Accountability, Badge & Credo (ABC) Protocol

The World is acutely threatened by man-made global warming and many scientists now doubt that we can avoid further damaging temperature increases to over 2C above that in 1900. However resolute global action via an Accountability, Badge and Credo (ABC) protocol may yet save Man and the Biosphere.

In short, the Accountability, Badge and Credo (ABC) protocol involves (A) Accountability of greenhouse gas (GHG)-polluting climate criminals imposing GHG pollution on all peoples and species (e.g. by naming via an electronic  Doomsday Book or virtual Doomsday Monument of bad and good guys; by using a Green Credentialling or Green Certification system to identify products, people, companies and countries we can support and those we must boycott; and by international and intra-national sanctions, boycotts, green tariffs, reparations demands, civil actions and criminal prosecutions); (B) a Badge  that activists can wear with a simple core pictorial or word message (e.g. “Climate Emergency” or “Climate Emergency Network”) or  a core numerical message (e.g. “300” or  “350” to indicate the urgent need to reduce atmospheric CO2 concentration to about 300 parts per million (ppm) or to less than 350 ppm, respectively); and (C) a Credo or core statement of beliefs (e.g. “We believe in a safe and sustainable existence for all peoples and all species on our warming-threatened Planet and that this requires a rapid reduction of atmospheric carbon dioxide concentration  to about 300 parts per million”).

(A). Accountability.

Time is running out for dealing with the Climate Emergency. Indeed some scientists are saying privately - and some even publicly - that it is already too late to stop further seriously damaging climate change above that which is already occurring.  And the stakes are huge because  Dr James Lovelock FRS has estimated that fewer than 1 billion people will survive the 21st century due to unaddressed man-made global warming – this translating to about 10 billion avoidable human deaths, mainly in the Third World, due to what must be described as a worsening Climate Genocide. [1].

For a detailed and documented account of man-made global warming, the huge Climatic Disruption  already being inflicted on the Planet and the looming Climate Genocide see the publicly-available lecture notes for my 2009 U3A course entitled “Global warming, climate emergency”. [2].

In an important and sobering paper published by the UK Royal Society in 2008, Professor Kevin Anderson and Dr Alice Bows (Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research, University of Manchester) had the following dire conclusion:

Accordingly, climate activists have to start getting really serious and adopting a “zero tolerance” approach to ecocide (destruction of ecosystems) and terracide (destruction of the biosphere of Planet Earth).

We can usefully turn to successful organized religion for a model. Thus Jesus Christ said “He who is not for me is against me” (The Holy Bible, Luke 11.23) – and we must adopt a similarly stringent basis for accountability in the destruction of ecosystems, species and peoples and in the looming prospect of the avoidable death of 10 billion fellow human beings this century.

This “zero tolerance” accountability approach has precedent in how we currently deal with life-threatening epidemics and pandemics. Thus “freedom of speech” means that people can hold bizarre personal opinions about influenza, HIV/AIDS and global warming that contradict overwhelming global medical and scientific consensus - but arguing against the sensible prescriptions of top experts can be seen as irresponsible, and violation of legislatively emplaced precautions (e.g. violating quarantine regulations or laws prohibiting HIV-infected persons from having unprotected sex) is illegal and potentially criminal.

Some suggestions as to how to approach Accountability are listed below.

1. Green Credentialling, Green Certification.

A technical precedent is that of the global “Green Certification” of the timber industry by the Forest Stewardship Council outlined by Professor Jared Diamond in his book “Collapse”  (Chapter 15, “Big businesses and the environment: different conditions, different outcomes”, pp473-479) or the Australian medical Heart Foundation’s “tick” applied to healthy foods in supermarkets. An expert and credentialed Green Certification body can be set up that simply assesses individuals, companies, political parties, other organizations, states and countries and applies Green (Good), Black (Bad) and Orange (Intermediate) certification.

Thus people turning up to vote will simply inspect the “how to vote card” for the colored decal. Thus, in Australia the Greens would have a Green decal but the Opposition Liberal-National Party Coalition and Governing Labor Party candidates (collectively known as the Lib-Labs) would have Black decals because of their irresponsible support for fossil fuel burning; maverick Lib-Labs defying the pro-coal line of their parties could be rewarded by an “Orange” decal.  

2. Electronic Doomsday Book and virtual Doomsday Monument.

The electronic Doomsday Book and virtual Doomsday Monument project would simply record the Green (Good), Black (Bad) and Orange (Intermediate) certification of individuals, companies, political parties, other organizations, states and countries in relation to the Climate Emergency.

This provides a dated, public record of public position in the War on the Planet and allows for behaviour modification. Thus if climate sceptic and climate criminal George W. Bush suddenly had a Damascene experience and turned Green in 2009 his entry could simply read “George W. Bush (Black; Orange 2009).

This is not a “blame and shame exercise”, rather it is an objective historical recording informed by the all-too-often horribly violated precautionary principle that “history ignored yields history repeated”. Nevertheless, if we are not successful in our ABC protocol to save the biosphere, then children and grandchildren will get to know how their familial  forebears helped destroy their lives and their Planet. 

3. International Reparations demands over AGW.

Major river pollution events by Australian mining companies in Europe, South East Asia and New Guinea have led to massive litigation.  There is clearly ample legal precedent and a huge evidential basis for proportional reparations demands for the huge and mounting global damage due to atmospheric pollution and anthropogenic global warming (AGW; man-made global warming) (see [2]).

4. Intra-national Reparations demands.

A large number of people die annually from the effects of coal burning- and fossil fuel burning-derived pollutants from power generation.

Thus “annual coal-based electricity deaths” [“total annual fossil fuel-based electricity deaths”] from pollutants (carbon monoxide, sulphur dioxide, nitrogen oxides, particulates, volatile organics and heavy metals, notably mercury)  are 170,000 [283,000] (the World), 11,000 [13,000] (India), 47,000 [47,500] (China), 49,000 [72,000] (the US), 3,400 [6,900] (the UK), 4,900 [5,400] (Australia) and 2,700 [3,800](Canada) as compared to 110 [360] (heavily renewable energy-based New Zealand).

Indeed it from data such as this that it has been estimated that the “market price” of coal burning-based power is 4-5 times lower than the “true price” based on the costs of the environmental and human impacts. [4].

It is high time that individual and class actions were brought against coal- and fossil fuel-burning corporations and complicit Governments and Government Agencies for mortality, morbidity (adverse health) and other intra-national consequences of greenhouse gas (GHG) pollution.