Guest essay by Eric Worrall
Australia’s Prime Minister on a “listening tour” visit to drought afflicted farmers has explained that since climate change is making droughts more frequent, they’ll just have to be resilient.
Farming needs to adapt to climate change: PM
The federal government will lean on the states to help communities suffering from prolonged drought but Malcolm Turnbull says farmers will ultimately have to adapt to the consequences of climate change.
With drought threatening much of the east coast grain crop as well as large swaths of Western Australia, Mr Turnbull said the rural sector needed to become more “resilient” to adapt to what was “clearly a drier, hotter and more variable climate”.
“That’s what we’ve got to plan for, resilience is the key,” the Prime Minister said.
“The climate is changing. I know it becomes a political debate. But there’s no doubt that our climate is getting warmer.
…
Read more: https://www.afr.com/news/farming-needs-to-adapt-to-climate-change-pm-20180603-h10wyu
This is all so unnecessary. Back in the 1930s the Bradfield Scheme was proposed to divert large tropical rivers inland, to provide reliable irrigation for Australian drylands. While the original plan to create an inland sea looks unviable, there seems no doubt harnessing currently wasted freshwater capacity would substantially alleviate drought risk in large areas of Australia’s dryland farming regions.
The Australian Federal government has billions of dollars allocated for hydrological projects. The currently plan for two billion dollars of that federal money is to expand hydroelectric capacity, to use that precious water to generate green electricity.
Yeah. Malcolm is a closet alarmist.
He’s not worried, he’s worth about AU$200 million. Pulled his investment out of OneTel just a few months before it collapsed leaving “mum and dad” investors broke and he walked away with AU$50+ million. He is also the highest paid leader in the OECD.
“But there’s no doubt that our climate is getting warmer.” Proof please Turnbull.
As a former Canadian PM once said: “A proof is a proof. And when you have a good proof, it’s because it’s proven.”
And another one of his cabinet ministers said “I am entitled to my entitlements”
Yeah, nah, he’s come out of the closet.
Agreed – then there is this which shows his true colours – from the man who banned the incandescent light bulb in Australia.
https://twitter.com/TeamTAbbott/status/1001648322744958976
I don’t see my link:
https://www.twitter.com/TeamTAbbott/status/1001648322744958976
I see your link. Twice.
Regrettably our PM is a very rich moron living in the inner city with no idea how the peasants who pay for him live let alone considering that he is there to represent them as opposed so imposing his views on them . He is an embarrassment like all our current crop of politicians. I ‘don’t think he has the vaguest clue where his food comes from other than the restaurant down the road.
A basic premise for a green is that there is no technology that will fix humanities inherent sinfullness, so doing without is a good thing. Conservation is a goal in and of itself, rather than having enough one does not have to worry about that particular resource. So water projects are a bad thing, as only forcing us poor sinners to recognize our inherent sinfullness will lead us to redemption./sarcc
Quoting the Prime Minister: ” The reality … is that rainfall has always been variable in Australia ….”
Prime Minister Turnbull’s main group of public supporters are people who would never vote for his Liberal Party. (The Liberals are CINOs – centre-right in name only.)
Both major parties, the Liberals and Labor (sic – they don’t care for ‘u’), are trying to out-manoeuvre the Greens by veering to their left.
Australia is truly stuffed unless we can find a Trump of our own.
We have a pseudo Marxist consortium, democracy has failed.
everybody in Australia calls him turncoat
It’s your fault, not mine! Nature has nothing to do with it and any attempt to help yourself is futile.
Malcolm chief AU CarbonTrading advocate stemming from his time as AU Goldman Sachs CEO/MD . . .
Most Australians don’t know Malcolm Turnbull gave evidence in a financial scandal at the HIH Royal Commission in 2002 and he was later sued personally in civil proceedings by the HIH liquidator McGrathNicol. The reason Turnbull was personally sued was because of alleged dodgy conduct in his role as managing director of the investment bank Goldman Sachs in advising FAI on the takeover.
