Kevin Rudd

Playing cards with Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd is an unusually frustrating experience.

Take Greenhouse Poker, for example.

In most poker games, each player makes successive bids in one or rounds of betting.

But Kevin only makes conditional bids. Example: “I’ll raise 15% – as long as you all raise your bids at least the same amount”.

Penny Wong

It makes for a slow and quarrelsome game.

When playing Climate Bridge, Kevin and his slick young partner Penny refuse to place their cards face up, even when they’re playing dummy.

“We must see everyone else’s cards first” Mr Rudd demanded.

Climate Fraud

“It’s the responsible course of action. At the end of the day, we take balanced decisions, going forward.

“We expect (hope) to be criticized on all sides. That proves we’ve got it right!”

Mr Rudd’s grandchildren were not available for comment.

A hungry child in Gaza

You know it’s getting bad in Gaza when Mr Murdoch’s London Times announces Gaza families eat grass as Israel locks border.

The Times is one of News Corps many media assets around the world whose constant pro-Israeli bias helped create the context for the tragedy now unfolding in Palestine.

Today we learn the cruelty is working well. There’s mass starvation on Europe’s edge, deliberately induced by the occupying power. Marie Colvin reports:

As a convoy of blue-and-white United Nations trucks loaded with food waited last night for Israeli permission to enter Gaza, Jindiya Abu Amra and her 12-year-old daughter went scrounging for the wild grass their family now lives on.

“We had one meal today – khobbeizeh,” said Abu Amra, 43, showing the leaves of a plant that grows along the streets of Gaza. “Every day, I wake up and start looking for wood and plastic to burn for fuel and I beg. When I find nothing, we eat this grass…”

Israel controls the borders and allows in humanitarian supplies only sporadically. Families had electricity for six hours a day last week. Cooking gas was available only through the illegal tunnels that run into Egypt, and by last week had jumped in price from 80 shekels per canister (£14) to 380 shekels (£66).

The UN, which has responsibility for 1m refugees in Gaza, is in despair. “The economy has been crushed and there are no imports or exports,” said John Ging, director of its relief and works agency. “Two weeks ago, for the first time in 60 years, we ran out of food,” he said. “We used to get 70 to 80 trucks per day, now we are getting 15 trucks a day, and only when the border opens. We’re living hand to mouth.”

He has four days of food in stock for distribution to the most desperate – and no idea whether Israel will reopen the border. The Abu Amra family may have to eat wild grass for the foreseeable future.

Writing in TruthDig, Chris Hedges reports on Israel’s ‘Crime Against Humanity in Gaza.

Gaza now spends 12 hours a day without power, which can be a death sentence to the severely ill in hospitals. There are few drugs and little medicine, including no cancer or cystic fibrosis medication.

Hospitals have generators but often lack fuel. Medical equipment, including one of Gaza’s three CT scanners, has been destroyed by power surges and fluctuations. Medical staff cannot control the temperature of incubators for newborns. And Israel has revoked most exit visas, meaning some of those who need specialized care, including cancer patients and those in need of kidney dialysis, have died.

Palestinian Courage & Suffering

“It is macabre,” (UN special rapporteur Richard) Falk said. “I don’t know of anything that exactly fits this situation. People have been referring to the Warsaw ghetto as the nearest analog in modern times.

”“There is no structure of an occupation that endured for decades and involved this kind of oppressive circumstances,” the rapporteur added.

“The magnitude, the deliberateness, the violations of international humanitarian law, the impact on the health, lives and survival and the overall conditions warrant the characterization of a crime against humanity. This occupation is the direct intention by the Israeli military and civilian authorities. They are responsible and should be held accountable.”

Another Sad Christmas for Palestine

The point of this Israeli siege, ostensibly, is to break Hamas, the radical Islamic group that was elected to power in 2007. But Hamas has repeatedly proposed long-term truces with Israel and offered to negotiate a permanent truce. During the last cease-fire, established through Egyptian intermediaries in July, Hamas upheld the truce although Israel refused to ease the blockade.

It was Israel that, on Nov. 4, initiated an armed attack that violated the truce and killed six Palestinians. It was only then that Hamas resumed firing rockets at Israel. Palestinians have launched more than 200 rockets on Israel since the latest round of violence began. There have been no Israeli casualties.

It appears these remarks – and others in similar vein – by the Jewish American Professor Falk were too much for the Israelis to bear.

Professor Richard Falk

To say such things about the Jewish Apartheid State in Palestine is most certainly ‘Hate Speech’ – whether or not one happens to be the UN Special Rapporteur on Human Rights in the Palestinian Territories representing humanity as a whole.

It’s the kind of speech they hate.

In a move that epitomizes just how low the Zionist State has sunk, it expelled Falk as he entered Israel in transit to occupied Ramallah, dispatching him on a plane back to the USA.

Have the rulers of apartheid Israel gone completely bonkers? It seems possible. Which planet do they think they’re on?

