From: "Sir Jean-Paul Turcaud"
Newsgroups: uk.politics.misc alt.politics.correct uk.local.nw-england free.uk.talk.liverpool aus.politics soc.culture.netherlands soc.culture.czecho-slovak uk.finance nz.politics
Subject: AUSTRALIA DROUGHT IS THE ONLY ISSUE NOW
Date: Mon, 28 Mar 2005 12:02:24 +0200
This is a report from the Guardian dated back to June 2004 . Therefore
nearly a year later you can put the figures down to nearly mud-caking level
. Perth water reserves are below the 10 % mark at the present time and
falling fast !!!
Amazingly the Australian rags such as the Sunday Times and the West
Australian in WA avoid talking about the terrible issue, and amuse their
readers with Cricket, Football, Dogs, Horses etc . Indeed, they all know
about that most heinous Collective Crime which is the cause of that terrible
7 years now DDD, but carefully avoid to talk about it ! .... still, unless I
am back soon, another 7 years of it will be inflicted as additional
punishment, with much worse consequences then !!!
Please read on now !
AUSTRALIA' S WATER SITUATION WORSENS
Peter Mac
"Water, water, everywhere, and all the boards did shrink.
Water, water, everywhere, nor any drop to drink."
- Samuel Taylor Coleridge, The Rhyme of the Ancient Mariner
Australia seems to be becoming more and more like the ancient
mariner's ship, surrounded by water but with its inhabitants
menaced by a desperate shortage of fresh water.
Several months ago rains generated crops from seed sown by
Australian farmers as a last-ditch gamble against a long drought.
However, the rain was not sufficiently heavy or prolonged to
penetrate far below the parched surface of the earth. Large areas
of the country are slipping back into their former arid state,
and the nation is now faced with the terrible predicament of
"back-to-back" drought.
Nor is the dilemma confined to rural areas. Sydney's Warragamba
dam is now down to about 48 percent of its total capacity, and
reduced flow is exacerbating salt pollution of river water to the
point where Adelaide's water supply is under a critical threat.
But unlike the ancient mariner, the nation is not dependent on
divine intervention to rectify these problems, which are the
result of global warming and criminally wasteful use of our
desperately precious water supplies.
The phenomenon of global warming is a result of man-made activity
that results in the emission of large amounts of gases, whose
presence in the atmosphere prevents the sun's rays from being re-
radiated back into space. This in turn results in a gradual
build-up of the atmospheric temperature (the so-called "green-
house effect").
The very first and most basic step that Australia needs to take
in order to deal with this world-wide problem is for the
government to sign the Kyoto Protocol, the international
agreement on measures needed to curb global warming.
However, the Howard Government has stubbornly refused to do so.
The arguments they cite to justify this stance reflect those used
by many members of the business community, who still deny that
global warming is taking place.
Some organisations have elaborated plans and strategies to deal
with the water crisis. The latest is the Farmhand Foundation.
This group has outlined a number of steps that are well worth
supporting, for example the capping of old artesian water bores,
which lose large amounts of water each year.
However, it has also recommended collection of water at source
and its distribution by means of a national grid. This scheme
appears to exacerbate the problem of inadequate water flows in
the natural river systems with consequent devastating impacts on
wildlife and small farming.
In other parts of the world, global warming may result in
catastrophic floods, such as those seen last week in Haiti, while
in Australia it manifests itself in periods of prolonged drought.
However, the resultant water shortage is being compounded here by
the massive extraction of river water for flood irrigation
purposes.
The worst culprits in this respect are the huge irrigator
agribusinesses such as those that run Cubbie farm and other
cotton-producing properties in Southern Queensland. Their
extraction of water from the local Culgoa River has resulted in
the loss of massive amounts of water that would otherwise have
reached farmers in Brewarinna and other parts of Northern NSW.
And once again these businesses have a critical influence on the
elaboration of water policy, and even on the extent of public
discussion on critical aspects of national water use.
This was highlighted last week by ABC TV's Mediawatch
program. The presenter drew attention to the withdrawal from
ABC radio's Country Hour of an item that contained
criticism of the Cubbie Station "water guzzler" irrigators. The
program was particularly critical of the role of cotton grower
Leith Boully in this respect.
The program noted that Ms Boully combines her business interests
with heading two government advisory boards concerned with water
use - and is also a member of the ABC Board!
It's hardly surprising, then, that the Country Hour segment on
irrigation water use was dropped. As Mediawatch revealed,
the segment contained an interview with Brewarinna farmer Ed
Fessey. He described the huge vested interests that irrigators
like Ms Boully have in preserving their almost unrestricted
access to river water that are of concern to the southern
Queensland irrigators:
"[they've] got pretty big investments in water up there and also
the ability to extract water at very low dollar rates. And also
there's no system of measuring many of the extractions of the
water out of the rivers up there. I think there's only 20 or 25
pumps that have metres on them. The rest is reported in on an
honour system! It doesn't augur well for a visible and
transparent system of water sharing."
Brought to you by courtesy of :Sir Jean-Paul TurcaudExploration
GeologistAustralia Mining Pioneer Discoverer & Legal Owner of Telfer,
Kintyre & Nifty MinesThe Great Sandy Desert of AustraliaFounder of the True
GeologyMobile +33 (0)6 68 99 43 84 ~~Ignorance Is The Cosmic Sin, The One
Never Forgiven ! ~~
|