Mt million tonnes ( 4,070PJ). Domestic gas use in 2018-2019 was accordingly 18.6 Mt CH4 (1,012 PJ) [50]. In 2019 Australia exported 77.5 Mt LNG worth A$49 billion and became the largest LNG exporter in the world [51].
The 75 Mt gas exported in 2018-19 would on combustion yield 75 Mt CH4 x 44 t CO2/ 16 t CH4 = 206.3 Mt CO2. Again, assuming a gas leakage of only 2.6%, the warming effect of the leaked CH4 equals that from burning the remaining CH4 (see (1)). Accordingly the total warming effect of Australia’s LNG Exports in 2017-18 is that of 2 x 0.974 x 206.3 Mt CO2 = 401.9 Mt CO2.
The gas used Domestically in 2018-19 = 18.6 Mt CH4 x 44 t CO2/ 16 t CH4 = 51.2 Mt CO2 on combustion. The total warming effect of Australia’s Domestic gas use in 2018-19 is that of 2 x 0.974 x 51.2 Mt CO2 = 99.7 Mt CO2. Accordingly the GHG emissions due to Australia’s Domestic and Exported gas alone in 2018-19 = 402 Mt CO2 + 100 Mt = 502 Mt CO2. By way of comparison, the Australian Government’s asserted total annual GHG emissions totalled about 540 Mt CO2-e in 2018-19 [52].
Several scholars have predicted that Australia’s Domestic GHG emissions are set to fall to about 530 Mt CO2-e by mid-2021 if renewables deployment continues at the present rate [52]. However Australian LNG export production may max out at about 88 Mt LNG per year [53] with this translating (if realized in the coming decade) to an annual 472 Mt CO2-e Exported plus about 100 Mt CO2-e from Domestic use for a total of 572 Mt CO2-e in emissions from gas alone in the coming few years.
(8). Australian Coalition Government’s one-off A$2 billion investment for gas exploitation in New South Wales (NSW) will add an estimated Carbon Debt of A$2 billion per year, A$20 billion per decade…
Australian PM Scott Morrison is spending $2 billion on a “gas deal” that will a inject an extra 70 petajoules of gas per year (1.29 Mt gas per year) for Domestic use [28, 29]. This means CO2 release on combustion of 1.29 Mt CH4 x 44 t CO2/ 16 t CH4 = 3.5 Mt CO2. Assuming a leakage of 2.6% the GHG effect of this = 2 x 0.974 x 3.5 Mt CO2 = 6.8 Mt CO2-e. At a damage-related Carbon Price of US$200 per tonne CO2-e (A$299) the cost of this climate criminal adventure to future generations will be A$299 per tonne CO2-e x 6.8 Mt CO2-e per year = A$2.0 billion per year. However while the Australian Government is making a once-off investment of A$2 billion, the cost to young Australians of the future will be A$2 billion per year, A$20 billion for the next decade, and A$100 billion over the 50 year life-time of the gas-exploiting infrastructure (coal seam gas extraction systems, pipelines and gas-fired power stations) [54-56].
(9). Revised annual GHG emissions (Gt CO2-e): 1.57 (Australia Domestic), 3.15 (Australia Domestic plus Exported) and 63.8 (world).
Australia’s annual per capita GHG pollution as reported by the Australian Government is presently (2018-19) 538.9 Mt CO2-e / 25.2 million people = 21.4 tonnes CO2-e per person per year [57]. The world population is presently 7.7 billion (2019) and the world’s greenhouse gas emissions total 43.1 Mt CO2 (2019) [58, 59]. Wikipedia reports that in 2017 Australia’s GHG emissions totalled 580 Mt CO2-e and represented 1.3% of the world’s total of 45.3 Gt CO2-e [60], noting that Australia’s population is 25.2 million x 100/ 7,700 million = 0.33% of the world’s population i.e. rich Australia disproportionately pollutes the world GHG-wise by a factor of 3.9. However this disparity gets much worse if one considers the global warming impact of fugitive emissions (leakage) of CH4 from natural gas exploitation as set out below.
