Penultima: Day of Lamentation

December 30th: Day of Lamentation

by Gideon Polya - MWC News

MWC News' senior editor and humanitarian American scholar Professor William Cook has proposed 30 December as a Day of Lamentation to record the 21st century’s ongoing evils of which the worst are existentially threatening nuclear weapons, poverty that kills 17 million people annually, and man-made climate change that threatens to kill all but 0.5 billion of Humanity.

However 31 December is New Year’s Eve on which we make New Year’s Resolutions, and we can resolve to help stop the evils of Apartheid, state crime, state terrorism, non-state terrorism, nuclear terrorism, corporate terrorism, carbon terrorism, and climate terrorism by Boycotts, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) against all disproportionately complicit politicians, corporations and countries.

In his book “Age of Fools”, American professor of English, Professor William Cook, has passionately exposed and condemned the state crimes of Neocon- and Zionist-dominated Apartheid America and of US-backed Apartheid Israel that are continuing unabated in the 21st century, a century that all decent people had hoped might finally be a century of peace, justice and respect for Humanity and the Biosphere. William Cook proposes that the penultimate day of the year – 30 December – be a Day of Lamentation to record these evils.

In 2007 Professor John Holdren , then President of the prestigious American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) and subsequently the senior advisor to President Barack Obama on science and technology issues, identified nuclear weapons, poverty and climate change as 3 key threats to humanity. As reported by AAAS: “Challenges such as poverty, climate change and nuclear proliferation pose global risks that require scientists and engineers to join with political and business leaders in a concerted search for solutions, AAAS President John P. Holdren said Thursday. In his Presidential Address at the AAAS Annual Meeting, Holdren described a world poised at an unprecedented moment of decision: Without swift and urgent action, he said, the problems could spiral toward disastrous, permanent changes for all of life on Earth”.

Unfortunately the “swift and urgent action” recommended by Professor John Holdren is simply not happening, leaving the world at acute risk from state terrorism via nuclear terrorism, corporate terrorism, carbon terrorism and climate terrorism as outlined below.

a. Nuclear weapons and nuclear terrorism. A nuclear exchange would wipe out most of Humanity (current population about 7 billion), successively through the initial instantaneous destruction of cities, subsequent deaths from burns and radiation sickness from radioactive fallout, and finally through a “Nuclear Winter” decimating agriculture, photosynthesis and photosynthate-based life in general. This is state terrorism and nuclear terrorism threatening extinction of Humanity and most of the Biosphere. While imposing deadly Sanctions on Iran (that has zero nuclear weapons and repeatedly states that it does not want nuclear weapons and wants a nuclear weapons-free Middle East), the US (7,315 nuclear weapons) is boosting its nuclear and conventional forces in Asia and Australia and continues to pour billions of dollars of military aid into the war criminal, genocidal racist, ethnic cleansing and nuclear terrorist rogue state of Apartheid Israel that reportedly has up to 400 nuclear weapons.

The upper estimates of stored nuclear weapons are as follows: US (7,315), Russia (8,000), Apartheid Israel (400), France (300), UK (250), China (250), Pakistan (120), India (100), and North Korea (less than 10). India, Pakistan and North Korea have not ratified the Nuclear non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT). Nuclear exchanges have almost occurred accidentally several times in the last half century and in several instances have only been averted by the sane actions of particular courageous and humane individuals who declined to press the button for global destruction e.g. Commander Vasili Alexandrovich Arkhipov (in 1962) and Lieutenant Colonel Stanislav Yevgrafovich Petrov (in 1983).

b. Poverty and neoliberalism-driven corporate terrorism. UN Population Division data indicate that about 17 million people already die avoidably each year from deprivation in Developing Countries (minus China) on a Spaceship Earth with neoliberal One Percenters in charge of the flight deck. 12 years ago global avoidable deaths totalled 16 million per year. This is racist, state terrorism-backed corporate terrorism. In Iran alone about 100,000 Iranians have been dying avoidably each year under cruel, Zionist-demanded, US-imposed Sanctions. The Sanctions applied to Iraq from 1990 to 2003 killed an estimated 1.7 million people, 1.1 million being under-5 year old infants. 1950-2005 avoidable deaths from deprivation have totalled 1.3 million for the world, 1.2 billion for the Developing Word and 0.6 billion for the Muslim world, these estimates being consonant with 1950-2005 under-5 infant deaths totalling 0.88 billion for the world, 0.85 billion for the Developing World and 0.4 billion for the Muslim World.