“Resilience is the key…”
Translation: “Yer on yer own, mates!”
Translation – ‘I have no real idea how you grow cattle and my core demographic are inner city ABC watchers. Please move a little more downwind.’
Another pithy on the money comment JMac.
The sheer hypocrisy of Turnbull’s throw away comment is astounding. Australian farmers have been resilient for generations, but have been under severe pressure of late from legislation placing restrictions on land clearing and water usage to defer to the Greens. The banking industry, from whence our illustrious leader came from, has also played a part in making our farmers existence that much harder.
They don’t seem to know their own history. They don’t even seem to remember the books they would have read as children. The history of Australia is filled with many cycles of dreadful droughts, with previously wealthy station owners and farmers walking off their properties with not much much more than the clothes on their backs. It has happened before and it will happen again. That’s why giant irrigation schemes have been proposed in the past. Only this time they put it down to climate change! It’s all political balderdash.
He’s supposed to be on a “listening tour”; not a pontificating tour.
This IS Lord Wuffle we are talking about here.
He talks, you listen.
And listen.
And listen.
See? Listening Tour.
By “resilience” they mean ‘Suffer!’ Wicked occultists who mean to cause misery on a massive scale. Fascism with robots. A carbon chip instead of cash. Carbon: 6 protons, 6 neutrons & 6 electrons. Prophecy or playbook?
“Current lifestyles and consumption patterns of the affluent middle class…are not sustainable. Isn’t the only hope for the planet that the industrialized civilizations collapse? Isn’t it our responsibility to bring that about?” – Maurice Strong, founder of the UN Environment Programme & architect of the UN Oil for Food Scandal
“Maurice Strong was a pioneer of sustainable development who left our country and our world a better place.” – PM Justin Trudeau
https://www.technocracy.news/index.php/2018/04/19/trudeaus-follies-the-coming-carbon-tax-showdown-in-canada/
Trudeau’s Follies: The Coming Carbon Tax Showdown In Canada
http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/2016/09/19/justin-trudeau-praised-un_n_12093658.html
SEPTEMBER 19: Justin Trudeau Hailed At UN in New York As ‘Example’ To The World
SEPTEMBER 19: Arch of Baal” erected in New York City
https://www.thenewamerican.com/world-news/asia/item/25404-at-world-government-summit-top-globalists-drop-the-mask
At “World Government Summit,” Top Globalists Drop The Mask
https://www.thenewamerican.com/world-news/asia/item/28339-creepy-world-government-summit-targets-america-freedom
Creepy “World Government Summit” Targets America, Freedom
Switzerland Gotthard Tunnel Opening Demonic Ceremony; largest tunnel in the world. The eyes don’t lie.
I’d try to avoid the “appeal to authority” logical fallacy of using the Bible to “proof text” what is happening in the world today. Folks have been claiming that events of “today” (as in over the last couple of thousand years) were foretold in the Bible. So far all of them were wrong.
Here’s an article offering a different view of the Mark of the Beast:
https://americanvision.org/1746/mark-of-beast-or/
As for the Arch of Baal – humans have been worshipping false gods for nearly their entire history. Erecting an arch simply means they’ve run out of original gods to worship.
What is happening today should be opposed because it interferes with life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. That’s reason enough.
(Need to stay off the religious discussions here) MOD
I’m afraid the PM is incorrect, OZ is a much wetter place today compared to rainfall over the last 117 years. Here’s the trend from the BOM (1900 to 2017)
http://www.bom.gov.au/cgi-bin/climate/change/timeseries.cgi?graph=rain&area=aus&season=0112&ave_yr=T
And QLD where he is now touring.
http://www.bom.gov.au/cgi-bin/climate/change/timeseries.cgi?graph=rain&area=qld&season=0112&ave_yr=T
I’ll try again.