The present Australian Government in estimating annual GHG emissions of 540 Mt CO2-e conveniently ignores or underestimates GHG contributions from (a) land use (Australia is among world leaders in land clearing [61, 62], (b) fugitive emissions of CH4 (it formerly estimated this at 0.1%, and more recently revised this to 0.7% [57, ] whereas it is 5.4% in the US [33, 34]), (c) global warming potential of CH4 (it assumed 21 and revised this recently to 25 relative to the same mass of CO2 on a 100 year time frame, whereas it is 105 on a 20 year time frame with aerosol impacts included [8]), and (d) it ignores emissions from bushfires (that have, so far, added an estimated 750 Mt CO2-e to Australia’s annual GHG pollution in financial year 2019-2020 [63]).
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 [41]. A key element of their analysis was to use a Global Warming Potential (GWP) of methane (CH4) relative to that of carbon dioxide (CO2) of 72 on a 20-year time frame rather than the 25 on a 100 year time frame used by the FAO [41]. Indeed the World Bank analysis evidently still understates the GHG pollution because NASA scientists have re-evaluated the GWP of CH4 as 105 on a 20 year time frame with aerosol impacts considered [8].
Accordingly, more properly taking land use into account Australia’s revised annual per capita GHG pollution was estimated in 2015 (t CO2-e per person) at 52.9 and 116 if including its huge GHG-generating exports [1, 2]. Assuming a population of 25 million this adjusts Australia’s annual GHG pollution to 1,323 Mt (Domestic) and 2,900 Mt (Domestic plus Exported).
However to this we must add a further 250 Mt CO2-e due to the fugitive emissions of CH4 from gas exploitation (assuming 2.6% leakage and thus contributing about 50% of Australia’s 500 Mt CO2-e of GHG emissions due to Australia’s Domestic use and Export of gas as set out in (7) above). Assuming Australian responsibility for gas fugitive emissions both at home and on route to foreign consumers, then this adjusts Australia’s annual GHG pollution to 1,573 Mt (Domestic) and 3,150 Mt (Domestic plus Exported).
(10). Australia (0.33% of world population) generates 2.5% of upwardly revised global GHG emissions (Australian Domestic use only) and 5.4% (Australian Domestic plus Exported GHG emissions).
Assuming the revised estimate of global GHG emissions of 63.8 Gt CO2-e [1, 2, 41], and revised estimates of Australia’s GHG pollution taking land use into account [1, 2], one can estimate that Australia (0.33% of world population) has Domestic emissions that are 1.573 Gt x 100/63.8 Gt = 2.5% of the world total, and Domestic plus Exported emissions that are 3.15 Gt x 100/63.8 = 4.9% of global emissions. Thus Australia disproportionately pollutes GHG-wise 7.6 fold more (Domestic pollution) and 14.8-fold more (considering Domestic plus Exported pollution). However it gets worse on closer inspection.
(a). The land use-accommodating, revised estimate of Australian annual Domestic GHG emissions (1,323 Mt CO2-e; see section 9) must be revised upwards by adding the fugitive emissions from Domestic gas exploitation (99.7 Mt CO2-e; see section 7) to yield a total of 1,423 Mt CO2-e.
(b). The revised estimate of Exported GHG emissions (1,577 Mt CO2-e ; see section 9) must be updated as follows:
(i). Australian coal exports totalled 391.2 Mt (2016) and on combustion generated 996.8 Mt CO2-e [64].
(ii). Australian oil crude exports totalled 10.3 Mt (2016), and on combustion generated 33.4 Mt CO2-e [64].
(iii) Australian exported liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) in 2016 that on combustion generated 3.5 Mt CO2-e [64].
(iv) Australia exported 75 Mt LNG in 2017-18 corresponded on combustion to 401.9 Mt CO2-e (this taking an assumed 2.6% leakage into account; see section 7 ).
(v) Australia exported 830 Mt of iron ore (Fe2O3) in 2018 [65], this corresponding to 579.2 Mt CO2-e (based on an upper estimate of steel manufacture being responsible for an upper estimate of 5% of global CO2 emissions)[65, 66] .
The total Exported GHG emissions is 2015 Mt CO2-e. Domestic GHG plus Exported GHG = 1,423 + 2015 = 3, 438 Mt CO2-e , this corresponding to 3,438 x100/ 63,800 = 5.4% of the global annual total of 63,800 Mt CO2-e [41].
(11). Australia’s Domestic plus Exported GHG pollution make it the third worst annual per capita GHG polluter in the world.