The post-1950 avoidable deaths of about 600 million Muslims constitutes a Muslim Holocaust about 100 times bigger than the WW2 Jewish Holocaust (5-6 million killed by violence or imposed deprivation) or the “forgotten” WW2 Bengali Holocaust in which the British with Australian complicity deliberately starved 6-7 million Indians to death for strategic reasons. The US-backed Apartheid Israeli oppression of the Indigenous Palestinians and ongoing Palestinian Genocide illustrate state terrorism and the Global Avoidable Mortality Holocaust in microcosm - of 12 million Palestinians, 6 million are forbidden to step foot in their own country, 4.3 million exist without human rights as prisoners without charge or trial in the blockaded Gaza Concentration Camp (1.8 million) or in West Bank Bantustan ghettoes (2.5 million), and only 1.7 million Palestinians Israelis (14% of Palestinians and 28% of Palestinian subjects of Apartheid Israel) are permitted to vote for the government ruling all of Palestine, albeit as Third Class citizens under Nazi-style Apartheid laws; and the annual per capita GDP is $2,900 for Palestine, 13 times lower than for Apartheid Israel ($38,000) that continues to steal land, steal water and impose a Nazi-style Apartheid regime on Occupied Palestinians of whom it kills 1,000 violently each year and kills 4,000 non-violently each year through imposed deprivation.

c. Climate change and state-sanctioned corporate terrorism, carbon terrorism and climate terrorism. In 2009 the WBGU, which advises the German Government on climate change, estimated that for a 75% chance of avoiding a catastrophic 2C temperature rise, the world must emit no more than 600 billion tonnes carbon dioxide (CO2) before zero emissions in 2050. Unfortunately the global greenhouse gas (GHG) pollution is so high that the World will exceed this terminal budget in 3 years relative to 2015. The Global Warming Potential (GWP) of CH4 (methane) on a 20 year time frame and with aerosol impacts considered is 105 times that of CO2. The 50 Gt (50 billion tonnes) of CH4 predicted to be released from the East Siberian Arctic Shelf in coming decades is equivalent to 50 billion tonnes CH4 x 105 tonnes CO2-equivalent/tonne CH4 = 5,250 tonnes CO2-e or about nine (9) times more than the world’s terminal greenhouse gas (GHG) pollution budget.

The world faces catastrophe unless global warming and this Arctic CH4 release can be stopped. Unaddressed man-made climate change is set to exacerbate an already worsening climate genocide and cause 10 billion avoidable deaths this century leaving a predicted only 0.5 billion of Humanity alive. Presently about 7 million people die annually from the effects of pollutants from carbon fuel burning and 0.4 million people die annually from the effects of climate change. 17 million people die avoidably each year from deprivation but if climate change is not requisitely addressed an average of 100 million people will die avoidably each year this century. This is state terrorism-sanctioned corporate terrorism, carbon terrorism and climate terrorism.

Specialist scientists have solutions to all of these 3 major threats facing humanity but politicians – notably those representing the One Percenters who own about half of the world’s wealth – are preventing the required actions in all 3 areas that can save the world and which are summarized below.

1. Nuclear Weapons. 

Complete nuclear disarmament in accordance with a Nuclear Weapons Ban is technically possible. About 117 countries now support a complete Nuclear Weapons ban and this is also supported by the Red Cross, the Red Crescent, the World Council of Churches and the International Trade Union Confederation. However a Nuclear Weapons Ban is opposed by nuclear-armed countries and their compliant lackeys. Thus, for example, while Australia has no actual nuclear weapons of its own, it has hosted nuclear tests and testing of nuclear weapons delivery systems, hosts nuclear-armed warships, plays a key role in US nuclear terrorism through its Pine Gap joint US-Australian communications facility, and under the present pro-war, pro-Zionist, pro- Israel, US lackey Coalition Government slavishly supports US and Israeli war policies and is doing its best to oppose a Nuclear Weapons Ban. Thus the Sydney Morning Herald reported (2014): “In October 2013, according to the documents released under freedom-of-information law, Australia refused a request by New Zealand to endorse a 125-nation joint statement at the United Nations highlighting the humanitarian consequences of any use of nuclear weapons.''

Australia objected to a sentence declaring that it is in the interest of humanity that nuclear weapons are never used again, ''under any circumstances''. A group of 16 nations, including Indonesia, Malaysia, Mexico, South Africa and New Zealand, have been working to highlight the humanitarian effects of nuclear weapons. That diplomatic campaign is intended to lay the ground for negotiation of a convention that would prohibit nuclear weapons - putting them in the same category as chemical and biological weapons, which are already prohibited under international law… declassified documents have revealed that the government's primary concern is that a nuclear weapons ban would ''cut across'' Australia's reliance on US nuclear deterrence”.

2. Poverty. 

Notwithstanding the expansion of ostensible democracy and social welfare in the 20th century, the world's wealth is overwhelmingly concentrated the hands of the rich. Thus, according to Oxfam “[Its] report, Working for the Few, shows that the wealth of the world is divided in two: almost half going to the richest one per cent; the other half to the remaining 99 per cent”. French economist Professor Thomas Piketty argues in his important book “Capital in the Twenty-First Century” that current wealth inequality endangers democracy and economic sustainability, and he proposes a progressive annual wealth tax to address the danger.

