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| -Signs, Portents, and the Weather- |
| Despite Record Drought, Aussie Farmers STILL Don't Buy AGW |
| 2009-12-10 |
| Despite a decade of record drought, Australian farmers refuse to buy into climate change Australians are on the front lines in experiencing the life-altering consequences of climate change, which is the subject of global scrutiny this week at the international climate summit in Copenhagen. Brush fires killed 173 people earlier this year during the most severe heat wave in the history of southeast Australia. Rising temperatures and declining rainfall are, with increasing frequency, transforming the Outback into a crematorium for kangaroos, livestock and farm towns. In coming decades, the government predicts water shortages, rising seas and catastrophic storms. Climate scientists say a subtropical ridge of high pressure - fortified by a buildup of greenhouse gases - seems to be elbowing rain clouds away from southern Australia and the Murray basin. I wonder what climate "scientists" would have predicted for the American southwest in 1935, in the middle of our "Dust Bowl"? As in the United States, partisan politics Yet along the Murray, there is a climate-change conundrum that responsible politicians and smart scientists have yet to solve: Most farmers, the biggest losers as the river shrinks, simply do not buy the notion that southern Australia's climate is changing in a way that is probably "I think we are coming to the end of a 10-year cycle of drought," said So the rainfall is already increasing? "How long we can continue depends, I guess, on the government," Denise said. "How long can the government continue to keep delivering drought relief?" Not long. The minister of agriculture, Tony Burke, has said that as climate change makes drought an unexceptional circumstance, government must wean farmers off assistance and push them into self-sustaining livelihoods. Like government jobs. "The recent 12-year, 8-month period is the driest in the 110-years-long record," according to a report this year from Australia's Bureau of Meteorology, which says the declining rainfall pattern "closely resembles the picture provided by climate model simulations of future changes due to enhanced greenhouse gases." Well, that's it then! Enough of this anti-science silliness! But there is no serious disputing that southern Australia must prepare for a much hotter and drier future; the government forecasts that rainfall will decline 22 to 71 percent by 2100. What all this means for 2 million Australians who live on farms and in towns along the Murray is that communities must die, families must move and a hugely overbuilt irrigation system will have to shrink, experts said. Sounds like California. The government is ready and willing to make the exodus happen, with $3.1 billion in the bank to buy out irrigators and $5.8 billion to upgrade infrastructure. New laws have stripped farmers of guaranteed access to water from the Murray, while creating a market for buying and selling water allocations. As a result, the cost of water has soared and waste of water has sharply declined. "They really do face a bleak future," said Chris Miller, a social scientist Yesterday's WaPo piece on the front page to shore up O's visit. |
| Posted by:Bobby |
| #10 They even went so far as to go into the homes of farmers and destroy the food they had for their own use in storage, such as canned goods. Quite literally telling them that the only food they could have was that provided by the government. How many were sot and killed by these "Homeowners", or alternately went on their job, and were never seen again? Somebody destroys the food I need, they die. |
| Posted by: Redneck Jim 2009-12-10 21:48 |
| #9 So it's hot and dry on a continent famous for being hot and dry. Who could have seen that coming? |
| Posted by: SteveS 2009-12-10 20:39 |
| #8 But we love you anyway, Mitch. ;-p |
| Posted by: Barbara Skolaut 2009-12-10 15:46 |
| #7 I just read what I wrote, and realized how foolish it was. What the hell is Marxism, but collectivism hidden behind scientific prattle about the dialectic? |
| Posted by: Mitch H. 2009-12-10 15:36 |
| #6 'moose - I know, I've mentioned the great livestock slaughter elsewhere in connection with Cash for Clunkers. I'm not arguing for causation, just that the correlation makes it a weak comparative argument in this context. And Bobby, they didn't need watermelon-style subterfuge back in the 'Thirties, because being a straight-out collectivist was expected, even fashionable. No need to hide behind scientific prattle to sell destructive collectivist command-and-control schemes. Not that didn't stop the Commies & Lysenko around about the same time period... |
| Posted by: Mitch H. 2009-12-10 15:34 |
| #5 Mitch - I was suggesting that had the Global Warmers been around then, we would've had cap and trade by 1940. Yet, somehow, the agriculture industry in the region survived. Farming practices changed, sure, but so did the weather. I just love the way the WaPo assumes the farmers are all morons, when the WaPo is drowning in Kool Aide. |
| Posted by: Bobby 2009-12-10 12:36 |
| #4 Mitch H.: The Dust Bowl (1930-1940) would have been just a bad decade in that region, but became a major problem because of bad agricultural practices, resulting in a vast amount of topsoil being blown away. Ironically, those farmers *outside* of the Dust Bowl region had such bumper crops that there was major overproduction right when the Great Depression deflation hit. Wheat was less than 50 cents a bushel, and corn was burned for fuel. This is why "Ol' Frank" created the Federal Surplus Relief Corporation (FSRC), an insanely authoritarian government agency. One of their first acts was to slaughter 6 million pigs, in the very decentralized pork industry, to stabilize prices. Literally going from farm to farm, killing every pig they could catch, on the spot. Next, they bought up vast amounts of grain to destroy, using a small percentage to feed people who were starving, but had no money. Then they put huge amounts of farmland off limits, paying farmers to *not* grow crops there. They even went so far as to go into the homes of farmers and destroy the food they had for their own use in storage, such as canned goods. Quite literally telling them that the only food they could have was that provided by the government. |
| Posted by: Anonymoose 2009-12-10 11:59 |
| #3 Thank you phil_B for your Diggers support on the Global War on Terror. Interesting how Perfidious Albion has now become the 'prison colony' eh? |
| Posted by: Besoeker 2009-12-10 10:14 |
| #2 hugely overbuilt irrigation system will have to shrink Which is the real problem, plus upstream dams built by Queensland. There is nothing to indicate rainfall is outside historical variability. Brush fires killed 173 people earlier this year during the most severe heat wave in the history of southeast Australia. Thats because people are building houses in the bush without adequate clearance around them. A problem compounded by the enviros. I heard an interview with someone whose house survived the fires, while all his nearby neighbours were burned out. He had incurred two $10,000 fines for clearing the bush around his house. Here in Western Australia we have far and away the largest bushfires in Australia and they don't even make the local news, because no one lives out there (in an area called the Great Southern Woodland). |
| Posted by: phil_b 2009-12-10 10:07 |
| #1 Bad example, Bobby. The Dust Bowl in 1935 was probably a creature of the *actual* peak of global warming, or at least continental warming, IIRC. Wasn't there some micro-scandal when NASA/GISS under Hansen was forced to revise claims that 1998 was the warmest year ever in the continental US with a correction that, um, actually, 1935 was the hottest year on record. |
| Posted by: Mitch H. 2009-12-10 09:46 |