Australia: What Happens When 1-In-100 Yr Droughts Become 1-In-10? Abbott Still Clueless

[hatrack]

EDIT

The prime minister might doubt the connection between climate change and drought – during his tour of drought-affected areas he said 150 years of weather data showed there had always been “good times and bad times” – but scientists do not share his scepticism. A recent report by the Climate Council found heatwaves are becoming hotter, lasting longer and occurring more often.

Australia’s carbon price ensures the top 300 or so polluters have a financial incentive to cut their pollution. Making big polluters pay helps avert climate change. That’s good news for farmers. Agricultural emissions – from livestock and fertiliser use – and fuel used by agricultural activities are exempt from it. Including Australia’s tens of thousands of farming families in the carbon scheme would be too burdensome. Instead, by using fertilizer more efficiently and using feed supplements, which reduce harmful gases like methane, and storing pollution in trees and soil, farmers can earn income through the Carbon Farming Initiative.

The government is also committed to combating climate change, but by most accounts its proposed Direct Action Plan cannot achieve the pollution cuts scientists tell us are necessary to avoid dangerous a future that threatens farmers’ livelihoods. By not pursuing effective policies, the government is failing farmers.

This year, kind-hearted people from across the country sent fodder to farmers doing it tough. But when the one-in-one-hundred year drought becomes the one-in-ten or the every-other-year, stretching coast to coast, who will have fodder to donate?

EDIT/END

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/feb/26/drought-no-amount-of-assistance-can-fix-a-land-turned-permanently-to-dust

[phantom power]

1. "who will have fodder to donate?" -- that's how it will happen, it'll wear us down

And once we cross that threshold of literally not having the resources for rebuilding, or recovering, things will begin to deteriorate rapidly

[hatrack]

2. That's what happens when you run out of "Somewhere Elses"

Which is, in the end, what "globalization" is all about - finding Somewhere Else to do the dirty in.