There is a largely ignored Global Avoidable Mortality Holocaust in which currently 17 million people die avoidably each year from deprivation and deprivation-exacerbated disease in the Developing World (minus China). This is happening on Spaceship Earth with the flight deck under the control of the 10% richest who have about 90% of the wealth of the World and who in turn are controlled by One Percenters who own about half the wealth of the World. An annual global wealth tax of about 4% would yield US$16 trillion annually and enable raising all countries to annual per capita incomes equivalent to the $6,000 per person per year of China and Cuba, countries for which annual avoidable mortality is zero (0).

3. Climate Change. 

Basically we know what the problem is (man-made greenhouse gas (GHG) pollution that is warming the world and acidifying the ocean) and how to solve it (stop and reverse GHG pollution). Fundamentally, as enunciated by 300.org, we need to urgently reduce atmospheric CO2 concentration from the current dangerous and damaging 400 ppm CO2 to the pre-Industrial Revolution level of about 300 ppm CO2 for a safe planet for all peoples and all species. To achieve a safe atmosphere we must achieve the following:

(a) a change of societal philosophy to one of scientific risk management and biological sustainability with complete cessation of species extinctions and zero tolerance for lying;

(b) urgent reduction of atmospheric CO2 to a safe level of about 300 ppm CO2 as recommended by leading climate and biological scientists; and

(c) a rapid switch to the best non-carbon and renewable energy (solar, wind, geothermal, wave, tide and hydro options that are currently roughly the same market price as coal burning-based power and about 4 times cheaper if the environmental and human costs of GHG pollution are considered) and to energy efficiency, public transport, needs-based production, re-afforestation and return of carbon as biochar to soils or bicarbonate to oceans coupled with correspondingly rapid cessation of fossil fuel burning, deforestation, population growth, and methanogenic livestock production.

Critically, as urged by scientists and by scientifically-trained Green Left Pope Francis, the environmental and human cost of pollution must be “fully borne” by the polluters. Dr. Chris Hope of 90-Nobel-Laureate Cambridge University has estimated a damage-related Carbon Price of about $200 per tonne CO2-e which indicates a Carbon Debt for the World of $360 trillion that is increasing at $13 trillion per year.

Summary and conclusions

On the penultimate day of the year, the Day of Lamentation, one can condemn the evils of the world from Israeli Apartheid to the more general US War on Muslims but poverty is the biggest killer at present, climate change may kill all but 0.5 billion of Humanity and a nuclear war may wipe out all of Humanity. However, while things look grim we must be resolutely optimistic and do everything we can to make the future “less bad” for our children and for future generations. Further, 31 December is New Year’s Eve, a day of positive reflection and “New Year’s Resolutions” on which we can resolve to do everything we can to stop the evils of Apartheid, state crime, state terrorism, corporate terrorism, non-state terrorism and nuclear terrorism, as well as of terracidal climate change from state terrorism-sanctioned corporate terrorism, carbon terrorism, and climate terrorism.

Unfortunately, the Western democracies have become Plutocracies, Murdochracies, Lobbyocracies, Corporatocracies and Dollarocracies in which the Big Money of the dominant One Percenters buys people, presstitutes, politicians, policies, parties, preferment, public perception of reality, votes and political power. The young must revolt (peacefully, of course) to secure their future and have 3 main avenues for action on all these major threats to Humanity, specifically:

• massive peaceful demonstrations in the streets under the banner “Save our future”;
• at the ballot box where they must vote reen and consign the corrupt politician lackeys of the One Percenters to the sewer of History; and 
• through Boycotts, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) against the terracidal One Percenters and all those people, politicians, parties, presstitutes, companies, corporations and countries whose actions are disproportionately threatening and destroying Humanity and the Biosphere.

Much of the world has just now at Christmas celebrated with family and friends the birth of that wonderful Palestinian humanitarian, Jesus. However, a nuclear holocaust and subsequent devastating nuclear winter could happen at any time (it has already almost happened several times). Poverty already kills 17 million people each year, half of them children - in vain one cries “Thou shalt not kill children” and notes by way of comparison that political non-state terrorists killed a total of 53 Americans in the US in the 14 years after the US Government’s 9-11 false flag atrocity (Google “Experts; US did 9-11”).

It is already too late to avoid a catastrophic 2 degree Centigrade temperature rise. Ninety-nine Percenters, and young people in particular, must be moved to implacable zero tolerance for the racists, Apartheiders, Mainstream media presstitutes, state criminals, climate criminals, war criminals, state terrorists, nuclear terrorists, corporate terrorists, carbon terrorists and climate terrorists existentially threatening Humanity and the Biosphere. Peace is the only way but silence kills and silence is complicity. Please tell everyone you can.