The indignant global response to the phone hacking and police bribery by UK employees of Rupert Murdoch’s Media Empire obscures the awful major crimes of this Evil Empire: (a) promotion of the War on Terror and genocide-ignoring non-reportage of the 12 million deaths associated with US and US Alliance wars in Iraq, Somalia and Afghanistan and (b) anti-science non-reportage and false reporting about the worsening Climate Crisis that if unaddressed will kill an estimated 10 billion non-Europeans in a 21st century Climate Genocide. Accordingly, all decent people must boycott Murdoch media to save the Planet.
Rational risk management vital for the safety of society successively involves (a) accurate information, (b) scientific analysis (this involving the critical testing of potentially falsifiable hypotheses) and (c) informed systemic change to minimize risk. However this is typically perverted by (a) lies, non-reportage and censorship, (b) anti-science spin involving the selective use of asserted facts to support a partisan position and (c) blame and shame, with the ultimate obscenity being war. The Murdoch Media pervert rational risk management in this fashion, mist notably by (1) promoting the Iraq War and the Afghan War and non-reportage of the resultant carnage (violent deaths and avoidable deaths from war-imposed carnage now totaling 4.6 million and 5.0 million, respectively) (see “Iraqi Holocaust, Iraqi Genocide”: https://sites.google.com/site/iraqiholocaustiraqigenocide/ and “Afghan Holocaust, Afghan Genocide”: https://sites.google.com/site/afghanholocaustafghangenocide/ ) and (2) irresponsible climate change denialism, noting that unaddressed man-made climate change is set to kill 10 billion people this century (see “Climate Genocide”: https://sites.google.com/site/climategenocide/ ). Decent people must Boycott Murdoch Media as a danger to Humanity but we should also hold other Mainstream media accountable as illustrated below.
The pro-coal, pro-gas, pro-war, pro-US, pro-Zionist, neoconservative Australian Gillard Labor Government has proposed a Carbon Tax-ETS (Emissions Trading Scheme) -Ignore Agriculture (CTETSIA) plan that has produced heated public debate and overwhelming, mainly greed-based opposition. Careful analysis of this Carbon Price plan provided by the Australian Government Treasury reveals that, contrary to Labor Government propaganda, it will only reduce (relative to Business As Usual) Australia’s disproportionately huge annual Domestic greenhouse gas (GHG) pollution rate by 8.5% by 2020 and by 53.2% by 2050. Labor’s plan must be exposed as deceitfully entrenching climate change inaction that will actually increase Domestic and Exported GHG pollution by 2020 – and all this while pretending to “tackle climate change” (see “ Analysis: Australian Labor Government Carbon Price-ETS scheme fails & entrenches climate change inaction ”, Bellaciao, 15 July 2011 : http://bellaciao.org/en/spip.php?article20957 ) .
Nevertheless the extreme right wing, pro-coal pro-gas, pro-war, pro-US, pro-Zionist Gillard Labor Government is apparently unfazed by its slump to 26% of the primary vote in the polls (as of 18 July 2011). A recent poll (13 July 2011) has found that 60 percent of voters are opposed the tax, 29 per cent were in favour and 11 per were cent undecided (see: http://www.heraldsun.com.au/news/tony-abbott-julia-gillard-dig-in-on-carbon-tax-package/story-e6frf7jo-1226092715231 ) . The Gillard Labor Government has just launched a $10 million , taxpayer-funded TV propaganda campaign to convince Australians otherwise, no doubt buoyed by the reality that the level of public education and debate on climate change is utterly woeful.
Thus I recently sent Australian mainstream media and all Australian Federal MPs a detailed and documented account of 25 huge climate change matters that are essentially ignored in the current huge Carbon Tax debate in Australia )(see “Look-the-other-way, climate criminal Australia ignores 25 Elephant in the Room climate change realities”, Bellaciao, 6 July 2011: http://bellaciao.org/en/spip.php?article20957 ). However the silence is deafening in science-ignoring, look-the-other-way Australia . The extreme right wing Coalition Opposition campaign against the Government’s Carbon Tax is based on personal greed and takes advantage of immense ignorance about the seriousness of the worsening climate emergency due in large measure to the appalling climate change denialist Murdoch media (70% of city daily newspapers in Australia ).
People should boycott the climate denialist Murdoch media for the sake of their children, grandchildren and the Planet. It would be useful if the UK and Australia followed the lead of remote Fiji that recently prohibited foreign ownership of Mainstream media (this necessitating the sale of Murdoch’ Fiji Times to local Indo-Fijian, Mahendra Patel). However, as the example below illustrates, it is not just the Murdoch-owned Mainstream media that cripple the climate change debate.
On Friday 15 July 2011 The Age (Melbourne, Fairfax-owned) published an article in its On-line National Times section by Tim Dixon (former speechwriter and economic adviser to prime ministers Kevin Rudd and Julia Gillard and now working in the US) and Matt Browne (a senior fellow at the Centre for American Progress in Washington, and leads the Global Progress network of progressive parties and think tanks) on debate on issues such as climate change policy and entitled “Mature debate on our future needed, not Tea Party–style militancy” (see: http://www.theage.com.au/opinion/politics/mature-debate-on-our-future-needed-not-tea-partystyle-militancy-20110714-1hfra.html ).
