Latest Lancet Data Imply Adani Australian Coal Project Will  Kill 1.4 Million Indians

 

adani-protest-australia

A multi-author 2017 paper in the prestigious UK medical journal The Lancet estimates 1.1 million Indian deaths annually from ambient (outdoor) air pollution, notably from fine carbon particulates (PM2.5). Assuming coal burning causes 50% of ambient air pollution in India, pollutants from the burning of coal exported to India from the giant, Australia-approved Adani coal mine will eventually kill 1.4 million Indians. Racist White Australia  has a 2-century history of complicity in mass murder of Indians that is ongoing.

Under a pro-coal, climate criminal Coalition Australian Government and with the support of a compliant, pro-coal, Right-dominated  Labor Party Opposition , Australia is heading  towards a human and environmental catastrophe represented by the huge, Australian Government-approved Adani Carmichael coal mine in the Galilee Basin of Queensland that is set to be the biggest coal mine in the world and is adjacent to the seriously ill, acutely industry-threatened  and acutely climate change-threatened Great Barrier Reef.

Coal kills just as surely as bombs,  bullets and imposed starvation. The proposed Adani coal mine will be the biggest in the world and has been approved in the face of expert scientific advice that says we must  keep coal and other fossil fuels in the ground to prevent catastrophic global warming. Indeed it is now to late to avoid a catastrophic  plus 2 degrees Centigrade global warming. However coal kills and ambient (outside) air pollution from pollutants from  burning coal  kills about 500,000 Indians each year.  On a global comparative basis that ignores national pollution specifics,  pollutants from burning Australian coal exported to India from the proposed Adani coal mine are  estimated to kill 13,000 Indians annually and 500,000 Indians over the lifetime of the coal mine (most of the coal will go to India and thus most of the victims will be Indians). However based on the latest specific data for India published in The Lancet, pollutants from the burning  of Adani Australian coal  in India will eventually kill 35,000 Indians  annually and 1.4 million  Indians over the lifetime of the coal mine.

Properly taking land use into account, Australia has a Domestic  annual per capita greenhouse gas (GHG) pollution in “tonnes CO2-equivalent per person per year”  of 52.9 and a Domestic plus Exported annual per capita GHG pollution (i.e. including its huge GHG-generating  exports) of 116, as compared to the annual per capita greenhouse gas (GHG) pollution of 8.9 (the world), 7.4 (China),  2.1 (India), 2.5 (Pakistan) and 2.7 (Bangladesh).

Australia with 0.3% of the world’s population has a Domestic plus Exported GHG pollution equivalent to 4.4% of the World’s total GHG pollution (Gideon Polya, “Revised Annual Per Capita Greenhouse Gas Pollution For All Countries – What Is Your Country Doing?”, Countercurrents, 6 January, 2016: https://countercurrents.org/polya060116.htm ;  Gideon Polya, “Exposing And Thence Punishing Worst Polluter Nations Via Weighted Annual Per Capita Greenhouse Gas Pollution Scores”, Countercurrents, 19 March, 2016: https://countercurrents.org/polya190316.htm ) . However, the Adani coal mine will lift Australia’s  outrageously disproportionate percentage to 4.5% .

Pro-coal, neoliberal, US lackey, war criminal,  climate criminal  and Trumpist Australia ranks second only to war criminal and climate criminal   Saudi Arabia for climate change inaction on the German Climate Watch Index (see    German Climate Watch Index 2015: https://germanwatch.org/en/download/10407.pdf  ). The Australia Coalition Government- and Labor Opposition-backed Adani coal mine will eventually kill 1.4 million Indians as argued below.

(A). On a comparative global basis (ignoring  country specifics) pollutants from burning Adani coal will eventually kill about 0.5 million Indians.

Below is  a letter  sent to Australian MPs, media and activists in look-the-other-way Australia on 16 April 2007 re the  prediction (based on global comparative data ignoring  national pollution specifics)  of  an eventual 0.5 million Indian deaths due to pollutants from the burning of Adani-extracted Australian  coal  in India:

LETTER:

“Dear etc,

The anti-science, neoliberal, pro-coal and Trumpist Australian COALition Government and the Labor Opposition both support long-term domestic fossil fuel use and unlimited fossil fuel exports, and ignore the deadly impact of pollutants (PM2.5 and NOx) from burning coal. Coal kills as illustrated by the following estimates:  (1) 7 million people die globally from the long-term effects of air pollution each year (WHO), including about 1,000,000 Indians (half from coal burning for power), 200,000 Americans, 10,000 Australians and  9,000 Londoners, with several million people dying annually from the long-term effects of  coal burning pollutants,  (2) 75,000  people die annually from pollutants from the burning of Australian coal exports, and (3) it is estimated that a further 13,000 people will eventually die annually from the burning of proposed Adani Australian coal exports with 500,000 people, mostly Indians, dying thus from the lifetime operation of the proposed Adani coal mine that also threatens Australia’s  desperately ill Great Barrier Reef.

