Years of drought have taken Australia to the edge of massive water redistribution that threatens vital agricultural interests. Many blame it all on global warming, but is there something deeper to consider?
by Reg Wright
The worldwide debate over the warming of earth's environment makes daily headlines. Some reports say that a small increase in the world's temperature could cause billions of people to be without water. Dire reports hint at human extinction if world governments do not take drastic measures to reduce man's pollution of the planet.
In the midst of this debate, one nation in the developed world is facing a major drought crisis.
Australia is considered to be the driest continent on earth and, as we go to press, huge areas of the country are in the grip of the worst drought in living memory. With many reservoirs at an all-time low, many towns and capital cities are under severe water restrictions. Billions of dollars are being urgently spent on water conservation methods and on seeking and developing alternate water supplies as reservoirs continue to drop to critically low levels.
In his book Drought in Australia, Justin Healey documents the history of drought in Australia and the widespread impact of the present drought. He writes that this latest drought has hit agriculture hard, with declining productivity severely affecting the rural areas and the national economy.
Crop failures and livestock losses are common. Farmers are, in many cases, struggling to survive. Facing huge financial losses and debt to the banks, there are those in the farming community whose despair is such that suicide seems the only way out.
The headline on page 1 of The Australian newspaper, April 20, "Murray Running on Empty," highlights the country's plight. The Murray-Darling river system supplies water to a huge section of Australia—from southern Queensland, through New South Wales and Victoria and emptying into the sea in South Australia. It is one of the nation's largest food bowls, producing some 70 percent of the nation's agricultural produce and worth $6 billion Australian dollars annually.
