"There is no shortage of water, just a shortage of will to organise our use of it better."

True, and if we cold ship water from NZ to places like Saudi Arabia, everyone would be happy. Actually, we DO ship water to Saudi Arabia, it's just not enough. Begs the question why folks want to populate a place that has chronically small amounts of fresh water. It's their choice, just like breeding.

"Did you know that you could stand the entire human population of the world shoulder to shoulder on an island just 30 miles long by 30 miles wide? That's around 0.005% of the planet's surface."

That is irrelevant to resource needs and usage of those people. Deforestation, over-fishing, pollution, poor use of water resources and destruction of habitats is very much driven by an excess of humanity with an ever increasing urge to consume excessively. This to me is the real issue. The combination of 7 billion people all struggling to live the "American Dream" is the crisis. It is probably an insoluble problem, but to say we should just sit back and let nature take it's course is silly IMHO. What happens to this planet affects us all in the long run.

Lynn says:
Begs the question why folks want to populate a place that has chronically small amounts of fresh water. It's their choice, just like breeding.

It's not like the majority of impoverished Saudi citizens have a lot of choice in the matter of where they live. Same goes for China, where they tried out the population control thing, with fairly disastrous societal and demographic consequences.

Lynn says:
Deforestation, over-fishing, pollution, poor use of water resources and destruction of habitats is very much driven by an excess of humanity with an ever increasing urge to consume excessively.

No. It's driven by the greed and ineptitude of the people who have impoverished those countries where these problems are acute. People in developed countries are choosing (important word that) to have smaller families. This is a luxury made possible by our high standard of living and high state of technological development. We no longer need the extra muscle power to keep ourselves fed. Who are we to tell the Indians, Chinese, Congalese and Brazilians they should continue to lead nasty short brutish lives cooking over charcoal fires, and forcing their young into the fields to work at the age of five, instead of enjoying the fruits of their own development just as we have? If you want to see what China really thinks of the green moral manacles the west is trying to hoodwink the developing world into wearing, read this intro to a state sanctioned book on the subject:
http://libertygibbert.wordpress.com/rare-scribbling/locusts/low-carbon-plot/

If we of the developed nations have been able to invent cleaner forms of power generation for cooking etc we should be happy to pass those benefits of those inventions on to our brothers and sisters in the developing countries. More than 3/4 of the worlds energy usage is generated from fossil fuels. That isn't going to change overnight no matter what laws are passed. The emissions from that power generation are not the acute issue. The acute issues are perfectly soluble problems around energy equity, housing, water, food and rubbish disposal.

The per capita use of energy in Europe is around half that of the U.S. Europeans are also choosing to have smaller families. Europeans have also successfully reforested their own continent following the end of the steam and wooden ship age. This is called progress. America is doing the same with better environmental protection for wild habitats.

I largely agree with you that we could lead less excessive lives inthe west. That is the code I myself follow. I'm heating my home with naturally fallen timber. I grow some of my food. I have a solar hot water system. I use an electric bicycle which I recharge with a solar panel as much as possible for errands, and a 50 year old single cyclinder motorcycle which does 85mpg for commuting to work.

Brian says:
+ 1
one vote for Lynn to be the new UN environmental Tsar.

I choose to do these things. I don't try to dictate to others what they should or shouldn't choose to do. Nor will I vote dictatorial government into power. Certainly not a Tzarist government. Not even if it's headed by a lovely caring person like Lynn.

Lynn says:
It is probably an insoluble problem, but to say we should just sit back and let nature take it's course is silly IMHO

I advocate letting nature take its course precisely because it's not a problem, and even if it were, it's insoluble anyway. IMHO choosing not to get worried about insoluble non-problems is a lot less silly than trying to use sky-is-falling scare stories to frighten people into demanding an end to human progress and development.

Paul Ehrlich is wrong, was proven to be wrong and has a lot to answer for.


"A cancer is an uncontrolled multiplication of cells; 
the population explosion is an uncontrolled multiplication of people. We must shift our efforts from the treatment of the symptoms to 
the cutting out of the cancer. The operation will demand many 
apparently brutal and heartless decisions."
- Prof Paul Ehrlich,
The Population Bomb

Tell you what Paul, lead by example; you go first.

Edited by tallbloke on 09/03/2010 08:07:54 MDT.