I’m afraid the PM is incorrect, OZ is a much wetter place today compared to rainfall over the last 117 years. Here’s the trend from the BOM (1900 to 2017)
http://www.bom.gov.au/cgi-bin/climate/change/timeseries.cgi?graph=rain&area=aus&season=0112&ave_yr=T
And QLD where he is now touring.
http://www.bom.gov.au/cgi-bin/climate/change/timeseries.cgi?graph=rain&area=qld&season=0112&ave_yr=T
n the discussion…
+100 – That’s what I was looking, for either a drought graphic, or a precipitation graph…send these to the PM…
I agree. Records seem to suggest the 1800’s were more drought prone than recent times, and Australia wide, the second half of the 1900’s were wetter than the first half with the wettest period being the mid 1970’s.
if you pull down the trend tab on those links, you can see how the qld inland is trending wetter, and not by a small amount. so the BS from the PM is supported by the BS from the MSM. nothing new. question has always been, when will the media start doing their job? been listening to the various radio and tv stories on this today, and not one bothered to call the PM on it, most enhanced the ‘message’. pathetic
some bits are ok, Maranoa is my BF families homepatch, his brothers been chainsawing mallee to fed the few cattle left for the last few years. hes ageing tired and about ready to sell up…hes not the only one.
and now the morons in qld govt are banning cutting the only source of feed!! it regrows well and lives for many decades even with pruning.
then we have Vic wanting to kill ALL the brumbies in the highcountry..after banning cattlemen running stock
so when the massive fires run hot and wipe all the native critters and the trees right out due to intense burns not cool ones
what greentards going to take the blame?
crickets!
I don’t see anyone has any other options nothing Australia does is going to solve Climate Change.
There are basically 2 other options.
1.) Implement a pile of green policies which harm the hell out of the economy as virtue signalling to the rest of the world and hope they do the right thing. Good luck with that.
2.) Put the tax payers on the hook to subsidize all Enviromental losses by farmers. You end up propping up non competitive farms in places they shouldn’t be in the future.
If you don’t believe in CAGW what do you care other than he has made a comment that implies he believes.
What “Climate Change” are you speaking of exactly? The increase in rainfall? Or the global warming that isn’t happening?
Those Aussie crocks would not be happy if you turned the rivers inland.
Salt water crocs are just as happy to live in a fresh water river, as salt. It doesn’t bother them as long as they have enough food. They would flourish in the hot inland swamps.
The Outlaw Josey Wales movie quote: Chief Dan George relates being told by the President after Geirge related the Indians’ bad treatment, “Endeavour to persevere!”. Which George said they did, for 6 days, and then they declared war.
The farmers should rent that movie and take it to heart.
I was thinking of that movie when I wrote this post…
You gonna pull those pistols or whistle “Dixie”?
So many good lines from his earlier films…
Snowy hydro 2 just pumps water so it doesn’t use precious water.
The original Snowy hydro scheme irrigates as well as generating electricity
“The water of the Snowy River and some of its tributaries, much of which formerly flowed southeast onto the river flats of East Gippsland, and into Bass Strait of the Tasman sea, is captured at high elevations and diverted inland to the Murray and Murrumbidgee Rivers irrigation areas”
The proposed Bradfield scheme would also generate electricity.
“The scheme had the ability to generate 370 megawatts (500,000 hp) of power and the potential to double that amount.”
The question is whether it is economically viable.
“Farming needs to adapt to climate change.”
Duh! That’s what farmers do, Mr Merchant Banker and lawyer.
There must be a market for gigantic cork stoppers for all these volcanoes going off. I wonder why they are all going ballistic? not.
Couldn’t those huge unused desalination plants help out?
Or haven’t they got a power supply to run them?
theyre planning to shut a second coalpower plant in Vic in 2yrs. so they prob wont have power to run the 600_mil a year in fees- unused desal- in vic then
Eric
Maybe you need some info on what the Brdfield scheme was going to irrigate.
The mitchell grass area was the bottom of the last inland sea. So a lot of it has a considerable salt layer down about two feet or so, which is where the rainfall since has leached it, and where it stays under natural rainfall. Irrigation on the other hand – – . So in that sense it is probably a good idea that it didn’t go ahead
And don’t go looking for dryland salinity there either. As the Queensland salinity management handbook puts it “In areas of Queensland with rainfall below 600 mmthe chance of dryland salinity is negligable”. And this was in print before the last dryland salinity beat-up hit the msm.