Australia’s annual per capita GHG pollution (t CO2-e per person per year) taking fugitive emissions into account is 1,423 Mt CO2-e/25 million persons = 56.9 (considering Domestic pollution only) and 137.5 (considering Domestic plus Exported GHG pollution). By way of comparison, 137.5 t per person per year puts Australia third in the world after Belize (366.9) and, Guyana (203.1). In t CO2-e per person per year China is 7.4 and India 2.1 (2015 analysis) [1, 2].
This is set to get worse. Thus Australia’s Domestic and Exported GHG pollution through gas exploitation is set to increase significantly in coming years [53], notwithstanding pleas from scientists that the world must rapidly stop fossil fuel exploitation [9, 11, 67-71]. Eminent physicist and cosmologist Professor Stephen Hawking (90-Nobel–Laureate University of Cambridge) has succinctly identified the 2 existential threats to Humanity and the solutions: “We see great peril if governments and societies do not take action now to render nuclear weapons obsolete and to prevent further climate change” [71].
(12). Gas is dirty energy, gas burning can be dirtier GHG-wise than coal burning, a coal-to-gas transition is disastrous: stop burning all fossil fuels ASAP.
Gas is not clean energy [9-12, 64] and, as outlined above, gas burning can be dirtier GHG-wise than coal burning. However pro-gas politicians and commentators arguing for a coal-to-gas transition are arguing for massive investment in 30-year-lifetime gas-fired power plants that may be worse GHG-wise than coal-fired power plants depending upon the degree of gas leakage [9]. Yet in climate criminal Australia the Coalition PM Scott Morrison responded to the horrific bushfire tragedy by promising government support for 2 new gas-fired power stations and indeed did not rule out such support for new coal-fired power stations [23, 72]. Indeed President Barack Obama oversaw a massive shift from coal to gas in the US based on the false premise that gas was “clean-er” whereas it is not only dirty but can in fact be much dirtier than coal GHG-wise depending on the degree of gas leakage (see section 2 above) [73].
There is indeed a strictly limited interim role for gas as an emergency back-up for solar and wind-based power until hydrological, battery, solar thermal and hydrogen-based storage systems are emplaced on a large scale. Australia’s Chief Scientist Dr Alan Finkel: “But, there is a limit to how much solar and wind we can use and still retain a reliable system. Ultimately, we will need to complement solar and wind with a range of technologies such as high levels of storage, long-distance transmission, and much better efficiency in the way we use energy. But, while these technologies are being scaled up, we need an energy companion today that can react rapidly to changes in solar and wind output. An energy companion that is itself relatively low in emissions, and that only operates when needed. In the short-term, as the Prime Minister and Minister [for Energy and Emissions Reduction] Angus Taylor have previously stated, natural gas will play that critical role. In fact, natural gas is already making it possible for nations to transition to a reliable, and relatively low emissions, electricity supply” [74]. However as demonstrated in this essay, gas is not “relatively low in emissions” as asserted by Dr Finkel because (a) combustion of 1 tonne of CH4 (85% of natural gas) yields 2.75 tonne CO2 as compared to combustion of 1 tonne of carbon (about 90% of coal) yielding 3.7 tonne CO2, and (b) depending upon the degree of gas systemic leakage, gas burning can actually be much dirtier GHG-wise than coal burning (see section 2).
Final comments on combatting falsehood, deceit and climate change inaction.
As perceived by the 2-day Australian National Climate Emergency Summit 2020 held on Friday 14 and Saturday 15 February 2020, Australia and the world are facing a Climate Emergency demanding urgent action (see [75, 76]). Unfortunately the fossil fuel Lobby supported by an army of Mainstream journalist, politician, academic, commentariat and lobbyist supporters has the political upper hand, most notably in climate criminal Trump America under climate change denialist Donald Trump and in its pro-coal, pro-gas lackey Australia under an effective climate change denialist pro-coal Coalition Government. Nevertheless the science is clear and indeed is obvious to any sensible, science-informed high school student, as exampled by the wonderfully articulate and straight-talking Greta Thunberg [77].
The success of the denialists and effective climate change denialists is a deadly and disastrous example of Polya’s Second Law of Economics, to whit ”Deceit about the Cost of Production strives to a maximum”. The Second Law of Economics is based on the fundamental Second Law of Thermodynamics that states that entropy (disorder, chaos, lack of information content) strives to a maximum [78]. The International Monetary Fund (IMF) has exposed massive deceit in stating that while a damage-related Carbon Tax of $75 per tonne CO2 would be an effective way of addressing the climate threat, the present global average Carbon Price is only $2 per tonne CO2. The average price on global emissions is currently $2 a ton, a tiny fraction of what is needed for the 2°C target” [25, 54, 79]. Science-trained Pope Francis has stated: “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” [54, 80, 81]. Climate economist Dr Chris Hope (of 120-Nobel-Laureate Cambridge University) and climate scientist Professor James Hansen (of 96-Nobel-Laureate Columbia University) have independently estimated a damage-related Carbon Price of about $200 per tonne CO2-e [36, 37, 54].
