Climate Censorship And Climate Injustice
By Climate Criminal, Climate Racist Australia
By Dr Gideon Polya
04 July, 2011
Countercurrents.org
Climate criminal and intrinsically climate racist Australia leads the First World in annual per capita greenhouse gas (GHG) pollution, is the world's leading coal exporter and is among the world's top liquid natural gas (LNG) exporters. However Australia, like its fellow major GHG polluters Canada and the US, wants business as usual (BAU) GHG pollution despite public rhetoric to the contrary that, as described below, requires extraordinary censorship of major Elephant in the Room realities by Mainstream media, lobbyists and politicians..
I am a 5-decade career scientist and teach science students at a major Australian university. Like the overwhelming majority of scientist I am appalled by the worsening climate emergency and the huge gulf between the perception of reality by scientists and the erroneous public perception fed by Mainstream media, lobbyists and politicians in Lobbyocracy and Murdochracy Australia . Scientists are typically employed by institutions or corporations and are consequently subject to considerable censorship and self-censorship.
However I belong to a small minority of Australian scientists who are prepared to make science-informed comments in the public interest. Nevertheless, as the following example shows, even when scientists are prepared to make carefully-researched comments in the public interest they can be subject to egregious censorship if the science is not consonant with the perverted, spin-driven, anti-science Mainstream media, lobbyist and politician “narrative”.
Scientist evades the Media wall of Silence.
On Wednesday 29 June 2011 The Age On-line National Times section published an article by writer Jo Chandler about the attacks on scientists climate change denialists and entitled “When science is undone by fiction” with by sub-heading “The myth of Climate-gate has endured because of media failings” (for the article and reader comments permitted by The Age see: http://www.theage.com.au/opinion/politics/when-science-is-undone-by-fiction-20110628-1gp26.html ).
Unfortunately The Age, for whatever reasons, regularly censors science-informed comments to such articles made under his own name by Dr Gideon Polya (me), a 5-decade-career biological chemist , still teaching science students at a major Australian university. For details of the article plus science-informed reader comments that the The Age evidently did not want its readers to read see: http://gpolya.newsvine.com/_news/2011/06/28/6968199-oz-analyst-on-media-failure-re-climate-when-science-is-undone-by-fiction ).
The Age actually published (possibly inadvertently) my comment providing 3 examples of Elephant in the Room climate change issues ignored by Mainstream media and politicians:
“ There is a huge and dangerous gulf between reality as reported by Mainstream media and politicians and that perceived by scientists, especially in relation to required responses to man-made climate change . Just 3 examples of this Mainstream media and politician failure to acknowledge reality are given below.
1. According to Professor Hans Joachim Schellnhuber (Potsdam Institute, Germany), for a 67% chance of avoiding a catastrophic 2C temperature rise the World must cease CO2 emissions by 2050 and top per capita greenhouse gas (GHG) polluter such as the US and Australia must get to zero CO2 emissions by 2020 (9.5 years left).
2. According to the Australian Climate Commission's "The Critical Decade" report, for a 75% chance of avoiding a 2C temperature rise the World can emit no more than 1 trillion tonnes of CO2 before reaching zero emissions in about 2050. Australia's Domestic plus Exported GHG pollution means it must get to zero emissions before the end of 2012 (1.9 years left) or by the end of 2015 if one ignores Exported GHGs (4.6 years left).
3. Methane (CH4) leaks (3.3%) and is 105 times worse than CO2 as a GHG on a 20 year timeframe, this meaning that a Carbon Tax-driven coal to gas transition will double electric power industry GHG pollution."
Scientist is censored.
The Age published the above comments but declined to publish the further examples I offered (while encouraging anti-science fiction by publishing several hundred comments by uncredentialled, non-scientist, anonymous bloggers):
“In addition to the 3 Elephant in the Room climate-related realities given above that are resolutely ignored by Mainstream media and politicians, consider the following further examples of the Mainstream ignoring of climate-related science.
4. The species extinction rate is now 100-1,000 times greater than normal ( Australia a word leader).
5. Leading scientists, economists and analysts slam the ETS approach as empirically ineffective, dangerously counterproductive and inherently fraudulent (Labor proposes to sell licences to pollute the one common atmosphere of all countries).
6. World Bank analysts have recently re-assessed annual global greenhouse gas (GHG) pollution as 50% bigger than hitherto thought and that the livestock contribution is over 51% of the bigger figure (Labor proposes to ignore agriculture).
7. Many (e.g. EU, Australia ) support a 450 ppm CO2-equivalent and 2C temperature rise "cap". However the Synthesis Report of the 2,500-delegate March 2009 scientific Copenhagen Climate Conference indicates that we have already exceeded 450 ppm CO2-e and over 90% of delegates polled thought 2C was inevitable.