DARA estimates that 0.4 million people presently die from climate change annually,  but this may be a huge  under-estimate because 17 million people already die avoidably each year from deprivation in tropical or sub-tropical Developing World countries (minus China) that are already disproportionately  impacted by man-made climate change. Presently 20 million people are facing famine and mass starvation in war- , climate change- and drought-impacted northern Nigeria, South Sudan, Somalia and Yemen.  Two top climate change scientists have estimated that as few as 0.5 billion people will survive this century if climate change is not requisitely addressed, this translating to a Climate Genocide involving the untimely deaths of about 10 billion people this century. It is now too late to avoid a catastrophic plus 2 degree Centigrade  temperature rise but decent people are obliged to do everything they can to make the future  “less bad” for future generations e.g. by urging and applying boycotts, divestment and sanctions (BDS) against and voting out ecocidal and homicidal climate criminals.

Yours sincerely, Dr Gideon Polya, Melbourne, Victoria, Australia.

See  Gideon Polya, “Pollutants from Adani coal mine will eventually kill 0.5 million Indians”, Countercurrents, 14 April 2017: https://countercurrents.org/2017/04/14/pollutants-adani-coal-mine-will-eventually-kill-about-0-5-million-indians/ ; “Stop air pollution deaths”: https://sites.google.com/site/300orgsite/stop-air-pollution-deaths ; “Climate Genocide”: https://sites.google.com/site/climategenocide/ ; “Too late to avoid global warming catastrophe”: https://sites.google.com/site/300orgsite/too-late-to-avoid-global-warming ; Gideon Polya, “Humanity must pledge inescapable dispossession and custodial retribution for climate criminals”, Countercurrents, 20 December 2016: https://countercurrents.org/2016/12/20/humanity-must-pledge-inescapable-dispossession-and-custodial-retribution-for-climate-criminals/ “ END LETTER.

The Silence is Deafening in response to my letter.  Silence is Complicity.

(B). Based on the latest, specific national pollution data for India reported in The Lancet,  pollutants from burning Adani coal will eventually kill about 1.4 million Indians.

A major problem with ignoring reality is that it keeps on getting worse.  A multi-author paper published in the prestigious UK medical journal The Lancet on 10 April 2017 estimates 1,090,400 annual Indian deaths and 1,108,100 annual Chinese deaths from ambient (outdoor) air pollution (Aaron J Cohen, Michael Brauer et al., “Estimates and 25-year trends of the global burden of disease attributable to ambient air pollution: an analysis of data from the Global Burden of Diseases Study 2015”, The Lancet, 10 April 2017: http://thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(17)30505-6/fulltext ).

Presently India burns 924 million tonnes of coal each year. Assuming that all the 60 million tonnes per year  of Adani Australian coal will go to India (most will) and that 50% of ambient air pollution in India is due to coal-fired power generation (as asserted by major India media) ,    0.5 x 1,090,400 Indian deaths per year x 60 million tonnes Adani  coal exported per year /924 million tonnes coal burned in India per year  = 35,403  or eventually about 35,000 Indian deaths per year and 0.5 x 1,090,400 Indian deaths per year x 2,300 million tonnes coal exported /924 million tonnes coal burned per year  in India = 1,357,100 or eventually about 1.4  million Indian deaths over the lifetime of the Adani project due to pollutants from the combustion of Adani coal from a greed-driven, homicidal, ecocidal, terracidal and genocidally climate criminal Lib-Lab (COALition and Labor Right) Australia (see “Stop air pollution deaths”: https://sites.google.com/site/300orgsite/stop-air-pollution-deaths and scroll down to “Australia” and “India”).

History ignored yields history repeated – White Australia’s 2-century complicity in mass murder of Indians.  

History ignored yields history repeated and racist White Australia – politically correct racist or PC racist because overwhelmingly White Australians vigorously and sincerely deny that they are racist  – has an appalling past, present and future complicity in the deaths of horrendous numbers of Indians as detailed below (but overwhelmingly  missing from Australian historiography, Mainstream media and general public perception):

(1) As part of the British Empire Australia was complicit  in the 2-century, British-imposed  Indian Holocaust in which 1,800 million Indians died avoidably from extreme deprivation regularly punctuated by successive horrendous famines  under the British Raj (see Gideon Polya, “Economist Mahima Khanna,   Cambridge Stevenson Prize And Dire Indian Poverty”,  Countercurrents, 20 November, 2011: https://countercurrents.org/polya201111.htm ).

