Is Australia Drying Up?

[Tom]

I've been reading my National Geographic Magazine (the gospel of Global Warming :D ) and there is an article on the devastating drought in Australia. 

Is this a localized thing, a rerun of the great Dustbowl of the USA or is Australia really drying up?  I was wanting to make a post and get something started that our Australian Members could write about, but realized that I didn't know what I was talking about, other than the NG article.

What's going on down there?

I'm hesitant because I know what a liberal press can do with "facts".  They have written articles and shown pictures of Jacksonville, Florida that would have you believe that all of the occupants live in hovels, if they are lucky, and are starving to death.  They do this with very selective photos of condemned buildings and well cropped pictures of homeless transients.

If Australia is as bad off as the National Geographic article claims, those folks had better be getting out of there.  Maybe build some rafts and paddles and stuff.  If the weather holds, they might make New Zealand or one of those other Pacific islands, like New Guinea, Indonesia and Malaysia where they could find safety, eventually, in India, Pakistan or Afghanistan.  :-\ :D

[tyb525]

Lets see what Chris says about this!

[DanG]

How could it dry up?  It is surrounded by water.  If things get really dry, all it can do is get bigger, ain't it?  If that happens, they'll be the lucky ones when the ice caps melt and submerge the Rocky Mountains. :

[ellmoe]

   Well, the good news is that after the recent earthquake,  Aus. and New Z are a foot closer together. Now they  won't have as far to travel. ;D

[crtreedude]

One of my play things is Aquaponics. (combination of fish culture with hydroponics). It is a very big thing in Australia, the reason people say is the water restrictions.

Aside from that, I don't know much about it. I have heard that the environment of Australia is very fragile due to not much soil.

[WildDog]

Thanks Tom, I can't comment on the West side of the country but the East South East (its mainly deserts in the centre) is really showing the effects of the drought, the larger rivers in from the coast are drying up, with irrigators facing major cuts up to100% in their allocations. Some of these areas are probaly in the 7 to 11 inch annual rainfall areas. In saying that the past season has been good to a large section of the affected area with reasonable rains however ground/subsurface water is still failing in a lot of areas. The federal govt has bought up some large outback stations and handed them over to National Parks and Wildlife under the guise of preserving the water for those further down river, my understanding is it hasn't helped the water situation only impacted negatively on local towns/businesses when the stockmen now without jobs left the area.

I live on top of the great dividing range which experiences 34 to 36inchs predominately summer rain but we have had good winter rains so far, giving us a softer winter with only one snowfall and untill this week minimal frosts, my cattle hav'nt looked better at this time of the year, if its a sign of global warming I like it :D The long range forecasters say we are going to pay for it with a long dry, hot summer.

2006/2007 drought was the worst at work, the travelling stock routes I look after in the North had the only green feed throughout the state and our livestock numbers on the stock routes swelled 10 fold. It was a hard time for all, my phone rang hot with property owners from interstate chasing feed for their cows, some of these guys were breaking down on the phone when we had to turn them away and you know people are destitute when they are down to selling their core breeding stock for little money.

I have heard that the environment of Australia is very fragile due to not much soil.

our soils are generaly fragile apparently we are a young country.

[Tom]

Maybe you need to get a bunch of alligators.   We have alligators that live in the swamps.  Maybe if you got some alligators, you would have some swamps.  :-\

I know it must work.  We use the same logic here in our recession.  We spend a lot of money to keep from going into debt.  :-\   I went to a different school than these newcomers.  I guess it's time for an old dog to learn some new tricks.

I've been looking at  Australia, especially Queensland and New Southwales.  I guess the weather is a lot like it is here.  The Ocean sides of the mountain ranges are wet and the inland sides are dry.  The mountains drain all of the rain out before the water can reach the middle of the country.  It sure would be neat if someone could devise a way of "pumping" the water from the top of the divide to the inland side of the mountain, where it would maybe reach the dryer areas.  Something that didn't require much outside labor or energy, like a water ram.  Didn't the Aztecs do it with a tunnel in S. America?

Now, if you could just import some Texans, you could build up that topsoil real quick.  They keep it pretty deep everywhere they go

[crtreedude]

our soils are generaly fragile apparently we are a young country.

Hmmm, I thought I read that Australia was very old, that is why the soils are so thin. Costa Rica is a very young country (still forming) and the soils are plenty deep.