8. For voters, success in "tackling climate change" is measured in terms of DECREASED GHG pollution but it has INCREASED under Labor whose policies mean that Australia's Domestic plus Exported GHG will be about 150% of 2000 level by 2020.”
Scientist is further censored.
Cognizant of my responsibility as a scientist to try to inform the public, I sent the following further comment, this too under my name Dr Gideon Polya, but this too was evidently deemed by the Age as unfit for its readers to read:
“In addition to examples 1-3 above, here are more examples of massive realities ignored by fiction-generating Mainstream media and politicians.
4. The species extinction rate is now 100-1,000 times greater than normal ( Australia a word leader).
5. Leading scientists, economists and analysts slam the ETS approach as empirically ineffective, dangerously counterproductive and inherently fraudulent (Labor proposes to sell licences to pollute the one common atmosphere of all countries).
6. World Bank analysts have recently re-assessed annual global greenhouse gas (GHG) pollution as 50% bigger than hitherto thought and that the livestock contribution is over 51% of the bigger figure (Labor proposes to ignore agriculture).
7. Many (e.g. EU, Australia ) support a 450 ppm CO2-equivalent and 2C temperature rise "cap". However the Synthesis Report of the 2,500-delegate March 2009 scientific Copenhagen Climate Conference indicates that we have already exceeded 450 ppm CO2-e and over 90% of delegates polled thought 2C was inevitable.
8. GHG pollution must decrease but it has increased under Labor whose policies mean that Australia 's Domestic plus Exported GHG will be about 150% of 2000 level by 2020.
9. Atmospheric CO2 must be urgently returned to 300 ppm (it is increasing).
10. Carbon burning pollutants kill circa 10,000 Australians pa.”
Conclusion and prospects.
Jo Chandler's article concludes “” Recent surveys of active climate scientists (those publishing in the area) calculate that 97 in every 100 have views which reflect those of the international academies of science: the planet is warming, this is human caused, and it is dangerous. Most are unlikely to ever have the gift of this page to explain their findings. Therefore, a more balanced, rigorous and honest rendering of their work is critical to elevating the political and public debate on climate. 'The media has a particular and important role to play,'' said [new Chief Scientist of Australia ] Chubb, ''and the sooner they play it better, the better."
However the above example shows that even The Age, arguably the most progressive Mainstream medium in Australia , continues to block informed, science-based views on the worsening climate crisis. For a chronological compendium recording the censorship of informed, credentialled, science-based views by The Age see the website “Censorship by The Age”: http://agecensors.blogspot.com/ .
Look-the-other-way Australia is committed to disproportionate GHG pollution and resolutely ignores 10 major, Elephant in the Room climate change realities that are effectively ignored in Mainstream public discussion. Climate criminal, dog-in-the-manger Australia is disproportionately contributing to the worsening climate crisis that is threatening the whole World.
Yet Australia adopts a climate exceptionalist position in relation to its disproportionate past, present and future pollution of the Earth's one atmosphere, a position that is akin to Apartheid as practised in Apartheid Australia- and Apartheid Israel-backed Apartheid South Africa and indeed in Apartheid Australia- and Apartheid South Africa-backed Apartheid Israel. Apartheid Australia's position is in effect that other countries must constrain GHG pollution but Australia, like the White South Africans and Jewish Israelis, is somehow “special” and that Australians have a peculiar right to exploit the World's resources it controls to the severe detriment of other somehow “lesser” people.
Of course Australians will fervently deny that they are racists but are clearly complicit in horrendous past and ongoing abuses of non-Europeans at home and abroad – a position that is best described as politically correct racism (PC racism). However a corollary of this unspoken Australian PC racism is massive censorship of Elephant in the Room realities, whether about the worsening, Australia-complicit Climate Genocide (see: http://sites.google.com/site/climategenocide/ ) or Australia's participation in all post-1950 US Asian wars (war-related deaths 26 million; see “Muslim Holocaust, Muslim Genocide”: http://sites.google.com/site/muslimholocaustmuslimgenocide/ and “Australia's secret genocide history”: http://sites.google.com/site/muslimholocaustmuslimgenocide/australia-s-secret-genocide-history ). .
Climate criminal, climate racist, climate Apartheid Australia will continue to look the other way and to disproportionately pollute the one common atmosphere of the World until the World forces it to stop - and stop it must because it is estimated that about 10 billion people (mostly non-Europeans) will perish this century due to unaddressed, man-made climate change (see “Climate Genocide”: http://sites.google.com/site/climategenocide/ ).
What can decent people do? Decent folk around the World must (a) inform everyone they can and (b) urge sanctions, boycotts, sporting bans (e.g. exclusion from the World Cup and the Olympic Games) , green tariffs, International Court of Justice (ICJ) litigations and International Criminal Court (ICC) prosecutions to bring climate criminal, climate racist, climate Apartheid Australia to heel. That is the least decent people can do for climate justice, intergenerational equity , their children, their grandchildren and the Planet.
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/ .
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