Same goes for China, where they tried out the population control thing, with fairly disastrous societal and demographic consequences.

I'm not sure where you are getting your conclusions from, but I work everyday with mainland Chinese who grew up with the population control thing. Not a single one of them complains about the "societal and demographic consequences". In fact all of them, in very candid and free-from-the-eyes-of-the-government conversations, have voiced gratitude for the control that the government has been able to procure over the uncontrolled population boom of the past. People may still be poor and conditions are not great, but few people are starving in China, which was the main goal of the one-baby policy. It has been going on long enough now that the social outlook has changed... young people don't think in terms of "brothers and sisters", but in terms of neighbors and cousins. No one that I know is emotionally disturbed or particularly unhappy with their lives in China. All of them came to Japan to get degrees, learn, and return to China, of their own free will.

We must shift our efforts from the treatment of the symptoms to 
the cutting out of the cancer. The operation will demand many 
apparently brutal and heartless decisions."

China has already done this. I feel that the Chinese are eminently more practical and less sentimental than Westerners when it comes to thinking about huge population problems that somehow NEED a solution. They don't have the luxury of taking it on consideration... at the time the one-child policy was implemented 1 billion people is what they had to deal with, a population number that people in the West cannot comprehend. I don't like the way Chinese often see or do things, but they are not simply the monsters that the western media portrays them as. You notice they created a "one-child" rule, not a "kill the excess population" rule. I see absolutely nothing wrong with limiting the population to this rule when it benefits the whole society. In fact I find it courageous and willing to look at reality. Doubtless there are those who are going to argue that this rule does not apply to everyone. Well, believe or not, the Chinese are not perfect either!

Miguel,
You are closer to China than I am, so I'll defer to your greater knowledge of their psyche. Is it true that their society places a higher value on male children and that as a result of the one child policy, a lot of female babies 'died at birth', leading to a skewed demographic of gender there?

Do you think a one party totalitarian state would be a pre-requisite for the success of such a policy?

I wonder how westerners would react to having family matters dictated to them by their government. I can't see any democratic country having a party with the cajones to try to impose such control over its citizenry. I doubt they would fancy their chances of re-election. And quite rightly so IMO.

I shall vacate this hotbed of enthusiastic Malthusianism and go for a much needed beer. ;-)

Edited by tallbloke on 09/03/2010 11:14:46 MDT.

Lynn,

I've just heard NZ's South Island has had a very big (>7) quake. From shaky California, here's hoping you and yours are okay.

Best,

Rick

Rog, I completely agree with you about democratic decisions, but you have to take a look at the reality of China. It is different from almost anything else on Earth. One billion people is a lot of people. And starvation up until the 70's was a growing, major problem. The problem was so severe and China so desperate that waiting for a vote on something that naturally people are not going to agree to would have taken years, years that China didn't have. Something very drastic had to be done. And they did. And relatively benignly.

I don't know what people in the west would have done in the same circumstances. When millions of people are starving to death due to too big a population, what do you do? Do you have a solution using the vote that would work? How would you deal with the dissenting factions who could get violent over a draconian measure? Do you just let the enormous population continue growing? They are not easy questions at all.

There are problems with the policy, of course, as any policy would have. People in the cities have better care for families then people in the country. There are official exceptions for people like rural populations where more children are needed to help run the farms. And yes, male children do get favored, which is one consequence I can't stomach, though nearly all the Chinese workers and students I work with are female. But MOST people don't do that! Chinese people are as human as you or I. And killing babies is just as horrific to them as it is for you and me. It's funny how people in the west always point at the distorted presentation in the media that CHinese give about the rest of the world, when western media does exactly the same thing... information all out of proportion to what really goes on. Accurate reporting? More like "selective reporting".

Which is not to say I like China... far from it. But it is wrong and unfair to paint them as something they are not.

Hmm, Lynn hasn't posted for 3 days. I hope all is well and it's just an internet outage.

Miguel:
"There are official exceptions for people like rural populations where more children are needed to help run the farms."

http://www.china-profile.com/data/tab_rurpop_1.htm has some data. About 60% of the population is 'rural' How many qualify for the exception and under what rules I don't know.

