Global warming in Australia
Via Think Progress, this story from The Independent is about the sort of crisis that isn't just not going away, but is actually going to get worse:
Australia has warned that it will have to switch off the water supply to the continent's food bowl unless heavy rains break an epic drought - heralding what could be the first climate change-driven disaster to strike a developed nation.
The Murray-Darling basin in south-eastern Australia yields 40 per cent of the country's agricultural produce. But the two rivers that feed the region are so pitifully low that there will soon be only enough water for drinking supplies. Australia is in the grip of its worst drought on record, the victim of changing weather patterns attributed to global warming and a government that is only just starting to wake up to the severity of the position.
The Prime Minister, John Howard, a hardened climate-change sceptic, delivered dire tidings to the nation's farmers yesterday. Unless there is significant rainfall in the next six to eight weeks, irrigation will be banned in the principal agricultural area. Crops such as rice, cotton and wine grapes will fail, citrus, olive and almond trees will die, along with livestock.
I really wonder what the magnitude of human disaster will have to be before the right people wake up to this problem. Yes, it's possible that rain will come and, for now, alleviate the food crisis in Australia. But eventually a problem (somewhere, at some point) will stick. And that, if it's anything like an epic drought, portends famine. Famine is that thing that is a dire threat to the lives of massive amounts of people. We usually associate it with the third world.
But if it hits Australia, then suddenly a country that has refused to acknowledge the problem of climate change and has for years turned away from its shores victims of disasters like famine, will watch as its own people attempt to seek refuge in more fertile parts of the world. And mass migrations like that presage enormous and often violent crises of their own.
Comments
People do very strange changes of personality/behavior when confronted by starvation or lack of water. The haves barricade themselves, get out the guns, and murder intruders. The have-nots are even more aggressive. Civil society becomes dog-eat-dog (man eats dog).
Meanwhile, the US is reducing human foodstuff production (wheat, etc.) to grow the now more profitable corn to sell for ethanol production. So US surpluses to sell/give to others will diminish and we will be perceived as hoarding our grains.
Global trade is potentially quite fragile. When panic hits, WTO rules will mean nothing, as countries turn inward.
It seems clear that we already have wars for oil. Wait until it becomes wars for food and water.
I doubt that there will be many Australians leaving if there is a 'famine'. Australia is too prosperous to suffer true famine for one year, or even 10. For first world countries drought is an economic problem in the short to medium term, not a food one. Of course, having to ship in more and more of your food only makes the problem worse.
I thought of that, but decided to post anyhow. Australia is--of course--an island. And if their main basin for food growth dries up, prices rise drastically and certain foods disappear altogether. This would certainly cause economic problems and might cause--at first--a minor population loss to immigration. But the point of global warming is that, at some point, the climate in the basin will be too hot forever. Over time, that could be disastrous.
Post A Comment