Eminent economist Lord Nicholas Stern has described this massive deceit thus: “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” [82]. This massive corporate and political deceit in ignoring the gigantic economic externality measured by a damage-related Carbon Price has created a huge, inescapable and assiduously ignored Carbon Debt for future generations of $200-250 trillion that is increasing each year by 63.8 Gt CO2-e per year x $200 /t CO2-e = $13 trillion annually [55, 64].
Young Australians will have to pay a gigantic Carbon Debt that has been estimated at $40,000 per head per year for under-30 year old Australians [54]. However this estimate needs correction taking fugitive emissions, land use and a 20 year-based Global Warming Potential (GWP) for CH4 into account. Thus Australia’s revised annual Domestic plus Exported GHG pollution is 3,438 Mt CO2-e that corresponds to 3,438 Mt CO2-e x $200 /t CO2-e = $688 billion per year. The Carbon Debt for Australian is thus increasing at $27, 520 (A$41,000) per head per year for every Australian, at $70,000 (A$105,000) per head per year for 9.816 million under-30 year old Australians [83], and at $146,000 (A$218,000) per head per year for 4.7 million 0-14 year old Australian children [84]. The annual increase in Australia’s Carbon Debt of $688 billion will ultimately be borne by these 0-14 year old children and is increasing at the rate of $146,000 per head per year (A$218,000).
Young Australians are increasingly aware of how badly they have been betrayed by their profligate elders but when they are cognizant of an inescapable Carbon Debt that is increasing at over A$100,000 per head per year for under-30s they will be out in the streets in their millions. Unlike Conventional Debt , which can be expunged by default, bankruptcy or printing money, Carbon Debt is inescapable because, for example, unless sea walls are built at huge expense, arable land and cities will be inundated as the world heads towards a long-term equilibrium sea rise of 25 +/- 12 metres from present conditions of increased CO2 and warming similar to those of the Pliocene era 4 million years ago [85]. Young Greta Thunberg’s “How dare you!” just begins to express the indignation to come over this massive intergenerational injustice [55, 86] that is heading towards a Climate Revolution (peaceful and non-violent one hopes) [84]. For the world as a whole (population 7.6 billion) the inescapable Carbon Debt is increasing at about $12.8 trillion annually or at $1,684 per head per year, noting that the GDP (nominal) per capita for the World is merely $11, 355 and that for India is merely $2, 171 [87]. Global warming is a commonly shared imposition and many countries are already failing to match the Carbon Debt imposed on them annually by rich, profligate countries like Australia.
A damaging plus 1.5C of warming will come in the coming decade, and a catastrophic plus 2C temperature rise is now effectively unavoidable [68-71], but we are obliged to do everything we can to make the future “less bad” for future generations. In Australia and other profligately climate criminal countries, decent people will utterly reject the climate criminal climate change deniers and effective climate change deniers at the ballot box. Decent people around the world will subject disproportionately climate criminal people, politicians , parties, collectives, corporations and countries to Boycotts, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS). Decent countries will subject climate criminal people, corporations and countries to legal actions via the International Criminal Court and the International Court of Justice. Time is running out.
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[51]. “Australia becomes the largest liquefied natural gas exporter in the world”, Canberra Times, 7 January 2020: https://www.canberratimes.com.au/story/6568957/australia-now-the-worlds-largest-natural-gas-exporter/?cs=14231 .
[52]. Andrew Blakers and Matthew Stocks, “Some good news for a change: Australia’s greenhouse gas emissions are set to fall”, The Conversation, 24 October 2019: https://theconversation.com/some-good-news-for-a-change-australias-greenhouse-gas-emissions-are-set-to-fall-125559 .
[53]. Rachel Williamson, “Australia is the new queen of LNG exports, but can it last?”, Stockhead, 6 January 2020: https://stockhead.com.au/energy/australia-is-the-new-queen-of-lng-exports-but-can-it-last/ .