Anyway, thanks for the thoughtful posts Miguel. Personally, I see a draconian world government uner the U.N. as more of a risk than rising population. People need to think things through before they apply global panaceas to imaginary problems in my opinion.

"It's not worth building dams in Victoria, it never rains"...

Arapiles said:
Given that they're forecasting a very warm spring, odds are that we're not going to get that missing rain.

Tallbloke responded:
The BOM habitually forecast warmer than average seasons, it's what their co2 driven climate model tells them to say.

The Heavens have opened! Looks like the drought is over for now at least. How are those reservoir levels at the moment Arapiles?

http://www.heraldsun.com.au/news/photo-gallery/gallery-e6frf94x-1225914232615?page=1

If only they'd built a few new dams eh?

.

Edited by tallbloke on 09/06/2010 09:51:11 MDT.

Ok, heres the truth for everybody to hear. Yes global warming is real. However, government solutions to global warming are not real. They just want your money and your rights. We're all screwed and they know it. I'd be willing to bet they know things we don't know, perhaps a coming wipe-out. Would they tell us? Hell no. They would be building underground communities and networking communications without us. The truth is no one knows what will happen, but i would be they have the best idea. The only thing you can do is live your life. You can build a shelter underground with food and water, but what if you run out? What if the outside conditions are so bad that you wouldn't survive out there for more than a few days, or few hours? What if a situation like The Road occurs and some you save up all your supplies only to get your brains blown out by cannibals. You just have to live your life, no amount of preperation will save you from whats coming if its that bad. If its that bad your done for. So just live now.

NONE of you can change global warming anyway. Oh yea im gonna recycle and drive a hybrid....IGNORANCE There are billions of chinese pumping monstrous amounts of emissions, and how about India? How about all the volcanoes pumping insane amounts of baddies into the atmosphere? No matter how many hybrids or organic foods you buy you will not make a lick of difference in these cosmic situations. There is nothing wrong with buying hybrids and organic food and even recycling, just don't think your "saving the world." You will just feel better about yourself. Why not feel better about yourself anyway? Global warming will happen if it will, whether you like it or not. A supernova can vaporize trillions of beings in an instant. Grow up, get rid of your save the world complex-yes it is a complex to think little ol me can change the world. It gives us comfort to think we can have such effects on a massive scale, but ultimately it is born of delusion. Wake up to reality.

Edited by isaac.mouser on 09/06/2010 13:36:46 MDT.

http://blogs.news.com.au/heraldsun/andrewbolt/index.php/heraldsun/comments/whats_the_excuse_now_for_that_mad_dam_ban/

Andrew Bolt
Sunday, September 05, 2010 at 07:35am


Years Melbourne has been on water restrictions:

7

Where a new dam for Melbourne was planned:

(T)he Mitchell has a huge catchment area - so big, in fact, that it would normally fill a dam the size of the Thomson, our biggest, three times faster than that dam fills now. It’s a river that floods badly around every decade.

The likely cost of such a dam:

$1.35 billion.

What happened to that planned dam:

(The Labor Government) turned the dam reservation on Gippsland’s Mitchell River into a national park.

The excuse the dam-phobic Labor Government gave for not building the dam:

Unfortunately, we cannot rely on this kind of rainfall like we used to.

What it spent instead on a desalination plant to deliver just a third of the water:


$3.5 billion (or $5.7 billion in net present cost over the next 30 years).

When the Mitchell last burst its banks:

2007

How much water went to waste in that single flood:

There is no doubt that had a dam the size of the Thomson dam (Melbourne’s biggest) been in place on the Mitchell River, all of the flooding in Bairnsdale, Paynesville and much, if not all, of the Gippsland Lakes and Lakes Entrance flooding would have been prevented… Thwaites’ own department says more than 540 billion litres of flood water has gone down the Mitchell alone since June 19. In a dam, that would be more water than Melbourne uses in a year.

How the Mitchell is flowing today:

Moderate Flood Warning for the Wonnangatta and Mitchell Rivers… Since 9 AM rainfall general rainfall totals of up to 13 mm have been recorded Mitchell River catchment… As a result, stream rises have occurred in the upper Mitchell River catchment which is likely to lead to areas of Minor flooding over the coming days.

