• Quick note - the problem with Youtube videos not embedding on the forum appears to have been fixed, thanks to ZiprHead. If you do still see problems let me know.

Is Australia screwed?

So the Aborigines arrived, sea level rose, cutting them off from the rest of mankind, then the country dried up. To survive, they scattered and lived off the land with a low population density.

Then the whites arrived, with western tech and agriculture, pushed population density through the roof, built cities around the coasts...

...ran out of water, scattered and lived off the land.

I wonder, if we had a major disaster that threw us back three hundred years in technology, how many nations would revert all the way to barbarism?

To say Oz has a head start is to risk misunderstanding.:p
 
Don’t get too worried.

Australia went overboard for many years and farmed marginal and unsustainable land and got “lucky” with weather and used technology to wring productivity out of the land.

Exports of agricultural produce account for less than 20 % of Australia Product export and less than 15 % when you count export of services.

Although the marginal areas used for farming are vast in terms of acreage they are minimal in terms of production. If you removed ALL marginal areas of farming you would only lose about 10 % of our overall production capacity (due to the inefficient nature of the marginal areas production).

So at WORST we are looking at about a 1-2 % loss of export income if the droughts continue.

BTW.. is that Great Lake’s water drinkable.. last I heard it was so polluted you could walk on it !

http://www.great-lakes.net/envt/water/quality.html

http://www.epa.gov/owow/tmdl/atlas/index.html
 
a_unique_person said:
They didn't make "Mad Max" here for nothing. Just the other day I had to beat off a horde of marauding bikies with my bare hands.
Click to expand...
I've always found that marauding bikies respond best to empathy , calm reason and the words of Jesus..Last time they tried anything on me we ended up all holding hands singing "we will overcome"
 
Aussie Thinker said:
BTW.. is that Great Lake’s water drinkable.. last I heard it was so polluted you could walk on it !
Click to expand...

Exaggerated. Lake Erie used to be the dirtiest, but it’s improved greatly in the last decade. Lake pollution is worst in shallow inshore waters. Detroit gets most of its water from deep intakes out in Lake Huron (the old-time city fathers showed some good sense there) and is among the top five U.S. cities in terms of water quality; only Chicago rates higher, and of course Chi also gets its water from the Great Lakes. To be sure, all cities process their water before putting it into the mains, but it won't croak you to drink it. People swim in it everywhere you go.

They feds still tell you not to eat Great Lakes fish more than twice a week because of the high mercury levels in the flesh. But some species have high mercury levels anyway, so is that a pollution problem or just Mom Nature getting cute? (Not that I’d eat most GL fish anyway: nasty, muddy, fatty damn things!)

Generally speaking, GL water quality varies with lake levels, which of course fluctuate. We’ve seen record low levels in recent years. Now the levels are rising again, and the water’s growing cleaner.

You can walk on much of the Great Lakes if you want. January is a good time.
 
Aussie Thinker is using the right approach

By which I mean quantifying the problem. (Carl Sagan somewhere emphasizes what he calls "the power of quantification." A valuable and useful concept.) If you collect the numbers BEFORE flying into a panic, it saves a lot of chicken feathers.

Australia has been f****d over by man since remote antiquity. The Aborigines appear to have burned off gigantic areas of bush, to say nothing of eating a large number of species of animals. Then came the rabbit, the sheep, the cow -- you lot can add to the list.

But man's different from other predators: he can use his wits. I picture marginal land going permanently out of cultivation or other exploitation. Slowly, it would recover, including the ground water. Rejuvenated bush would actually be more valuable than borderline cropland, in terms of tourism and sustainable wild species. (I've got nothing against intelligent hunting.) North America has seen and is seeing a closely parallel series of events.

But then I've always felt an afinity for the outback. Something homey and familiar about it.
 
Re: Aussie Thinker is using the right approach

sackett said:
But man's different from other predators: he can use his wits. I picture marginal land going permanently out of cultivation or other exploitation. Slowly, it would recover, including the ground water. Rejuvenated bush would actually be more valuable than borderline cropland, in terms of tourism and sustainable wild species.
Click to expand...

Are you are commie heretic or something?
 
Re: Re: Aussie Thinker is using the right approach

a_unique_person said:
Are you a commie heretic or something?
Click to expand...

Why yes, I hoped you'd notice. Do you like my heresy this way?
 
Australia is in the grip of an 8 year long drought, now it is going to get worse. A new El Nino is predicted to be turning up soon, with no respite from the previous one.

http://www.theage.com.au/news/national/another-el-nino-on-the-way/2006/08/21/1156012460274.html

We were already just about to go to the next level of water restrictions, because the winter rains didn't happen. My brother in law has a farm with water rights for irrigation. The allowance this year for irrigation is about 0.
 
Don't worry everyone...

