The flood of water plans
Well well well. The Howard Government seem to have gone green this week with a number of important announcements that relate to water and climate change.
First was the cabinet reshuffle with some notable losers and winners. Amanda Vanstone has been dumped from immigration and Malcolm Turnbull has been promoted to Environment and Water. There is an interesting piece in the Australian on Turnbull and how it is an obvious counter to Peter Garrett's promotion.
Second, the Australian of the year is Tim Flannery, a climate change activist and environmental scientist. The Australian of the year is ultimately chosen by Howard himself. An interesting choice given that Flannery has been critical of the Government and will no doubt continue to be critical. On the other hand, Flannery is a supporter of nuclear energy.
Third, and this is the big one, the Howard Government has announced a $10bn plan fo water with the bulk to be focused on the Murray Daling Basin. I will not go into too much detail here except to provide some links to some of the information:
- Howard's column in the SMH today outlining his vision.
- Rudd's response
- Some analysis of how far reaching and 'radical' the plan is
"I welcome the fact that the Prime Minister is finally taking the issue of the nation's water security seriously, promising resources at an appropriate scale to address the problem, reluctantly recognising the impacts of climate change and acknowledging that a long-term approach is eeded," said Senator Rachel Siewert today.It seems to me that Howard has done something that he can easily go to the polls and say he is doing something about water. It's a real shame that its purely politically motivated. We need a Government who is will to be elected to govern for the right reasons, not simply to govern to be elected.
"It is a pity that it has taken an election year and a battering in the polls to force his hand, and a shame this could not have happened much sooner."
"Unfortunately he has made the success of the plan contingent on States capitulating their control of water resources, making delays inevitable and success uncertain," said Senator Siewert.
"The Prime Minister failed to address a key point in announcing his water management plan today when he failed to specify a target for returning environmental water flows to the Murray."
posted by Joel MacRae @ 9:41 am
6 comments
6 Comments:
Howard has done something?
Some people will believe anything in the media.
Howard has done nothing.
What has Howard done about Cubbie Station?
What will a few Billion dollars do?
Will money make it rain?
No!
The Climate has changed and that means getting into the meaning that it has changed and no amount of money will unchange it.
Life as we know it will not continue.
We are on a downward path of destroying the planet.
The Aborigines have been here for about 45,000 years. They know more about sustainablity than we do.
Do you think Mankind will be here in 100 years time? Of course not. Why?
Because the clmate has changed and will keep changing for the worse.
The unfortunate thing is that Howard's strategy might actually work. There is very little criticism on this proposal and it has distracted the mainstream from focusing on how the government is going to deal with the most important issue facing the globe.
He really... really needs to go this year.
I'm not sure I understand what you mean by: "Howard's strategy might actually work". What might actually work his diverting the attention from warming, the Federalised approach to a solution or the amount of money and/or other?
And how far will $10 billion go anyway? Especially when they are talking about reducing heavy evaporative losses in flood irrigation areas. Just putting pipes in for the thousands of kilometres of irrigation to that would be tons?
If youve ever seen some of the martian looking salt areas in the Murray Darling or similarly in Western Australia I must say I cannot see this money going far? Suppose the River flows but it chock full of salt - what use is it? In the 90's I remember saying that in NSW alone we needed to plant 8 billion trees just to stop salinity from eating up more land. This wasn't to reverse the already saline areas JUST to halt salinity. Expensive stuff.
Has anything or allocation of funds been made to the Hawkesbury? And is there any funds or project details?
You talk confidently on the recycling issue Joel: whats your vision for how large scale water recycling could operate and who it could supply. What are the potential schemes, their costs, the political/other obsticles pro/cons etc etc?
great site BTW
To glens comment:
"Do you think Mankind will be here in 100 years time? Of course not. Why?"
I used to think like this, however, I choose to think (for now) that mankind is a pretty resilient species even if weve overloaded the planet with gullable sheep-voters and a whole lotta leaders are ready to derail us. Weve survived some pretty horrific plagues and managed to survive in even the most extreme environments on earth ie the Australian Aborigines, Eskimoes. We are creative, technological and persistent when we need to be. Yet - I'm not saying this isn't the most serious thing we have faced yet.
I think the fatalistic view (all species do die out sometime) denies us a blessing or an opportunity to put into practice many alternative, innovative schemes that we've all known about for a while ie alternative energys. And most of all the lesson - that I think you are talking about - that if you don't respect Mother Earth she discards you eventually.
Fatalism, for me anyway, really reduces our capacity to be open to all the creative opportunities. Even in being politically active, fatalism, I think it brings with it a certain tone that I'm not sure is productive or energy liberating? Imagine if we were INSPIRED to solve this issue - chances are we could. As a better example, I really appreciated the way Al Gore finished Inconvenient Truth with a positive ending.
And even if its as bad as the doomsayers make out, in the context of evolution, if we could construct massive systems (bunkers , technologies etc) to survive nuclear war and the resulting nuclear winter - some among us, possibly the military or the rich, will continue our species on into the 22nd century.
To quote anonymous,
"I'm not sure I understand what you mean by: "Howard's strategy might actually work". What might actually work his diverting the attention from warming, the Federalised approach to a solution or the amount of money and/or other?"
My intention, ambiguous as it sounded, was to say that Howard is going to succeed in distracting the voting publics attention away from what really needs to be done on water and climate change. From here on we will hear $10bn $10bn $10bn until the election. Lets face it $10bn is a lot of money to be throwing at the issue. This is good, the murray darling needs it! However, thats not all the government should be doing but I fear we won't see much else being done.
To be fair to glen, I understand his pessimism. Even with the growing attention given to climate change I have yet to see any actions yet that will avert the impending disaster facing our society. Extinction though?
Even the slimest of possibilities should force us to change our ways...
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