It was revealed this week that 83.3% of my State, New South Wales (Australia) is in drought. This is affecting my uncle’s farm and thousands of other farmers across the State.
At the same time, it was revealed that the Newcrest-operated gold mine near Orange, a small town in western NSW, is demanding 90% of the town’s drinking water to continue the mine’s operations. It is believed Orange has access to only 670 million litres in storage - enough to provide the city drinking water for the next 18 months. If its request is turned down, the mine says it close, sacking 450 workers. But if it does not rain, the mine says the extra water would only buy another four to six weeks.
Dam levels are low across most of the State, and there are water restrictions pretty much everywhere. “If significant rain does not fall by August, south-eastern Australia would be facing “a disaster, particularly for irrigators,” stated Blair Trewin, an Australian bureau of Meteorology climatologist. “Then we’d be in unexplored territory,” Dr Trewin said. Such an “extreme event ‚Ķ would obviously have a major impact on the public debate” over climate.
“It would be unprecedented. The impact on water availability would be severe in the Murray- Darling Basin.”
“Many catchments in eastern Australia are excessively dry ‚Ķ it will take above-average rainfall just to produce average run-off, and very considerable rainfall to make a material difference to water storages.”
The drought has almost 83.3 per cent of NSW in its grip, up from 78.5 per cent last month, the Minister for Primary Industries, Ian Macdonald, said yesterday.
For more information: www.smh.com.au
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I keep thinking that all the effects we’re seeing around the world are just with a 0.8C increase in the global mean temperature. It has been quick enough to throw systems off by a large margin. For this reason, it is probably not a good idea to try to keep temperature around 2C. More than doubling that increase would be catastrophic for many places, plus it risks the science being uncertain and us going into runaway climate at a lower temperature than currently thought. I think we ought to demand cuts as soon as possible so as the keep the increase very minimal. Otherwise, we will face the severe consequences of a 1.5-2C increase in the global mean temperature (and it won’t be a nice story for billions). Realistically, for the sake of those suffering the most, geoengineering needs funding for research because it will be truly necessary if we enter runaway climate (not that I’m for it; I just think it would be the just thing to do for others).
I live in Florida, and we currently experiencing a huge drought. A large percentage of the state is also on fire, to the extent that we haven’t really seen the sun in the past 2 days here because of the smoke. But people seem to be completely unaffected by it. I wonder when we will make the connection in America between fires, drought, tornadoes and hurricanes as evidence that global warming is affecting us right now. How much longer will we ignore the blatant truth and continue to not take immediate and drastic action to halt global warming before it gets even worse? I think the pressure will have to come from the youth, as we demand a just and clean energy future.
I also live in Florida (also lived in California during a big drought). Maybe folks still are in denial, but big issues like global warming are often hard for people to grasp and accept. Especially if it means changes in the way we make and/or use energy. We often forget that coal was revolutionary in its time, and created huge economic disruptions. People may fear the disruptions more than the warming… for now.
In Australia most people seem to have made the connection between the drought and global warming - farmers are saying ‘this is NOT a drought - this is climate change, because we have never ever seen anything like this before’. The National farmers Federation, a traditionally very conservative body politically aligned with the Liberal-National coalition, has been making great statements calling for action on climate change, as it pissed off that our govt is putting the fossil fuel sector ahead of the agricultural sector. For example, the NFF released this statement on 5 February 2007:
Climate change threat must be tackled ‘head on’
‚ÄúTHE threat of global climate change is potentially the biggest issue Australian agriculture has ever faced with reports of increasing seasonal variability and more extreme weather events,‚Äù National Farmers‚Äô Federation (NFF) President David Crombie declared today….
We call upon the Australian Government to realise the significant contribution agriculture stands to make in meeting the challenge of climate change. This is not simply an issue for the mining, stationary energy and transport sectors, as the Government’s leaning to-date suggests is their sole approach.
“The Government needs to make a significant investment in all our futures and must include agriculture as a fundamental part of any genuine tilt at a climate change solution – anything less will be to the cost of generations to come.”
ps - Hey Carlos, what is geo-engineering?
”Blue Sky Mine”
For now much of Australia has experience a Mineral Mining Boom since 1999,..in my home Queensland Outback Town the Real Estate price had more than doubled since other coal mines had been open,.life is so good for those in this Industry,..what with the extra high Wages paid too entice city folk out into this locations.
If one ever visit these mining Towns,..it appears to be culture mostly of Beer n Bricks with Agriculture taken a back seat.
As China purchase our coal,.we in turn buy their products which are far cheaper then we ever could had manufacture here at home,.hence much of our Industry is relocated into China or Asia,.and some leader’s call it a Win Win situation.
State and Federal Governments could be said to be like a Junkie,…hooked on this current trend as our debt to GDP rises over 6.5%,.they need mores mines to open.
Best wishes
Billyg.
Though I am not Carlos… Geo-engineering refers to the ideas of seeding the atmosphere or global reflectors to change the climate back. Most scientists (and IPCC too) oppose geo-engineering solutions.