[54]. “Carbon Debt Carbon Credit”: https://sites.google.com/site/carbondebtcarboncredit/ .
[55]. “Climate Justice & Intergenerational Equity”: https://sites.google.com/site/300orgsite/climate-justice .
[56]. “Stop climate crime”: https://sites.google.com/site/300orgsite/stop-climate-crime .
[57]. Australian Government, “Quarterly update of Australia’s national greenhouse gas inventory for March 2019”: https://www.environment.gov.au/climate-change/climate-science-data/greenhouse-gas-measurement/publications/quarterly-update-australias-nggi-mar-2019 .
[58]. Chelsea Harvey, “CO2 emissions will claim another record in 2019”, Scientific American, 4 December 2019: https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/co2-emissions-will-break-another-record-in-2019/ .
[59]. Global Carbon Project, “Global carbon project”: https://www.globalcarbonproject.org/carbonbudget/19/highlights.htm .
[60]. “List of countries by greenhouse gas emissions”, Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_greenhouse_gas_emissions .
[61]. “Fact check: is Queensland clearing land as fast as Brazil?”, Fact Check, 16 July 2018: http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-12-01/fact-check-queensland-land-clearing-brazilian-rainforest/9183596 .
[62]. Michael Slezak, ““Global deforestation hotspot”: 3m hectares of Australian forest to be lost in 15 years”, Guardian, 5 March 2018: https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/mar/05/global-deforestation-hotspot-3m-hectares-of-australian-forest-to-be-lost-in-15-years .
[63]. Gideon Polya, “Trumpist climate change denial, Australian bushfires, fuel reduction, biochar & Carbon Debt”, Countercurrents, 10 January 2020: https://countercurrents.org/2020/01/trumpist-climate-change-denial-australian-bushfires-fuel-reduction-biochar-carbon-debt ).
[64]. Reserve Bank of Australia, “Box B. The recent increase in iron ore prices and implications for the Australian economy”, August 2019: https://www.rba.gov.au/publications/smp/2019/aug/box-b-the-recent-increase-in-iron-ore-prices-and-implications-for-the-australian-economy.html
[65]. Gideon Polya , “Australia ‘s Huge Coal, Gas & Iron Ore Exports Threaten Planet”, Countercurrents, 15 May, 2012: https://www.countercurrents.org/polya150512.htm .
[66]. SSAB: http://www.ssab.com/en/Investor–Media/Sustainability/32/322/ .
[67]. Gideon Polya, “Inescapable $200-250 trillion global Carbon Debt increasing at $16 trillion annually”, Countercurrents, 27 April 2019: https://countercurrents.org/2019/04/inescapable-200-250-trillion-global-carbon-debt-increasing-by-16-trillion-annually-gideon-polya .
[68]. “Are we doomed?”: https://sites.google.com/site/300orgsite/are-we-doomed .
[69]. “Nuclear weapons ban, end poverty and reverse climate change”: https://sites.google.com/site/drgideonpolya/nuclear-weapons-ban .
[70]. “Too late to avoid global warming catastrophe”: https://sites.google.com/site/300orgsite/too-late-to-avoid-global-warming .
[71]. Stephen Hawking, “Brief Answers to the Big Questions”, John Murray, 2018, Chapter 7.
[72]. Simon Holmes à Court, “Scott Morrison is stuck in a time warp – more gas is not the answer”, Guardian, 2 February 2020: https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/feb/01/scott-morrison-is-stuck-in-a-time-warp-more-gas-is-not-the-answer .
[73]. Gideon Polya, “Pro-gas Obama’s EPA-based Plan To Reduce Coal-based Pollution Amounts To Climate Change Inaction”, Countercurrents, 7 June, 2014: https://www.countercurrents.org/polya070614.htm .
[74]. Alan Finkel, “National Press Club Address: The orderly transition to the electric planet”, Australia’s Chief Scientist, 12 February 2020: https://www.chiefscientist.gov.au/news-and-media/national-press-club-address-orderly-transition-electric-planet .
[75]. David Spratt, “A climate reality update at 2020 emergency summit”, Climate Code Red, 17 February 2020: http://www.climatecodered.org/2020/02/a-climate-reality-update-at-2020.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed:+ClimateCodeRed+(climate+code+red)&m=1 .
[76]. National Climate Emergency Summit, “The Safe Climate Declaration”, 15 February 2020: https://www.climateemergencysummit.org/declaration/ .
