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New Year's Day 1/1/11 Message: Equal Shares on Our One Planet

By Dr Gideon Polya

02 January, 2011
Countercurrents.org

The US has 4.5% of the World's population but consumes 25% of its resources through anti-democratic hegemony maintained by egregious violence (8 million dead in the US War on Terror alone, the breakdown being 2.5 million dead in Iraq, 4.9 million dead in Afghanistan and 0.8 million dead (including 0.1 million Americans) from opiate drug-related causes due to US alliance restoration of the Taliban-destroyed Afghan opium industry). The fundamental message on 1/1/11 is surely 1 (ONE) – 1 man-one-vote, there is only 1 Planet (Spaceship Earth) for Humanity, and equal shares in resources i.e. until we necessarily all cease carbon dioxide (CO2) pollution in 2050 the ratio of my share to your share should be 1.

 All decent folk subscribe to the essential egalitarianism of the second sentence of the American Declaration of Independence  “ We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness ” (see: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Declaration_of_Independence ).  

Nevertheless within the “Land of the Free” there are enormous inequities (e.g. see “Facts on the Concentration of Wealth” compiled by George Draffan: http://www.endgame.org/primer-wealth.html ). These inequalities kill. Thus about 20,000 people die avoidably each year in the US because they are too poor to have medical insurance. Each year about 20,000 under-5 year old infants die avoidably in the US because successive US Administrations place a greater priority on the mass murder of Muslims, 7 million Muslims having been actively or passively killed  so far, in the US War on Terror that has been conducted at an accrual cost of circa $4 trillion (see “Muslim Holocaust, Muslim Genocide”: https://sites.google.com/site/muslimholocaustmuslimgenocide/ ).

There are even more massive inequalities in the World as a whole due to First World hegemony. Thus, as estimated below, about 18.5 million people die avoidably each year on Spaceship Earth from deprivation and deprivation-exacerbated disease (see “Body Count. Global avoidable mortality since 1950” by Gideon Polya: http://globalavoidablemortality.blogspot.com/  ).

Such avoidable deaths (excess deaths, avoidable mortality, excess mortality, deaths that did not have to happen) for a given region of the World are readily determined from the difference between actual deaths occurring and the deaths expected for a decently governed, peaceful region of the World with the same demographics (such data being  expertly provided on-line by the demographers of the UN Population Division: http://esa.un.org/unpp/index.asp?panel=1 ).  

Thus it can be readily estimated from UN Population Division data that about 18.5 million people die avoidably each year from deprivation and deprivation-exacerbated disease.  Careful examination of global statistics reveals that the death rate in “good”, relatively high birth rate countries  is about 4 per 1,000 of population per year. However the death rate (mortality rate) is 8.3 per 1,000 of population for the Less Developed Regions (excluding China ) (aggregate 2010 population 4.310 billion) and hence the avoidable death rate in this region is 8.3 – 4.0 = 4.3 avoidable deaths per 1,000 of population per year. Accordingly the avoidable deaths in the Less Developed Regions (excluding China ) is 4.3 per thousand people x 4,300,000 thousand people = 18.5 million avoidable deaths annually.

These are 18,500,000 real deaths, mostly of women and children, and with each avoidable death just as real as each of the several local road deaths or murders reported daily in local media of “nice”, safe places like Vancouver or Melbourne (cities that compete for the title of being the most livable city in the world). Whether a child dies from neocon bombs or bullets or from neocon-imposed deprivation, the result is the same and the culpability the same.

Unfortunately this global avoidable mortality carnage is set to rise due to man-made global warming.  Both Dr James Lovelock FRS (Gaia hypothesis) and Professor Kevin Anderson ( Director, Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research, University of Manchester, UK) have recently estimated that fewer than 1 billion people will survive this century due to unaddressed, man-made global warming – noting that the world population is expected to reach 9.5 billion by 2050, these estimates translate to a climate genocide involving deaths of 10 billion people this century, this including 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 (see “Climate Genocide”: https://sites.google.com/site/climategenocide/home ).

Thus failure to address man-made greenhouse gas (GHG) pollution and consequent man-made climate change is expected to increase the annual global avoidable deaths from about 20 million per year to an average of 100 million per year this century. The survivors of this circa 10 billion victim Climate Genocide will be mostly European First Worlders – yet it is precisely these people who will have caused the catastrophe through greed, racism and de facto rejection of “all men are created equal”.