Salinity is definitely an issue but careful irrigation and maybe a few trees should prevent excessive water table rise while still making more water available for crops.
My uncle dried up a small swampy area on his Victorian farm by planting conifers – you would never know how mushy it used to be.
Eric
Remember that Victoria is a mediterranean climate and Qld isn’t before you start transplanting
quite a few farmers who’ve bought land in the last 30yrs in wimmera are now finding the bogs are back:-) the bluegum plantations had a bad effect on water tables around here too.
luckily theyre being cut down and NOT replanted recently
Before you know it Tim Flannery will be recommending more desalination plants like the mothballed ones he persuaded governments to build during the last drought that would never end, but did.
They could of made Australia drought proof if they used money that has been wasted on Climate Change/Global Warming. Up north has a wet season that produces a lot of rain. Queensland can get a lot of rain. Imagine if they had pipes that fed that water to dams and rivers and was channeled to areas that need it most to parts of Queensland, NSW, WA, NT, SA and down to Victoria. Yes its a huge project, but one that would be invaluable and create jobs for those who want it and those who want to earn a place in the country.
and that useless POS trunbull can give 500mil to the bloody reef and not give a damn to those that already are far more “resilient” and clued into managing stock n crops in some of the globes harshest climate and lousiest rainfalls.
we really should have done the inland river diversions n a lot of reservoirs decades ago.
the only reason this POS excuse for a pm is there, is help from the termite bishop overthrowing the elected TA.
and the only reason hes still in is that he has a marginally more stupid and disliked opponent in Labor.
given a third option that could be elected theyd BOTH be out on their bums at the speed of light.
day couldnt come soon enough!
In Arizona they have a canal with river water in it and in much of the U.S. there are large diameter pipes carrying natural gas to domestic markets. Australia does not seem to grasp either concept.
UM ! NO !
I rather think that C.Y.O’Connor ( who designed and had built the Mundaring Weir to
Kalgoorlie pipeline , 330 miles in length , in 1896 { started to flow in 1903} )
ACTUALLY INVENTED THE CONCEPT !
OK…the Romans had aqueducts and the Persian their qanats……..BUT
not for 330 miles they didn’t ! AND NOT UP-HILL ALL THE WAY !!
Aqueducts and qanats ran downhill for 50 miles at the most !
MOST PIPELINES SINCE THEN have been “copied” from that Great Man !
Maybe C.Y.O’Connor was the first to build a pipeline in Australia, but, to wit:.
If you want to know how to divert water from wet areas to dry areas, just look at how China is doing it.
https://www.water-technology.net/projects/south_north/
Why can’t I see the link I added?
https://www.water-technology.net/projects/south_north/
You “see” it as white on a white background, because you’ve visited the link. We see it as white after we visit it, or when it’s mouse-overed. A weakness of this style sheet.
How Keen Observer you have to be to notice white text on white background?
These colours are not awesome.
Working on a fix, came that way right out of the box, please be patient.
I don’t think Turnbull knows anything about farming matters or cares about rural matters.
Just used edit…let’s see…
Edit worked.
“Resilience is futile!” – The Gorg.
That’s the Borg. Or did I miss some inside Australian joke? I do listen to 2GB every once in awhile and watch ABC via a VPN, but haven’t heard that term.
The Borg’s is “Resistance is Futile”.
This is Al Gore’s, “The Gorg” statement.
/grin
https://www.pinterest.se/pin/172614598196002911/
https://jezebel.com/resilience-is-futile-how-well-meaning-nonprofits-perpe-1716461384
This is the original article I found looking for the Gore quote.
And I thought I had made it up! Sometimes, you just can’t make this stuff up.
/grin
Ask any Aussie farmer and he’ll tell you another drought is proof positive the climate hasn’t changed a smidgen.