[77]. Greta Thunberg, “No one is too small to make a difference”, Penguin, 2019
[78]. Gideon Polya, “Polya’s 3 Laws Of Economics Expose Deadly, Dishonest And Terminal Neoliberal Capitalism”, Countercurrents, 17 October, 2015: https://www.countercurrents.org/polya171015.htm .
[79]. International Monetary Fund (IMF), “Fiscal Monitor: how to mitigate climate change”. Executive Summary”, September 2019: file:///C:/Users/Gideon/AppData/Local/Temp/execsum-6.pdf .
[80]. Pope Francis , Encyclical Letter “Laudato si’”, 2015: http://w2.vatican.va/content/francesco/en/encyclicals/documents/papa-francesco_20150524_enciclica-laudato-si.html .
[81]. Gideon Polya, “ Green Left Pope Francis Demands Climate Action “Without Delay” To Prevent Climate “Catastrophe””, Countercurrents, 10 August, 2015: https://countercurrents.org/polya100815.htm .
[82]. Alison Benjamin, “Stern: climate change a “market failure””, Guardian, 29 November 2007: https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2007/nov/29/climatechange.carbonemissions .
[83]. “UN Population Division World Population Prospects”: https://population.un.org/wpp/ .
[84]. Australian Bureau of Statistics, “Twenty years of population change”, 2019: https://www.abs.gov.au/ausstats/abs@.nsf/0/1CD2B1952AFC5E7ACA257298000F2E76 .
[85]. Andrew Glikson, “The climate Titanic and the melting icebergs”, Countercurrents, 30 June 2016: http://www.countercurrents.org/2016/06/30/the-climate-titanic-and-the-melting-icebergs/ .
[86]. “Climate Revolution, Now”: https://sites.google.com/site/300orgsite/climate-revolution .
[87]. “List of countries by GDP (nominal) per capita”, Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_(nominal)_per_capita .
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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The Perpetual War Scam
by Philip A Farruggio
The morning of March 19, 2003 will always resound in my memory bank. I awoke early, after staying up late the night before watching a Canadian News network’s coverage of the soon to be attack on Iraq. I turned on either CNN or MSNBC ( same crap) and saw the footage of our Shock and Awe carpet bombing
of Baghdad. The newscaster seemed to be almost cheerleading the death and destruction of a modern city. I cried! One surmises that I am still crying.. especially when hearing the same **** about this ongoing ( forever?) War on Terror. To this day there are TOO many of my fellow citizens, some my neighbors, who say with pride ” We are fighting them there so that they don’t come here!”
EXCERPT:
Years ago the late great historian and author Gore Vidal came up with that phrase ‘Perpetual War’. He knew, that even back to the early days of our republic, we are a nation predicated on Perpetual War. Whether it be war on Native Americans ( who were here way before the Mayflower landed), or war on different people of color ( Mexican War, subjugation of the Filipino people, orchestrated Coup de Tats against Cubans, Nicaraguans, Guatemalans, Hondurans, Chileans… to name but a few), and of course WW1 and WW2, the Cold War vs. our former allies the Soviet Union ( who actually defeated Hitler’s Nazi juggernaut), Coup de Tats in Iran, Iraq, Egypt and much of Africa ( the latest being Libya ), subversions in Italy and Greece after WW2…. and on and on as my Yiddish friends would say Oy Gevalt!
As a baby boomer this writer can elaborate more on the dastardly deeds done in my name during the 60s and on. The Vietnam phony war was my ‘ baptism into activism’ exactly 50 years ago this coming Spring. The following seemed to capture the essence of this Perpetual War:
Martyr vs the Victim: Revisiting Nellie on its anniversary
by Suraj Gogoi
Today is the anniversary of Nellie massacre that took place on 18th of February in 1983. It is one among the many dark events that marks the 6 yearlong Assam Movement where over 2000 people (unofficial figure runs to thousands) according to official estimates were killed in a matter of hours. The Assamese leadership who were leading the Assam Movement never accept the blame for stirring up a social and communal tension which led
to a section of victims being targeted.
There is a difference between a victim and a martyr. My effort in this piece is to relocate the victim in contemporary Assam and critique the amnesia built around the victim.
What is a victim? A victim is someone who is allows us to identify the experiences of evil. Evil, writes historian Wendy Doniger, is not what we do. In fact, it is something what we don’t want to be done to us. In Christian theology we find a distinction made between natural evil and moral evil. Moral evil includes negative emotions which are product of human actions and natural evil are those over which humans have no control.
