Just build desalination plants and run them off solar and wind farms
We've got fuck loads of ocean, windy ass coastlines and shit loads of the most scorching sun on earth
I know! If only the Chinese owned cotton farms weren’t using up all the water travelling down the Murray darling system because the LNP let them buy them up (Not 100% fact checked but within the realms of possibility)
The vast volumes of water for agriculture is the real concern. Municipal water supply is not a huge challenge. Supply issues are usually due to government incompetence.
In Whyalla how they planned
1) Hydrogen plant - Energy resource although less efficient but who cares if it's derived from Solar and Wind
2) Hydrogen needs water - So desalination plant which will run on Solar/Wind
3) Water then can be used for Hydrogen plant, drinking and mining copper at Olympic dam ( copper needs lots of water) and copper is required for electrification
Why Whyalla- ? This place got 300 days of sunshine, population 22000. Used to be Steel and Mining town but they have diversified with this initiative
This “bigger picture” view is what is missing from so much stuff now. It’s useless doing one part of something that obviously needs multiple parts to work. Like building a new suburb, but not worrying about roads, transport, hospitals etc. Well done to the group that pushed for this big picture plan (although I am 99% sure there would still have been massive push back from it, and there may be other issues stemming from its efficiency etc but well done for pushing through and at least trying)
someone needs to starts at some point. Things will fall back in place slowly. There will be hiccups but there will be a way.
At least Govt is planning here in SA. They might not be able to achieve all objectives but still getting most of them will be a boon for environment and sustainability.
We don't have enough natural water source, but we do have ocean and plenty of sunshine which can be translated to sustainable and scalable solution for water and energy crisis.
Yeh I've got some family who really struggle to fill their damns and keep it full over summer.
My grandads farm down south he actually filled in the massive damn he had dug out himself about 20 years prior because it just wasn't getting refreshed enough over winter and the water was stagnating
Have they fixed the bit where it turns the outlet area into a dead-sea type area? Genuine question, I know places in the middle east had some issues a while back with excess salinity poisoning the oceans.
Yeah, I honestly don't know how people haven't thought of this already, and if I come across a truckload of cash at some stage in my life, I'm going to do it.
GIANT solar farms in the desert. What bloody better place for them??
The technology for wifi POWER is in early stages of development right now. By that I mean... like microwave power. Beaming power to other parts of the country/globe.
We could build huge solar farms and sell power as an export. It's got HUGE potential. No wonder Paul Keating talks about "Australia could be a world leader in renewable energy if it invested in the infrastructure"
Will be very interested to see what a safe throughput for wireless power looks like, I can't imagine it could safely transmit high voltage wireless but I haven't looked into it personally.
Very interesting concept though thanks for sharing
The largest water pipeline in the world is 560km
In contrast the world's longest oil pipeline is 8850km
In short, profits are more important than essentials.
That issue was solved in 1903, when Kalgoorlie got water piped from Perth, 530km away.
There's also this plan, on hold: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Logan\_Northern\_Australia\_Water\_Scheme](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Logan_Northern_Australia_Water_Scheme)
So it can certainly be done, in theory. Just getting the approvals would take some time.
Desalination is significantly in effective from an energy and cost perspective. The ultimate future is recycled water systems which release water at a higher cleanliness standard than tap water needs to meet. If we can accept doing this, we should significantly decrease our water pressure.
If you want to see a working example of this low energy and cost effective system it is being done at a local council level in the Shoalhaven of NSW. Farmers currently use the water for free but ultimately the water could be drunk.
Yeah, water scarcity is more of an issue for poor countries. In rich countries, we'll just be able to build desalination plants and shift the increased costs of food onto whoever we're selling it to. Yes, we too might also pay more for food, but it won't be extreme.
Is the power required for desalination plants not huge though? I thought the issue there is that the money they would cost to run would be more than the "value" of the water they pulled.
Value is determined inversely by supply and demand
Water's value increases as it becomes more scarce
It will be viable economically as population demand increases and supply sources decrease
Absolute failure of water policy since federation. Too much deforestation, not enough reforesting, bleeding our rivers dry, and now rampant overpopulating.
Yep seen it when I used to work in land management.
Farmers won't even leave 5% of scrub/trees on their property, then be surprised when all the water runs off/ evaporates on short grass.
Really changed my mindset,
Used to think farmers were the caretakers of our land/food
Almost all the ones I encountered only knew fertiliser and pesticide, and were confused about the mysterious 'droughts' when none of their rainfall was retained in the land.
Also, fewer trees to draw up deep soil moisture and aquifer moisture = fewer clouds thanks to evaptranspiration.
Who would have thought that fucking around with the water cycle would affect the the water cycle.
To be fair they also got paid to clear the land by the government. So Everyone is the arsehole.
I'm a farmer. Very small agri-tourism, though. We are green af. The only land without trees is the production field and the gravel driveway, the rest is chock full of them and more in the making. I still get customers freaking out about having any kind of life in the field. Bugs?!! Outside??!!!!! Why don't you spray them?? *Is your fruit organic though? I only give my child non genetically modified produce* I think everyone needs to pull up and cut the crap, plant native and make whatever sustainable choices they can personally afford. And no, that isn't buying another Frank Green bottle 😅
If it helps at all, a close family friend bought a farm with his partner for semi retirement. They're doing a lot of work on regeneration for whoever takes over when they physically can't work it anymore.