The height of a drought is the day before it rains.
It’s been all sold to the Chinese by the American interests who it had been previously sold to, as far as we know.
It will rain any day now, surely flooding the place.
The only tagedy Oz could suffer is if it ran out of beer.
Pretty much the truth here in Canada as well. Drought in the 1880’s. again in the 1930’s. Drought in the early 60’s and again in the mid 80’s.
Thank God for climate change. We haven’t had drought for over 20 years.
The latest all purpose government excuse.
It’s not my fault, global warming did it.
Dorothea Mackellar’s poem about “a Sunburnt Country” was written 110-years ago … worth reading in the context of the CAGW meme.
To the starving in Africa and the oppressed in Asia: “Resilience is the Key” and we aren’t going to do a damn thing to help you. “Resilience” is the answer to all the world’s problems. It makes the politicians FEEL good. /sarcc (see below)
“The federal government will lean on the states to help communities” – How about all government just getting the hell out of the way and let the farmers solve their unique problems with minimal interference?
“to adapt to what was “clearly a drier, hotter and more variable climate”” – You mean evolve? That will take some time.
“resilience is the key” – And, “Resistance is futile.” – The Borg
“a political debate” – It’s not a debate unless the farmers have a chance to win. It’s a dictate.
“there’s no doubt that our climate is getting warmer” – And it will get wetter or colder or just change. That’s how climate works.
“Back in the 1930s the Bradfield Scheme was proposed to divert large tropical rivers inland, to provide reliable irrigation for Australian drylands.” – Proof that my “law” is correct. “The intelligence of earth is fixed. The population is growing. You do the math.”
——–
To Tom Halla
“A basic premise for a green is that there is no technology that will fix humanities inherent sinfullness, so doing without is a good thing.” – Actually the “basic premise” of all greens and most politicians is that FEELing good is more important than DOing good.
“/sarcc” – Finally, a way to indicate sarcasm. /sarcc
———
To Peter Campion
“Labor (sic – they don’t care for ‘u’)” – Absolutely LOVE it! I’m going to steal it. You should put it on a T-shirt.
“Australia is truly stuffed unless we can find a Trump of our own.” – The key is to stand fast against immigrants who won’t assimilate (take a lesson from the Borg) and China’s aggressive expansionism. Do that and there is hope.
Welcoming South African farmers (I’ll not make an expansive political statement here) is a great idea. They can teach Australians about the consequences of allowing feelings to determine government policy.
What’s the anti-Semitism level of Australia? I’m sure that Australian farmers could learn a thing or two from the Israelis who have come up with many solutions to farming in dry climate.
—–
To WUWT – Vkontakte and connect .ok .ru – Russian collusion by WUWT? Or maybe I didn’t realize that WUWT is funded by the Russians.
It might be a good idea to calculate how much drought can be expected,
I give a procedure for that, at the end of my blog post here,
http://breadonthewater.co.za/2018/05/04/which-way-will-the-wind-be-blowing-genesis-41-vs-27/
A man with a Bachelor of Arts, a Bachelor of Law and a Bachelor of Civil Law giving climate advice to farmers?
“Malcolm chief AU CarbonTrading advocate stemming from his time as AU Goldman Sachs CEO/MD . . .
Most Australians don’t know Malcolm Turnbull gave evidence in a financial scandal at the HIH Royal Commission in 2002 and he was later sued personally in civil proceedings by the HIH liquidator McGrathNicol. The reason Turnbull was personally sued was because of alleged dodgy conduct in his role as managing director of the investment bank Goldman Sachs in advising FAI on the takeover.”
To add to that, when in 2008 it looked like Malcolm Turnbull was going to spend 2009 in court being cross examined by the liquidator for HIH, Goldman Sachs paid off the liquidator to get Turnbull off the hook. he then challenged for leadership of the then in opposition Liberal party and won.
https://www.theaustralian.com.au/national-affairs/carbon-laws-to-drive-top-cars-off-the-road/news-story/109844e23c3d5f6520b697a6bc73da71