Of course, it’s one thing to complain about this from the relative immunity of another continent. It’s another to live in the same neighbourdood as this violent rogue State. The Palestinians deserve admiration and respect for their dogged resistance.

Mel Frykberg points out the Gaza truce is set to expire. He  considers a few possible scenarios, all of them rather depressing. The occupiers are having some success in separating Gazans from West Bank Palestinians, not only by enforcing geographical isolation but by working to widen the political gulf.

There’s clearly a debate within Israel about just how much to torture the Palestinians.

Israeli PR boasts it’s the “only democracy in the middle east”.

The truth is, Israeli democracy is an oxymoron.

The world didn’t consider apartheid South Africa ‘democratic’ in any meansingful sense. Apartheid Israel is no different.

As our mainstream politicians and major polluting industries are apt to remind us often, Australia is only a bit player when it comes to global greenhouse emissions. We contribute a relatively small proportion of the global total, overshadowed by the USA, Europe, China and other more populous regions of the planet.

Hazelwood power plant: Australia's dirtiest power plant? Not due to close until 2030

On the other hand, Australia’s per capita CO2 emissions are among the highest in the world. Australia’s ‘historical responsibility’ for the increases of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere since industrialization began is also disproportionately high.

Climate Action Network Australia issued a Position Paper called Greenhouse Gas Emission Reduction for Australia in August 2008. It mounted a case for a 40% emissions reduction target for Australia by 2020.

Here’s the nub of CANA’s argument:

The IPCC’s Fourth Assessment Report concluded that, for 2° to 2.4°C warming scenarios, global emission reductions in the range of 50 percent to 85 percent by 2050 (compared to 2000 levels) are required36. To keep global warming well below 2°C, the global community must aim for the upper end of this range. This was confirmed more recently by Martin Parry, Co-Chair of the Working Group II of the IPCC Fourth Assessment Report, who also highlighted the need for global cuts of 80% by 205037.

Within the global community, the wealthy and developed Annex I countries must respond to these scientific projections with ambitious emission reduction targets. Their combined efforts must result in collective emission reductions by at least the upper end of the 25 to 40% range by 2020, based on 1990 emission levels38. The current international climate negotiations are at a crucial stage, where governments must agree on a comprehensive deal that will prevent dangerous climate change. This agreement will be one of the most complicated ever agreed to at an international level. Australia is in a strong position to play a positive role in influencing these negotiations that will include an agreement on the emission reduction targets.

If Australia is to demonstrate its leadership on climate change, it must set Australian targets that contribute to maintaining global warming as far below 2°C as possible. To achieve this, the Federal Government should adopt the following emission reduction targets, with the majority of emission reductions being delivered domestically:

• 2010 peak emissions, to decline thereafter
• 2020 at least 40 % emission reductions below 1990 levels
• 2050 at least 95 % emission reductions below 1990 levels

Note that even achieving these very ambitious targets, if the IPPC is correct, will still lead to a significant increase in global temperatures (around 2 degrees centigrade by 2050).

However, it would achieve stabilization of the atmospheric. Later generations could then, if they wish, go further to reduce greenhouse gas levels back towards pre-industrial levels.

If global average temperature rises more than 2 degrees C, polar ice-caps may melt completely, triggering huge rises in sea level.

If the average global temperature increase does exceed 2 degrees centigrade, the probable consequences will be dire. Survival of human civilization in its current form becomes uncertain. The risk of catastrophic ecosystem and social collapse is high.

On Monday, Australian Prime Minister Rudd announced his government’s 2020 targets. His government has chosen the very wide – and VERY low – range of a 5% to 15% reduction based on 2000 levels.

IF the latest IPPC analysis is correct – and IF other developed countries are equally timid – it spells disaster for humanity within a couple of generations.

That’s why, to environmentalists and many scientists, yesterday’s target announcement from the Rudd Government was a disaster.

There is, however, a considerable body of public opinion – within Australia and elsewhere – that rejects the IPCC’s key conclusions and believes human-induced climate change is little more than a media beat-up.

The existence of such a large body of opinion in Australia makes it:

1. hard for Governments to ‘sell’ stronger emissions targets and
2. easy for Governments to get away with targets that, according the mainstream IPCC view, are grossly inadequate (this week’s announcement by the Australian Government being a case in point).

Conducting constructive dialogue with the body of sceptical public opinion is an urgent priority for those of us who believe that climate change IS a serious threat that requires strong worldwide action now.

Are the sceptics right? If they’re wrong, why is it proving so hard to persuade them? Are those of us concerned about climate change using the most effective arguments to break through?

I’ve written another essay with the provisional title ‘Letter to a Climate Change Sceptic: Not Far from Consensus for Action?”

Agmates

I hope to publish the article simultaneously on this blog and on an Australian, rural community-oriented site.

At present, Agmates’ editorial line is sceptical about environmentalists’ perspective on climate change and questions the need for urgent action.