When Australia's agriculture industry "dries up" we New Zealander's will keep you all well supplied with premium product... :D

-Andrew
 
Everything will be OK - there's a major series of rainmaking ceremonies planned for the (Southern Hemisphere) summer:

England in Australia 2006-07

November
10 v Prime Minister's XI, Canberra

12-14 v New South Wales, Sydney

17-19 v South Australia, Adelaide

23-27 1st Test, Brisbane

December

1-5 2nd Test, Adelaide

9-10 v Western Australia, Perth

14-18 3rd Test, Perth

26-30 4th Test, Melbourne

January

2-6 5th Test, Sydney

9 Twenty20 International, Sydney

12 VB Series ODI v Australia, Melbourne

16 VB Series ODI v New Zealand, Hobart

19 VB Series ODI v Australia, Brisbane

23 VB Series ODI v New Zealand, Adelaide

26 VB Series ODI v Australia, Adelaide

30 VB Series ODI v New Zealand, Perth

February

2 VB Series ODI v Australia, Sydney

6 VB Series ODI v New Zealand, Brisbane

9 1st VB Series final, Melbourne

11 2nd VB Series final, Sydney

13 3rd VB Series final (if needed), Brisbane
 
Bring on the cricket then.

AUSTRALIA'S rapid climate change had caught scientists by surprise, a leading water expert said today.
Professor Peter Cullen, from the National Water Commission, said experts had expected the changes, which have left much of the country suffering drought conditions, but thought they would take much longer to take effect.
"I don't think any of us expected the climate change we have experienced over the last five years. I was expecting climate change but I was expecting it to take 30 years," he said.
Prof Cullen said Australia was drying out quickly and with water restrictions already in place in many areas, governments needed to consider all available options, such as recycling and desalination, to prevent an impending water crisis.
Click to expand...



http://www.news.com.au/story/0,23599,20350407-1702,00.html
 
Just caught up with this thread, I hear things are not improving at all - we see what's happening from across the ditch and it certainly isn't pretty. A neutral phase in the southern oscillation is just what you didn't need, but got anyway. Add to that, the oscillation seems to be swinging towards El Nino, so you probably have more bad news on the way, especially SA.

I see they're calling the earliest bushfire season in years as well.

It's hard even trying to take comfort in even the astrological long-range forecaster Ken Ring making a dick of himself - he predicted the droughts being broken in late 2005.

We're not seeing any motivated action by the ACT Latte set - is there anything actually coming out of Canberra? Hard to see what they can do aside from helping farmers quit the land. How is the feeling in SA now?
 
The Atheist said:
Just caught up with this thread, I hear things are not improving at all - we see what's happening from across the ditch and it certainly isn't pretty. A neutral phase in the southern oscillation is just what you didn't need, but got anyway. Add to that, the oscillation seems to be swinging towards El Nino, so you probably have more bad news on the way, especially SA.

I see they're calling the earliest bushfire season in years as well.

It's hard even trying to take comfort in even the astrological long-range forecaster Ken Ring making a dick of himself - he predicted the droughts being broken in late 2005.

We're not seeing any motivated action by the ACT Latte set - is there anything actually coming out of Canberra? Hard to see what they can do aside from helping farmers quit the land. How is the feeling in SA now?
Click to expand...

John Howard has always taken the attitude that Kyoto won't be a real problem, that it was just a fictional creation of some nerdy scientists. He will leave Australian politics at a time of his choosing, my tip, when the **** hits the fan, and everyone will look back with fondess on the halcyon days of his rule.
 
I was browsing the Buereau of meteorology site. This is the latest assessment of drought conditions (covers the last 12 months:

ftp://ftp.bom.gov.au/anon/home/ncc/www/drought/12month/colour/latest.gif

It doesn't appear as bad as this would imply:

Professor Peter Cullen, from the National Water Commission, said experts had expected the changes, which have left much of the country suffering drought conditions, but thought they would take much longer to take effect.
"I don't think any of us expected the climate change we have experienced over the last five years. I was expecting climate change but I was expecting it to take 30 years," he said.
Prof Cullen said Australia was drying out quickly and with water restrictions already in place in many areas, governments needed to consider all available options, such as recycling and desalination, to prevent an impending water crisis.
Click to expand...

What do others think?
 
It doesn't indicate a deficiency. The dams that supply every major city are nowhere near full. They are a good indication of what is happening. Melbourne has just gone on Stage 1 water restrictions. (What used to be Stage 1 is now permanent).
 
a_unique_person said:
It doesn't indicate a deficiency. The dams that supply every major city are nowhere near full. They are a good indication of what is happening. Melbourne has just gone on Stage 1 water restrictions. (What used to be Stage 1 is now permanent).
Click to expand...

  • One part of the story is climate change and the extent to which our supply of rainfall is changing. (are we failing to get as rainfall as we used to)
  • Another part is local environmental change (are we not getting as much catchment as we used to)
  • Another part of the story is what is the state of our water infrastructure (are we collecting and delivering water as efficiently as we used to)
  • Another part of the story is the evolution of demand (are we using more than we used to)


I am surprised that that the Professor didn't mention some of those points.
 
a_unique_person said:
You haven't seen the protests against wind farms, have you?
Click to expand...

You will have to let the public become distressed economically so that politicians can then brush aside the more loonier aspects of environmentalism, as was done in California a few years ago (which also did away with some of the loonier socialism, like telling the power companies they could not pass on their cost increases to the consumer.)

After the population becomes softened, then changes can be made.
 
Last edited:
You must log in or register to reply here.

Back
Top Bottom