[Tom]

Maybe you have a Texan down there, or someone from New Jersey. :D :D

[Paul_H]

 :D 8)

[LeeB]

Now, if you could just import some Texans, you could build up that topsoil real quick.  They keep it pretty deep everywhere they go

Now Tom, I have to say that is absolute horse hockey.  :D  :D

[farmboy1tn]

 smiley_horserider  :D

[ladylake]

 
  I saw a graph that tracked sun spots, earths temp and mars temp and all 3 ran parallel with each other. Must be driving cars and running saws on mars too.    Steve

[LeeB]

Maybe it's from all that hot air coming out of Florida.  :D

[Fla._Deadheader]

Must be driving cars and running saws on mars too

  They got to build them UFO's somewhere, EH ??? : : ;D ;D

[Meadows Miller]

Gday

Global Waming is the biggest  load of political  B.S IMHO    : Most of us are working as un subsidised  Carbon collection agents  then  ??? ;)and we are still getting butcherd in the media and it will take another 30/40 years + to undo the neagitive thinking and opinions there is towards Our Industry  ;) : :
I cant wait till they iplement  a decent carbon trading systyem and the true cost of things to the enviroment comes into play as the forest and timber industrys are one of verry few that have an almost nill impact on the flipside they should also ban purchase of exsisting forest areas and any carbon trading (apart fron gov'ts) should be based on plantation areas what a boon that would be but thats just common scence the main problem is that alot of traders in the industry starting up now are heading in the wrong direction anyway and locking plantations/forests up in purpetuity   : do the research and they would find trees have a life cycle like ours they go realy well for the first 20 30 years then even out then go backwards and start releasing carbon from about th 60 yo to 100 yo age limit  ??? :P Sorry to any older folks if it offends you but we are all in the cycle  ;)  :D ;D ;D
like my 84 yo cousin i use to cut ties with has always said The older I get the Better i was  ;) :D ;D
I could go on and on with this rant But im preaching to the converted  ;) :D :D :D

The Truth Is out There ;) :D :D :D ;D


We are going through the Same old thing just that the peaks and troughs are abit further the last few times around we are still avv only 2" below are usual rainfall which is 24" pa and the last 8 years since the drought started we dont realy have a noticable winter not like the ones in the 80s that i remember where we would get 2 months of pretty solid overcast or rainy days we still average the300 sunny days per year tho

The big Citys are allready piping water from the country to the city to keep those poor unfortunate city folk (Voters 80% of them live in the major centers ) from having to go on water restrictions they have already layed a couple of Super pipes duel 5' dia pipes 1 To Melb and two that feed Bendigo and Ballarat   They all feed out of the Golbourn that feeds the Murry river ??? : and reckon that they will get the water savings from going from open irragation channels to pipe lines to the major irragtion centers when they get around to it at a later date and we all  That Ain Gonna Happen  : : : :( >:(
And the farmers down here arnt o happy as they are paying anywhere from $12 to 90 k pa to be on 60 to 100% restrictions on their allocations : : and the gov then asks why the farmers are going broke  : : They still have to touch them up for money to pay for their rigi dige pipeline to the city  ;) : :



Dont worry when the drought Breaks people will be whinging that it too bloody wet for afew years  ;) :D :D :D ;D 8) 8)

Reguards Chris

[isawlogs]

 Now Tom , if the mountain is stopping the rain , those Texycanas aint gonna be of no help , ya need to get a crew in wiff a pick or two and a few shovils an git rid of the mountain that is stoppin da rain . Heat must be getting to you as to not have seen da answer to de issue at hand here .  :P

    Marcel

[SwampDonkey]

Sure ain't dry here. The last two summers have been like a monsoon. I never seen it rain so easy in this area before.  :

[isawlogs]

  Been dat way here also , I think we got 42 days of rain in July alone ,  :-\

[petefrom bearswamp]

Rather damp and cool here too.
Farmers are complaining as regards bailing hay.
Had measurable rain in all but two days in June.

[Tom]

Now Tom , if the mountain is stopping the rain , those Texycanas aint gonna be of no help , ya need to get a crew in wiff a pick or two and a few shovils an git rid of the mountain that is stoppin da rain . Heat must be getting to you as to not have seen da answer to de issue at hand here .  :P

    Marcel

Looks like they need to ship in a whole bunch of Teekohs and shovels.  Those mountains would be gone in no time at all; and for half price or less.

I was just thinking that they might need some of that mountain to get the water to run inland.  Maybe tunnel it from the wet side to the dry side. California did it with a bunch of Chinese.  That was back before we borrowed all of their money.  :D