Doniger notes that, in Hindu theology too we find both kinds of evil being logically distinguished but are seen as part of the same phenomena. Rig Veda defines pāpa as a moral flaw. Adultery and incents are seen as an act of someone ‘doing’ evil or ‘committing a sin’. But sin as described in the Veda can also be without the will of the sinner. Doniger adds referring to the Rig Veda: ‘Oh Gods, deliver us today from the committed and non-committed sins’.
The concept of evil and its attempted resolution is known as theodicy. The issue of theodicy in Hinduism was also highlighted by sociologist Max Weber. Hence, we can see that evil shows us the victim equally as it shows us the face of sin. It is often seen that the victim gets erased in the long run. The victim is also oftentimes someone who is ambiguous and treated as a collateral damage.
We can locate the victim and the martyr or the hero in the same event. One of the classical and more generic experiences of such a dual production is to look at wars. Similarly, in the protests against Citizenship Amendment Act/Bill in Assam we saw the production of both the martyr and the victim. From Assam Andolan to Anti-CAA the martyr discourse continues to spread like wildfire.
Martyrs discourse is a popular discourse. If one creates a martyr discourse and believe in one, we get the number 855 in Assam. But if you speak of victims’ discourse, one is then able to see, feel, perhaps even accommodate Nellie and Chaulkhowa Sapori massacre of 1983 which no one remembers. People who are invested in highlighting the 855 martyrs of Assam Movement tires to erase those brutal experiences. The Battle of Saraighat serves a certain mnemonic of martyrdom to articulate Ahom valor and is used to write history in the region. Martyr discourse gives us a hero’s history, glory and its importance, and a victim is someone like Laxmi Orang, Primo Levy and Anne Frank.
Ananta Biswas, Abhinash Biswas, Shyamlal Biswas, Subal Das and Dhananjay Namasudra. These five were the first victims of CAB. Have we all forgotten these names? Even progressive lot in Assam are so amnesic and have been swayed by the discourse of martyrdom that they have forgotten these five people who were gunned down coldly in Kherbari only few kilometers from my home in Sadiya in 2018.
Why is that only Sam Stafford, Dipanjal Das, Abdul Amin and Ishwar Nayak, and Azizul Hoque are remembered in every protest in Assam and the other five are forgotten? Is there a politics behind such selective use and remembrance of events and deaths? If so, what interests such remembering and forgetting serve?
Today is the anniversary of Nellie massacre that took place on 18th of February in 1983. It is one among the many dark events that marks the 6 yearlong Assam Movement where over 2000 people (unofficial figure runs to thousands) according to official estimates were killed in a matter of hours. The Assamese leadership who were leading the Assam Movement never accept the blame for stirring up a social and communal tension which led to a section of victims being targeted.
In an open letter dated on 6th August 2018, Hiren Gohain says the lack of consensus led Assam to the bloody history and ‘Muslims bore the full brunt of it’. The victims of Nellie were all from a particular community—they were all Muslims who had East Bengal ancestry.
Nellie is almost erased from public memory and there is no talk of guilt and remorse by the larger community. We have forgotten about it and have tried to burry the past without healing the wounds of that ‘moral evil’. And along with that silence and erasure, the martyrs are celebrated who adds to the social honor of Assamese nationalism. Hence, like Nellie and Kherbari victims too are forgotten by people and history, however the 855 martyrs of Assamese nationalism remains alive. Instead, we need more gestures like Devabrata Sharma who publicly asked for forgiveness for Nellie last year and I remain indebted to his beautiful touch of humanity and theodicy. He shows us a path how to face the evil.
The victims in Assam are identifiable and so are the evils committed on them. The agents of the evils are the sympathisers of Assamese nationalism. We are a society that even humiliates the testimonies of a victim, although the experiences of evil are for all of us to see. Nellie and Kherbari should be one of the cornerstones from where our society should be built, because every society like Weber noted should face its imperfections. Appreciation of imperfections will only beautify us.
*Suraj is a doctoral candidate in sociology at National University of Singapore and tweets @char_chapori.
Labeling, an awful occurrence
by Sally Dugman
I was taught in teacher training classes never to label children. It can usually only cause damage. I didn’t need to learn that message. Often it is a form of bullying and abuse that I had already seen as a child.
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