🚀 go-pugleaf

"Peter Webb" <webbfamily@DIESPAMDIEoptusnet.com.au> wrote in message 
news:4cd7c4ec$0$3033$afc38c87@news.optusnet.com.au...
>>>
>>> Putting aside these complete irrelevancies, do you concede that 
>>> Australia exports 60% of its food production, and is the largest 
>>> exporter of food per capita in the entire world?
>>>
>>> So that stuff you wrote about Australia having problems with food 
>>> security are complete crap, right?
>>>
>>>
>>
>> # Alright, quote me ABS (Austn Bureau of Statistics) figures, and that 
>> should settle the matter.
>>   I'm more concerned with future of the river system, as such, but, 
>> presumably food supply isn't an issue, as lack of output from 
>> Murray-Darling can be compensated for elsewhere in Australia; or, by 
>> reducing exports.
>>   If the region gets lots of rain consistently henceforth, then why need 
>> for irrigation at all?
>
> Its never got lots of rain consistently. If it wasn't irrigated it could 
> be used only for livestock.
>
>
>>   But the trouble is, we can't be sure; except that weather may become 
>> (1) erratic, and (2) extreme - due to air pollution?
>
> The problem isn't climate change. The problem is that the annual rainfall 
> in most of the basin is half or less that of Sydney and highly variable. 
> That's always been true. Without irrigation, you could barely grow wheat, 
> let alone oranges.
>
>
>>   One thing's sure: if there's no river, there can be no irrigation.
>>   Ban rice/cotton from the M-D area - move them north!
>
> We don't really have rice or cotton industries anymore.
>
>>
>

# Alright.  Then that leaves too many farmers, or some farms being too big - 
either way, an unsustainable drain on the river.
   Some savings in water can be effected by use of pipes, not open channels, 
to stop evaporation; and use of drip-feeding of trees instead of over-head 
sprinklers.
   Farmers forced to leave the industry, apart from "buy-back", need to be 
found other jobs, but the basic rule is - without Ecology there is no 
Economy, ie. without a river there can be no irrigation, at all.
   Man's Place in Nature has returned to haunt us; as Nature's Place in 
Man's World collapses.
   Humans think they can "conquer" Nature, but the most we can do is 
manipulate it.  As we are causal material beings in a naturalistic context, 
we depend on Nature(however defined), but Nature does not depend on us. 
Reduce the Murray-Darling to an arid dust-bowl by over-use, if you will, 
Nature doesn't care.  Nature is a vast machine, in which we are expendable 
cogs - committing ecological suicide.