(2) White Australians fervently supported the British suppression 1857 Indian War of Independence (aka the Indian Rebellion or Indian Mutiny), related captured Indian weaponry were displayed at the Victorian State Library together with Australian Aboriginal weapons, and as British Imperial subjects a  number of Australians served in the British forces.  Indian historian Amaresh Misra  claims in his 2 volume work  “War of Civilizations: India AD 1857” that in the decade after the Indian rebellion the British killed 10 million Indians in reprisals for the 2,000 British killed in the 1857 rebellion (Amaresh Misra, “War of Civilisations: India AD 1857”; Randeep Ramesh, “India’s secret history: :A holocaust, one where millions disappeared”, Guardian, 24 August 2007: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2007/aug/24/india.randeepramesh ; Gideon Polya, “Genocidal Racist Charles Dickens (1812-1870), Indian Holocaust And UK – US Muslim Genocide “,Countercurrents, 10 February, 2012: https://countercurrents.org/polya100212.htm ).

(3) By withholding grain from its huge wartime granaries, Australia helped Britain deliberately starve 6-7 million Indians to death for strategic reasons in the WW2 Bengali Holocaust (WW2 Indian Holocaust). This atrocity was associated with horrendous , large-scale, military and civilian   sexual abuse of starving women and girls  (Gideon Polya, “Australia And Britain Killed 6-7 Million Indians In WW2 Bengal Famine”,  Countercurrents, 29 September, 2011: https://countercurrents.org/polya290911.htm ; Gideon Polya, “Jane Austen and the Black Hole of British History. Colonial rapacity, holocaust denial and the crisis in biological sustainability”, G.M. Polya, Melbourne, 2008 edition that is now available for free perusal on the web: http://janeaustenand.blogspot.com/ ).

(4)   As a disproportionately  rich country,  Australia is disproportionately complicit in the post-1950 Global Avoidable Mortality Holocaust  in which 1,500 million people, including about 400 million Indians, have died avoidably from First World-imposed deprivation since 1950 (see Gideon Polya, “Body Count. Global avoidable mortality since 1950”, that includes a succinct history of every country and is now available for free perusal on the web: http://globalbodycount.blogspot.com/  ).

(5) The 2015 per capita GDP  is $51,000  for Australia versus  $1,600 for India, $1,400 for Pakistan and $1,200 for Bangladesh . As disproportionately  rich people, Australians are complicit in the ongoing Global Avoidable Mortality Holocaust  in which 17 million people in the Developing World (minus China)  – including 4.7 million Indians,  630,000 Pakistanis and 230,000 Bangladeshis – presently die avoidably from deprivation each year on Spaceship Earth with the First World in charge of the flight deck (“List of countries by GDP (nominal) by capita”, Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_(nominal)_per_capita ; Gideon Polya, “Body Count. Global avoidable mortality since 1950”; UN Population Division,” 2015 Revision of World Population Prospects”: https://esa.un.org/unpd/wpp/ ).

(6) Australia is a world leader in coal exports and will shortly become the world’s top liquefied natural  gas (LNG) exporter. According to The Lancet (April 2017) annual deaths  from ambient (outside) pollution total 1,108,100 (China), 1,090,400 (India), 135,100 (Pakistan) and 122,400 (Bangladesh). Coal burning for power is deemed responsible for 50% of ambient pollution in India and one supposes is a major contributor to deadly  ambient pollution involving PM2-5 carbon particulates in all of these countries. Australia per se kills at least 75,000 people a year, mostly Asians, via  pollutants from the  burning  of its  world leading coal exports. The Adani obscenity will increase this annual Indian death toll by about 50%.

(7) Two leading UK climate scientists, Dr James Lovelock FRS (famous for atmospheric gas analysis and his Gaia Hypothesis) and Professor Kevin Anderson (Deputy Director, Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research, University of Manchester, UK),  have separately estimated that only about  0.5 billion people will  survive this century if carbon pollution and man-made climate change are not requisitely  addressed, this translating  to a Climate Genocide of about 10 billion deaths this century, overwhelmingly in Developing countries.  Noting that the world population is expected to reach 9.5 billion by 2050 (UN Population Division) , this predicted Climate Genocide involving the deaths of 10 billion people this century would involve the premature death of  roughly twice the present population of particular mainly non-European groups, specifically 6 billion under-5 year old infants, 3 billion Muslims in a terminal Muslim Holocaust, 2 billion Indians, 1.3 billion non-Arab Africans, 0.5 billion Bengalis, 0.3 billion Pakistanis and 0.3 billion Bangladeshis.