Another river the Labor Government could have used:

Check also the Glenmaggie Reservoir on the Macalister, which (in 2009 was) so full that (it) had to tip out as much as 40 billion litres .... That’s as much water wasted as Melbourne uses in a whole month. You see, the Glenmaggie is not only another reservoir that’s too small, but it’s even been left unconnected to Melbourne’s water network.

How the Macalister is flowing today:

MAJOR FLOOD WARNING FOR THE MACALISTER RIVER DOWNSTREAM OF LAKE GLENMAGGIE

How much the green madness has cost Victoria.

Incalculable.

O.K., but we can work on our spelling and grammar.

"The Heavens have opened! Looks like the drought is over for now at least. How are those reservoir levels at the moment Arapiles?"

A post I was expecting. The rain is very welcome, but as had been noted repeatedly the rainfall we got in Melbourne is no more than the long-term average and is the first time in about 15 years that we've had that.

Can I also point out that increased extremes (including rain) are also part of the predictions for climate change caused by global warming?

"NONE of you can change global warming anyway. Oh yea im gonna recycle and drive a hybrid....IGNORANCE There are billions of chinese pumping monstrous amounts of emissions, and how about India?"

Actually the Chinese are putting a lot of effort into carbon reduction, because they see the green economy as being the place where they will overtake the US (and because they have relatively small domestic energy resources) in the same way that the US overtook the USSR.

There's just no pleasing some people. I told you the drought would be ending soon, and you didn't believe me.

Also a post I was expecting:

"Can I also point out that increased extremes (including rain) are also part of the predictions for climate change caused by global warming?"

Sure, Global warming causes drought, rain, global heat, global cold, even global averageness.

This is what makes it an ***unfalsifiable theory***, and therefore ***Junk Science***.

I was reading an interesting piece by some Russian scientists yesterday which reviewed weather extremes through Russian historical records from the C9th onwards. They noted that some centuries had generally calmer, more average (and usually colder) conditions than others. This makes sense to me, warm conditions create a more energetic atmosphere-ocean interaction. Paradoxically though, Total Hurricane Energy has been lower over the last 25 years according to American data.

Much to ponder.

Please don't quote Andrew Bolt to the Australians on this website. It's not polite.

There's no doubt that Melbourne could take all water from everywhere in the State, but funnily enough the people living in those areas aren't that keen on the idea. They argue - correctly I think - that they'd like a bit of water themselves, that Melburnians (particularly industry) should first reduce the amount they use before sucking it in from everywhere else, that irrigation for food requires water and that the environment requires water. Flood water is not "wasted" because that is how those river ecosystems evolved. Take the floods away and trees don't germinate, fish don't breed and top-soil isn't replenished. And the water tables which a lot of farmers rely on drop too. Hence why a lot of people who are under water are currently saying, gees this is a good flood - bring it on.

A generation ago the Snowy River Scheme diverted water from the Snowy River into irrigation schemes in the north - so a wild iconic river was reduced to a dead trickle. I don't think you'd find many people - other than Andrew Bolt - keen on repeating that with the Mitchell river. As with the carbon trading scheme which our election turned on, in 1983 an entire election turned on not damming the Franklin: don't underestimate how green the Australian electorate can be.

Arapiles says:
Actually the Chinese are putting a lot of effort into carbon reduction, because they see the green economy as being the place where they will overtake the US

To be more accurate they are putting effort into some 'green' technologies, particularly solar panels they want to sell to the west, while opening a new coal fired power station every month between now and 2025.

Hardly a move to domestic carbon reduction, no matter what spin you try to put on it.

"There's just no pleasing some people. I told you the drought would be ending soon, and you didn't believe me."

The rain is very welcome, but this may not be the end of the drying trend. Time will tell.

Dams don't have to fully restrict flows. There's an old invention called a sluice. You may have heard of it. There could be a decision to open it on a biennial basis to deliberately flood the valley. People would have time to take their grandma's best furniture upstairs before the well planned event.

I'm all for preserving the ecology of the Australian coastal plain, especially if that's what you want more than plenty of water in Melbourne. Then you'll have decided which issue to whinge about once and for all. ;-)

this may not be the end of the drying trend.

Enjoy the weather Arapiles, it's the only weather you're going to get. :-)

If you want to know what the Chinese thinking is on climate change and energy for developing countries, read this:

http://libertygibbert.wordpress.com/rare-scribbling/locusts/low-carbon-plot/