Past culpability is place squarely on European First Worlders who are responsible for about 71% of the additional carbon in the atmosphere from the start of the Industrial Revolution (see Dr James Hansen's “Storms of my Grandchildren”, p189).  Current culpability in the worsening climate genocide can be quantitated in terms of “annual per capita greenhouse gas (GHG) pollution” in units of “tonnes CO2 -equivalent per person per year” (2005-2008 data) is 0.9 (Bangladesh), 0.9 (Pakistan), 2.2 (India), less than 3 (many African and Island countries), 3.2 (the Developing World), 5.5 (China), 6.7 (the World), 11 (Europe), 16 (the Developed World), 27 (the US) and 30 (Australia; or 54 if Australia's huge Exported CO2 pollution is included) (see “Climate Genocide”: https://sites.google.com/site/climategenocide/home ).

Climate scientists are blunt in their assessment of what we must do to avoid this catastrophe. Thus top climate scientist Professor Hans Joachim Schellnhuber CBE (Director of Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research [PIK], Germany and variously associated with the University of Manchester, University of East Anglia and Oxford University) has estimated that for a 67% chance of avoiding a catastrophic 2 degree Centigrade temperature rise (the EU target) the World has to cease CO2 emissions by 2050. “All man are created equal” means that all human beings must be allotted equal shares of CO2 pollution until 2050. This means that high per capita countries such as the US , Canada and Australia must reach zero CO2 emissions by 2020 while  low per capita emitters (e.g. India and Burkina Faso) can increase their emissions until finally reaching zero CO2 emissions by 2050 (see Professor Hans Joachim Schellnhuber, “Terra quasi-incognita: beyond the 2 degree C line”< 4 Degrees & Beyond, International Climate Conference, 26-30 September 2009, Oxford University, UK: http://www.eci.ox.ac.uk/4degrees/ppt/1-1schellnhuber.pdf ) .

De facto rejection of  “all men are created equal” by the US, the UK, the EU and US lackey Apartheid Australia, has meant  that, notwithstanding  their politically correct rhetoric,  the Business As Usual aspirations of the world's worst GHG polluters won out over the urgent needs of the Developing World countries at both Copenhagen (2009) and Cancun (2010). Apartheid Australia must cease all CO2 pollution by 2020 according to science and ”all men are created equal” but instead proposes a derisory  “5% off 2000 pollution by 2020” in relation to Domestic pollution and in effect a Domestic plus Exported GHG pollution by 2020 that is projected to be 149% of that in 2000 (see “ Australia's “5% off 2000 GHG pollution by 2020” endangers Australia, Humanity and the Biosphere : https://sites.google.com/site/yarravalleyclimateactiongroup/australia-s-5-off-2000-ghg-pollution-by-2020-endangers-australia-humanity-and-biosphere ).

President Evo Morales of Bolivia commented thus the day before the conclusion of the Cancun Climate Summit (2010): “We need limited industrial development, rational development, not industries to kill like we have now, but rather industries to save lives… It [failure to act] is leaving the world without ecology. I called it ecolocide, which will lead to genocide… It's important to create an international court of climate justice. Industries, social movements, governments and international organisations who do not meet the norms that are established must be sanctioned…The most important thing is that the proposals of the people of the world are being debated, the rights of mother earth are being debated… What's never been in a debate before is how to live in harmony with Mother Earth - that's the debate” (see: http://english.aljazeera.net/news/americas/2010/12/2010121054139149384.html ).

The Bolivian representative at Cancun , Pablo Solón Romero, condemned the final “deal : "We're talking about a [combined] reduction in emissions of 13-16%, and what this means is an increase of more than 4C. Responsibly, we cannot go along with this - this would mean we went along with a situation that my president has termed “ecocide and genocide” (see: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-11975470 ).  

Unfortunately the climate criminal, racist Zionist-beholden, neoconservative Establishments variously currently running the United States, the American Empire and the US Alliance nations  utterly reject “all men are created equal”. Accordingly the primary New Year's Resolution of all decent people around the World must be to (a) inform, everyone they can about the acute threat to Humanity and (b) urge and apply Sanctions and Boycotts against the climate criminal people, politicians, corporations and countries of the climate genocidal US Alliance. Peace is the only way but silence kills and silence is complicity.  Acute concerns for Humanity, the Biosphere, our children,  grandchildren, and intergenerational equity oblige us to take such action to help save the Planet before it is too late.

Dr Gideon Polya currently teaches science students at a major Australian university. 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 recently 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/rn/science/ockham/stories/s1445960.htm ) 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 just 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.open2.net/thingsweforgot/ bengalfamine_programme.html ). 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/ .