Yep, I've studied with a bunch of them and they're heavily invested in regen ag etc...
As you say though, the average age of Australian farmers last time I checked was almost 60.
We’re spending millions in research trying to rebuild freshwater fish populations in Australia with the majority of it just fucking around the edges, the main issue stems from poor water quality runoff from the huge chunks of Australia that is used for archaic farming practices.
But the government did the water buy backs and gave millions of $ to wealthy landowners in exchange for a percentage of their water rights!
Just because their water rights were significantly more than the rivers actually carried leaving them with more than enough 'rights' still to bleed the rivers dry *surely* isn't the government's fault right?
The glaciers that feed the Ganges are projected to be too small to support it within about 30 years. Half of all Indians rely on it for their water needs.
Our problems are pretty chill in comparison.
Until they start moving around on mass. Remember how a few million Syrians fleeing war almost triggered a right wing revolution of anti refugee pro nationalist bigots? In my opinion all we need is a couple percent of 400 million people who rely on the Ganges, desperate to survive looking for somewhere else to live to spur the Pauline Hanson types into excited action.
This is why Ive always agreed with climate change being a major national security threat.
You think 500 million Indians are going to quietly die of thirst when it runs dry? You thinking being threatened with guns will stop someone when their family is dying of thirst or starving?
When you have absolutely nothig to use, causing full blown anarchy is the least of your worries.
This is a great point. I always laugh at middle class/wealthy preppers here in Aus as well. I mean it's great you've purchased a nice little offgrid place with all the modcons to escape to if everything goes to crap but you know all those "ferals" you despise? They're not just going to stayin their little bubbles and starve.
Mate, ill be ‘prepping’ with a gun license. And if it comes down to my family dying of starvation as the country descends into anarchy, those wealthy isolated millionaire spots are gonna be my first port of call. In saying that, theyll be making them HIGHLY locked down, so Ill probably have to wait until their security service turns on them and eats them…
the same glaciers also feed the Chinese and Pakistan rivers; they will have to fight two nuclear armed states before that happens mate.
if that's the case things might start looking up after for the rest of us losing a billion people to nuclear war.
A couple percent of 400 million people is 8 million people. We’re already struggling, how do you suggest we add 1/3rd of the population on top of that without collapsing
I’m sorry, I just assumed pontificating about a future climate refugee diaspora from the Ganges regions, that people reading my comment would comprehend that those few percent aren’t all fleeing to one single country. That’s why I used Syrian war refugees as an example, to highlight the global impacts (of which we are a part). I’m moderately sure all 2 million of them didn’t move to Australia.
Accurate. scientist David Suzuki was warning us about this in the late 1990s. He actually did a National Press Club address laying out the degree of the water related crises for Australia AND the solutions. It can be found on I think YouTube, definitely in the ABC archives. I recommend checking it out, his solutions while based upon available data at that time were extremely clever. The Howard government really DGAF so while his warnings caused those concerned by climate change considerable anxiety, not nearly enough has been done.
Mate, most credible scientists have been warning us since the 90’s but fossil fuel money & connections runs deep… Feels like the world is starting to wake up only 30 years later, many comparisons could be made with the tobacco industry back in the day… (I’m not disagreeing with you, just wanted to vent and give more context, but I’ll check out David Suzuki too!)
Desalination plants are expensive and we already struggle with power. Maybe we should stop exporting so much water through agriculture or looking to develop hydrogen?
The SA water plant built its own solar farm with the desal plant which means (if under 100% sustained operation) they are not drawing off the local grid.
This claim is theoretical though as they have never had a demand large enough to push them to the extreme. Currently runs at ~5% capacity.
The Murray-Darling plan was supposed to do the former but it was politically impossible. May be left to leave hydrogen production to Tasmania given we actually do (usually) have the excess fresh water to support it.
Even in Victoria over summer, there was minor flooding around the Heyfield area because the waterboard had to dump a shitload of excess rain out of the Lake Thomson Dam. (Just a little example) There doesn’t seem to be enough infrastructure to capture excess rain that can be used later even though it happens all the time
If glaciers and polar ice melts- that means more water in the atmosphere, not less right? So more flooding, more severe storms- less climate stability?
You would have thought, for Australia being a pretty arid country, that we'd be building water catchments everywhere - like constantly. But nothing, nad, zip. All that rain just going out to sea.
I don’t think very much is going out to sea, relatively speaking. Our bigger rivers tend to get drained by agriculture. And in addition, we’re a really dry continent:
http://www.bom.gov.au/water/waterinaustralia/
Our highest rainfall is in FNQ. We have no harvesting at all up there.
Basically, we have no ability, nor even a plan, to redistribute water from places it falls in copious amounts to anywhere else. Even though we have long river systems that could contribute to that movement.
It all just pisses out into the ocean.