These evidently Labor- and Democrat-oriented analysts stated in part: “ A wealth fund set up with oil revenues two decades ago by Norway – a much smaller economy than Australia – now exceeds $500 billion, a magnificent endowment that gives Norwegians a ”Plan B” if the nation’s fortunes suddenly change. Australia could also tackle growing social disadvantage at its roots, with large-scale investment in schools and infrastructure across its city fringes. Each of those steps requires deliberate choices and a sensible national debate… The Tea Party militancy of states such as Kansas is now infecting Australia ‘s Coalition parties and many opinion makers – parochial, inward-looking and uninterested in the economics of the future. Will Australia follow the road to California or to Kansas ? Sometimes we make the best choices by pressing the fast-forward button and imagining ourselves looking back, years from now. The course of events that takes us to 2030 is unknown. But there’s little doubt that the countries best placed will be those who are open, tolerant, diverse, highly skilled and less dependent on carbon fuels. Australia can be all those things – and become the country everyone else wants to be.”
I made 2 unsuccessful attempts at expressing an informed, science-based opinion on the article via its on-line Comment thread. However The Age (which regularly censors my carefully researched, science-based opinions offered under my professional name, Dr Gideon Polya, a 5-decade career scientists teaching at a major university for 4 decades) evidently again found my credentialled, science-informed opinions unfit to be read by its readers, even if buried in a comment thread of 240 mostly anonymous and accordingly uncredentialled comments. Below is my second unsuccessful attempt (a slightly edited version of the first) and further evidence of what The Age evidently does not want its readers to read or to know (for further details of this censorship see: http://gpolya.newsvine.com/_news/2011/07/14/7085459-oz-mature-debate-on-our-future-needed-not-tea-party-style-militancy ) :
“ For mature debate: the $500 billion wealth fund of Norway (cited in article) is of relevance to Australia and its urgent need to convert to 100% renewable energy ASAP as demanded by top climate scientists.
The Australian Climate Commission’s “The Critical Decade” (launched by PM Gillard) concluded that for a 70% chance of avoiding a disastrous 2C temperature rise (EU and Australian policy) the World has a terminal “carbon budget” in which it can emit no more than 1 trillion tonnes of CO2 before final zero emissions in 2050. Australia ‘s huge Domestic plus Exported greenhouse gas (GHG) pollution is such (1,415 Mt CO2-e pa in 2009) that it will exceed its “share” in 1.9 years!!
In contrast, Labor and Coalition policy is for a Domestic GHG target of “5% off 2000 level by 2020” and massive expansion of coal and liquid natural gas (LNG) Exports (increasing annually at 2.4% and 9%, respectively, according to ABARE) so that Australia’s 2020 Domestic plus Exported GHG pollution will be DOUBLE that in 2000.
$370 billion/10 years for 100% Renewable Energy for Australia (BZE), $253 billion/20 years (Professor Peter Seligman). and $144 billion (260,000 GWh/year wind by 2020).”
For more details of censorship of informed, credentialed, non-anonymous, professional comment by The Age see “Mainstream media censorship”: https://sites.google.com/site/mainstreammediacensorship/ , and “Censorship by The Age”: https://sites.google.com/site/mainstreammediacensorship/censorship-by-the-age and http://agecensors.blogspot.com/ .
Decent people around the World will be considering a boycott of pro-war, climate change denialist, US Alliance genocide- and war crimes-ignoring, phone hacking and police bribing News Corp media (if they don’t already boycott Murdoch media). But non-reportage and censorship of science-informed opinion is not confined to the appalling Murdoch media. Thus the example above and numerous other instances of egregious censorship of science-informed opinion by the Australian Fairfax Media Empire newspaper The Age (arguably Australia ‘s most respectable Mainstream medium, although that is not saying much) illustrates why there is very little science-informed “mature debate” on climate change action in Australia .
Decent people surely must “Boycott Murdoch Media” for the sake of the women and children in particular of the war- and occupation-devastated Muslim World (12 million dead so far in Murdoch media-promoted wars in Iraq, Somali and Afghanistan) and indeed for the Planet itself that is facing climate catastrophe and a 10 billion-victim climate genocide from man-made global warming. However the genocide complicity, holocaust complicity, genocide ignoring, holocaust ignoring, genocide denial, holocaust denial and climate change denial of the pro-war, pro-Zionist, pro-fossil fuel, Neocon American and Zionist Imperialist (NAZI)-beholden Murdoch media is also found in the remaining Mainstream media.
The World is facing an unprecedented climate disaster that top climate scientist predict is set to kill about 10 billion people this century (see “Climate Genocide”: https://sites.google.com/site/climategenocide/ ). Peace is the only way but silence kills and silence is complicity. We can no longer afford lies, spin, non-reportage and censorship over man-made climate change and other huge threats to Humanity. Decent people should boycott Murdoch media (that are evidently beyond redemption) thereby helping a transition back to Democracy from Murdochracy and Lobbyocracy in the English-speaking World. However we must also resolutely expose such perversions in the remaining Mainstream media.so that our societies can apply rational risk management to major threats to Humanity.
By Dr Gideon Polya
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/ .