Final comments and conclusions.

As a whole Australians are affable, easy-going, fair and reject explicit racism within Australia. Indeed these attributes plus Australian prosperity  and love of cricket make Australia an attractive destination for Indian university students and skilled Indian immigrants. However there are major exceptions to this idyllic picture. Thus the bigoted and racist Australian  One Nation Party now has about 10% of the vote, started life with  extremely bigoted and  offensive anti-Asian and anti-Indigenous policies and presently has an extremely bigoted and offensive anti-Muslim position. Further, White Australians have always had a huge  fear of their vastly more numerous non-White  Asian neighbours that crystallized into the 1901-1974,  so-called White Australia Policy that excluded non-Europeans , including Asians and Indians, from Australia (this policy was scrapped by the Whitlam Labor Government before this reformist government  was itself removed in a US CIA-backed coup in 1975). However there is a secret New White Australia Policy today that discriminates against non-Europeans wanting a visa to enter Australia.

Australians are politically correct racist or PC racist because, while mostly vehemently rejecting racism at an interpersonal level, they are deeply involved in racist actions at an international level. Thus the ultimate in racism is the invasion and devastation of other countries, and as UK lackeys and thence US lackeys White Australians have invaded 85 countries (with 30 of these invasions involving  genocidal atrocities) as compared to the  British 193,  France 82, the US 72 (52 after WW2), Germany 39, Japan 30, Russia 25, Canada 25,  Apartheid Israel 12 and China 2 . Australia is presently involved in the ongoing Afghan Holocaust and Afghan Genocide,  is engaged in its Third Syrian War and Eighth Iraq War in a century, and via the US-Australian Joint electronic spying  facility at Pine Gap in Central Australia, it is involved in US nuclear terrorism and in targeting illegal US drone  strikes in Libya, starving Somalia, starving Yemen, Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan… who is next? Australia has been involved in all post-1950 US Asian Wars, atrocities that have been associated with 40 million Asian deaths from violence or war-imposed deprivation. An intrinsically White Supremacist   Australia is second only to the US as a blind, racist, White Supremacist  supporter of Apartheid Israel, and is a fanatical supporter of the US War on Muslims (aka the US War on Terror) in which 32 million Muslims have died from violence, 5 million, or from imposed deprivation, 27 million, in 20 countries invaded by the US Alliance since the US Government’s 9-11 false flag atrocity (Gideon Polya, “As UK Lackeys Or US Lackeys Australians Have Invaded 85 Countries (British 193, French 80, US 70)”, Countercurrents, 9 February, 2015: https://countercurrents.org/polya090215.htm ; “Stop state terrorism” : https://sites.google.com/site/stopstateterrorism/ ; “Stop state terrorism” : https://sites.google.com/site/stopstateterrorism/ ; Gideon Polya, “Paris Atrocity Context: 27 Million Muslim Avoidable  Deaths From Imposed Deprivation In 20 Countries Violated By US Alliance Since 9-11”, Countercurrents, 22 November, 2015: https://countercurrents.org/polya221115.htm ; “Muslim Holocaust Muslim Genocide”: https://sites.google.com/site/muslimholocaustmuslimgenocide/ ).

To be fair to the White Australians, Australians Mainstream media fake news through lying by omission means that White Australians are blissfully unaware of the horrendous  consequences of their complicities, whether the mass murder of Indians under the British Raj or the global American Empire, the adumbrated eventual killing of 1.4 million  Indians by the Australia-approved Adani coal mine or the predicted death this century of 2 billion Indians in a near-terminal Climate Genocide in which a climate criminal Australia is disproportionately complicit. Australian Mainstream media journalist , politician and academic presstitutes ensure that ordinary Australians are like mushrooms – kept in the dark and fed manure (Gideon Polya, “Mainstream media fake news through lying by omission”, MWC News, 1 April 2017: http://www.mwcnews.net/focus/analysis/64626-mainstream-media.html ).

What can decent people do? Decent people (and especially acutely-threatened Indians) must (a) inform everyone they can (especially Australians) and (b) do everything they can by Boycotts, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) to ensure that coal and other fossil fuels remain in the ground. Coal kills.  

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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