In article ,
"FarmI" ask@itshall be given wrote:
"David Hare-Scott" wrote in message
Bill who putters wrote:
If the book Collapse is 10 % on target this issue is trivial. Salt
will kill Australia. Fresh water and habitat destruction of all minor
and potential farming areas.
It isn't quite that bad. People now recognise that it is a problem and
they are starting to do something about it. We actually have a draft plan
to rehabilitate the Murray-Darling but it is always possible that
short-term populist politics will cause the nation's leaders to go to
water (yuk yuk yuk) and vote for a "do nothing" solution. But we have
hopes. At least it is being addressed at national level although the
Chairman of the Authority resigned in protest. I class him as a mensch so
that isn't a good sign.
I heard a large chunk of a radio interview of an American scientist who was
in Australia to study how we dealt with water. Unfortunately I didn't hear
his name mentioned in the section of interview I heard. I was quite
surprised at how enthusiastic he was about our water plan for the
Murray-Darling and our water management in other places round the country.
He was so enthusiastic that he was coming back for a much longer study tour,
wished that the US was taking such effective action etc, etc,
I suspect that like me, you too would think that Australia still isn't doing
enough about water management, so I was very surprised to note such
enthusiasm from an outside observer. It made me wonder about the situation
in the US. The way he was carrying on about how good Aus was, the US must
need attention. Given how many anti-science comments we see from USians
into climate change denial, perhaps I shouldn't be wondering about the US or
surprised that any country doing anything would jolly up a water scientist.
One thing he said which interested me is that he thought Arizona was going
to be in for a very rough ride for water (I cant' recall though if he
specifically mentioned Phoenix).
Not good as 20 million living in
cities are dependent on run off . Wonder if top down can fix
British vision.
We are working on both top down and bottom up solutions. Many (almost all
the small guys) farmers really do want to protect their land and to leave
an asset to their children, they just need some support and to learn how
to do it differently.
There's sod all support. Most of them who can afford to do anything about it
are doing it on their lonesome.
One of the strange things happening is the farmers are discovering that
the greens might be allies.
Actually that's not new. The head of the NFF quite a few years ago (and who
died suddenly at a young age) had made it very clear that environmentalists
and farmers were natural allies. He was working closley with (I think) the
ACF and (IIRC) it was on the Snowy River. of course once the NFF chap
dropped dead it was back to business as usual and they got a new head who
was a denier and a Luddite.
This involves a great deal of re-thinking and
discarding of old prejudice but it could happen. I would love to be a fly
on the wall at some policy framing meetings (why do you want people to
be free to smoke weeds?) (you do WHAT with cows!).
Please tell me I'm wrong.
1 square yard of soil contains 200 Lb's of salt.
You are not wrong but not representing the situation accurately because
that's an extreme value It isn't all like that. I could irrigate my
pasture daily for a century and not have salinization. Having said that
there are large areas that are fairly well stuffed that will take a great
deal to rehabilitate.
Yup. But it is quite amazing what can be done to rehabilitate land again in
some areas. Trees really do work and farmers are planting trees in millions
across the country.
I would be also concerned about (a) climate change bringing great change,
particularly cancelling the winter rains in the WA wheat belt (b) mining
and subdivision for McMansions chewing up the good coastal land where
there is plenty of water and no salt problem (c) overpopulation.
"The last is the proverbial pachyderm in the portmanteau. People cannot
understand how a country with such a low population density (overall)
can be overpopulated."
Yep.
It's called "under-think".
Who would have ever thought that #9B would be here around 2050 (39
years), and #12B by 2067, so the estimates go. It was only about 70,000
years ago that the human race was reduced to perhaps as few as 15,000
individuals.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Population_bottleneck
Or, maybe you could tell them about jack-rabbits, and Asian Carp
(Invasive carp threatens Great Lakes;O)
http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2009-11-30-asian-carp_N.htm
--
- Billy
"Fascism should more properly be called corporatism because it is the
merger of state and corporate power." - Benito Mussolini.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MyE5wjc4XOw
http://www.salem-news.com/articles/j...acks_1-5-09.ph
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