I look forward to a ‘robust’ debate

My article will take a rather unusual approach to countering ‘climate change scepticism’. I hope at least some people find it persuasive.

Watch this space.

One of the things that makes this blog stand out from the pack is that we occasionally give a formal launch to essential new terms.

Here’s one for today: ‘Hate Song’

The JTA reports about this disturbing new phenomenon in an article with the eye-catching title: Israeli ambassador blasts London church

Israel’s ambassador to London added a diplomatic dimension to a row over anti-Israel carol singers at a central London church.

Two weeks ago, a group called “Jews for boycotting Israeli goods” performed at St. James’s Church in Piccadilly with its own version of Christmas carols, in which it changed the words of the familiar carols to lyrics referring to Israel’s actions in Gaza and the West Bank.

Three Wise Men Arrive at the Apartheid Wall, Christmas 2008

The performance drew huge criticism, and on Wednesday, the Ambassador Ron Prosor told the Times: “It was appalling to see a church allow one of its most endearing seasonal traditions to be hijacked by hatred.”

He also attacked the lack of strong condemnation by the Church of England leadership. “Only the ‘merry gentlemen’ of Hamas and its fellow extremists will take any ‘tidings of comfort and joy’ from this event,” he said. “In Bethlehem, even if Santa Claus is coming to town, when he gets there, he’ll be met with a frosty reception by Islamic extremists.”

He added: “Unfortunately, the criticism from within the Church of England, that should have echoed with bold moral clarity, has instead sounded like a silent night, but far from holy.”

Prosor went on to attack the head of St. James’s Church, saying, “It is saddening that Rev. Charles Hedley should have allowed the beautiful acoustics of his church to be abused to create such discord. If Hedley’s aim was to create harmony, he might have expressed a modicum of concern for the Israeli victims of terrorist violence.”

He also discussed the wider implications of the event. “Hedley’s decision undermines the hard work that has taken place to improve relations between Christians, Muslims and Jews. He should understand that interfaith dialogue, tolerance and open-mindedness are the way forward to brotherly love, and not the interfaith ranting and raving of the ‘carol service’ at St. James’s Piccadilly.”

The JTA is too bashful to give details of the offensive carols. Likewise Haaretz and the Anglican Friends of Israel

This makes it hard for the ordinary person to know exactly which songs to hate. How can you tell a Hate Carol this Christmas – if you don’t know what to listen for?

In the interests of the eradication of hate, here’s an example of a Hate Carol so shocking it jeopardizes ‘inter-faith dialogue’ and international relations:

O little town of Bethlehem

O little town of Bethlehem
How still we see thee lie!
A wall is laid where tourists stayed,
And tanks go rolling by.
And in thy dark streets shineth
No cheerful Christmas light;
The grief and fears of four sad years
Are met in thee tonight.

Israel's Apartheid Wall near Bethlehem

How silently, how silently
The world regards it all,
As now thy heart is torn apart
By Israel’s ghetto wall.
They terrorize a people -
A war crime and a sin;
Their winding “fence” can make no sense;
Revenge can still get in.

O promised child of Bethlehem,
Cast down the iron cage,
The walls of hate that separate
And harden and enrage;
Bring justice and make equal;
Come down from far above;
And come to birth upon this earth,
As hope and peace and love.

There! Isn’t that just hateful? Here’s another, to chase away all doubts:

O Come All Ye Faithful

Israel's Apartheid Wall

O come all ye faithful,
All who care for justice,
O look ye, O look ye at Bethlehem;
Come and behold it
Under occupation.
O come, let’s not ignore it,
O come, let’s not ignore it,
O come, let’s not ignore it,
Tell the world.

Sing, all ye people,
Sing in indignation,
Be with the citizens of Bethlehem;
Sing out for justice,
Freedom from oppression.
O come, let’s not ignore it,
O come, let’s not ignore it,
O come, let’s not ignore it,
Tell the world.

It’s understandable an Israeli Ambassador has particular concerns about Hate Songs, but I suspect Gordon Brown and his Education Minister Ed Balls may be more anxious about ‘Hate Jokes’ and ‘Hate Sniggers’.

Each of these important new expressions deserves space in the next edition of the ever-evolving Oxford Junior Dictionary.

Compulsory Holocaust Educators, employed to fulfill Mr Balls’ ‘non-negotiable‘ pedagogical policy, will find them all invaluable.

I wonder if teachers in England still torture children by making them stay behind after class to write lines by hand? If so, 500 lines for Hate Sniggers, 750 lines for Hate Jokes and 1,000 lines for Hate Songs should be suitable chastisement for naughty sprogs.

How about:

“I do NOT hate compulsory Holocaust Education”
“I do NOT hate compulsory Holocaust Education”
“I do NOT hate compulsory Holocaust Education”
…………x 500+

That should keep the brats off their Play Stations long enough to appreciate the meaning of suffering – and how hateful it is to tease Teacher.