🚀 go-pugleaf

"Peter Webb" <webbfamily@DIESPAMDIEoptusnet.com.au> wrote in message 
news:4cd9fc01$0$25356$afc38c87@news.optusnet.com.au...
>
> "DonH" <donlhumphries@bigpond.com> wrote in message 
> news:lngCo.1800$gM3.1736@viwinnwfe01.internal.bigpond.com...
>> "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.
>>
>
> You are so full of shit.
>
> You keep saying that the world is heading for disaster. Its not. Whenever 
> you try and justify this belief, you do so by writing things that are 
> patently false. We are not committing ecological suicide; we (Australia) 
> produce massively more food than we require, the world is not going to end 
> tomorrow.
>
> In fact, the world is richer now in every way than it was 20, 50, 100 or 
> 1,000 years ago, and there is absolutely no reason to believe that the 
> world will not continue to improve.
>
> Have you been diagnosed with clinical depression?

#  Yes, I'm an extremist, a Prophet of Doom, and will even put a date on it 
: decimation of Homo Sap by 2050 AD, and extinction by 2099.
     Non-human species are being exterminated at a rate 1,000 times that due 
to Nature (Al Gore); probably mainly due to us chopping down forests and 
jungles.
    The main problem is inability of the human species to view itself with 
any real objectivity - if we could, then we'd see that we humans are in 
plague proportions.
    Our rapacity too, is a factor, and eg the Victorian State elections are 
run at a frenetic pace, to see which Action Man can do, or promise, the 
most.- in Growth, Development, Progress, etc.
    Failure to fully recycle our production, so waste=0, is another aspect, 
and we'll eventually "drown" in our own pollution.  Nuclear waste dumps; and 
geosequestration?
    We talk of "economy", but there is nothing frugal about mineral 
extraction - the faster the better, is the motto; so that  soon we have only 
a-hole-in-the-ground.  Oil  reserves have already peaked, and it is downhill 
henceforth.  Which is why off-shore drilling is common, with attendant 
environmental risk.
    The human species is not immortal, either secularly or spiritually, and 
finite planet Earth is all we have. Ruin it, and we've had our innings as a 
species.
    The human brain is extolled as our greatest asset, but we tend to forget 
it is coupled with primitive instincts, and this combination is likely to 
prove fatal - nuclear war, or even conventional war, is always in the 
offing.
    An animal with an over-specialised feature can prove an adaptive 
failure, and maybe we are just such animal.
    The dinosaurs lasted millions of years, but their brain was too small to 
think of conquering Nature.
    Homo Sapiens has only existed, as such, for about one million years - a 
meteoric rise and fall; a nanosecond of cosmic time.  So, let's not laugh at 
the dinosaurs, that they are extinct.
    Our well-fed Leaders will meet, yet again, for a mutual back-slapping 
talk-fest, but it is probably too little, too late.
    Of course, time might prove my Doomsday prediction wrong. Let me know, 
in due course; if we are both still here.
     If it moves, shoot it; if it doesn't, chop it down!