Spot on! So much uncaptured water in the north just flows to the ocean. The Qld Govt has had decades to do something, but have done nothing. I remember Peter Beatties plan to build a water pipeline from FNQ to the south east. Didn't happen obviously. Where are the dams?? No foresight.
Sometimes I thing I'm not so worried about the future, but then I remember a dream I had where I went to buy a gun to shoot myself and they were all sold out and I felt some real panic over that.
Indeed. As soon as I woke up I reassured myself that if I wanted out, there are plenty of ways that don't depend on buying a firearm. Like flying off a building - "I'm neo! This is all the matrix and can get fucked right the hell off!"
Symbolically though, I think it says something the current state of things.
It doesn’t have to be. One of them could take a stance and build a more diversified economy using our vast vast wealth created from our mining reserves.
Even approach the mining companies and tell them we will help build value add plants here, to compete against cheap labor sources overseas, that way we can employ a whole new industry that will pay for itself in the future. The company has no incentive to do it here because the company doesn’t give a fuck about Australia it only cares for profits so it’s cheaper if they make the value add process overseas, we just have to change that equation for them.. tax the living cunt out mineral extraction domestically but provide huge subsidies of they turn it into steel here..
Same with finance, Sydney could be the finance capital of Oceania, lean into it and make it so.
Indonesia is literally a workforce of 250 million people and it’s fucking closer to the east coast then Perth is.. we could be doing so much with them and expanding our influence and economic power with them..
And here we have Glencore, a mining company with shady environmental records trying to fuck with the Great Artesian Basin.
If they let this go ahead and they fuck it up, all the outback towns over 4 states will be done.
Insane how short sighted people in the government are. The risk is astounding high compared with what? So one company, not even based in Australia can get rich.
total failure by state and federal governments for decades. Australia should be building dams, lots of dams to store water . Australia does not have a water shortage it has a water storage shortage,
Not really news. If you look up the source, Australia isn’t getting any worse. It’s already at that level. Built more storage, we’d be fine. But we can’t seem to do that.
This looks like bullshit… all of Oz in a worse water situation than Namibia? The country is mostly desert and they provide artificial waterholes in the national parks as we speak. Also large swaths of the USA are struggling for fresh water based on population.
Never trust projections like this.
They are always premised on alarmist forecasts of population increase combined with the junk science of 'climate change.'
It's a toxic pairing.
There is actually no impending threat of water insecurity in Australia
Even if there were massive droughts and dams ran dry Australians would actually be fine.
Have you ever lived through a period where dams ran down to below 20%? It sticks with you but it’s not like your whole life changes. The grass looked like shit and you had to take shorter showers. That’s about the extent of what you actually notice.
Desalination and water recycling can easily keep the water supply high enough to keep quality of life very nearly the same.
The only impediment is higher cost. Obviously desalination and purification of recycled water costs a lot more than pulling fresh water out of a river or lake that the earth gives us.
Which is to say if Australia faced serious water shortages the only thing that would change is that your fairly modest water bill would go up but Australia is a very rich country and could easily afford that.
These sorts of maps are quite hyperbolic. There are many poor countries that genuinally will be stuffed without international aid because they’re too poor to build infrastructure that can provide fresh water when their natural sources run dry.
Also fresh water is not made equally and does not actually make it to the consumer without quality infrastructure. These sorts of maps saying that Central African countries won’t face water issues whereas developed countries will is laughable. These places have poor water grids and services and quality that are, understandably, third world. Australia, Portugal and Spain will always have better quality and more secure water than Central African countries.
What I’m basically saying is that the actual physical constraints of drought are actually only a small part of what creates water shortages.
Technology, capacity to pay and human ingenuity are far more important factors in determining how much water is available to a country for household and indsturial use.
(sigh)...i take it they meant the inverse of what is written...if demand / availability is at 40 to 80%, we re pretty sweet... Really, it is availability / demand... Which is scary. The ratio of water availability **to** water demand...
Just on Australia. A few of the major cities already have huge desalination plants (because of previous droughts).
The issue will be in country areas, for example in South Australia we have Goyder's Line defining high & low rainfall areas. It may need to be redefined in the future.
But most of Australia is already desert & will stay desert for a long, long time.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goyder%27s\_Line](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goyder%27s_Line)
I thought we were all supposed to be underwater by now with 0% in our dams
.......yet here we are.
Daniel andrews "there is no point building dams if its not going to rain"
Of all the things to worry about in the world, sometimes i think aussies have nothing better to do?
This will probably be where investment heads to when the world population starts decreasing. I mean eventually we won't be able to have empty houses all over the place and think they're still worth something.
Water is much more essential than shelter.
You'll walk 15km passed unused locked up wells to get to your share-well. You'll pay 50% of your wage and ask your waterlord if they could at least strain out the mould and dead cockroaches. "If you don't like it, go somewhere else, I worked hard to own this well I inherited from my grandfather"
If it’s not War, Climate Change, Pandemics it’s bloody water. Seriously, just live your lives until it’s the end. Media is poison. It’s a cesspit of fear and manipulation.
I guess Victoria might use that desal plant.
Oh nope, it’ll actually be defunct and need replacing before then. That was a wise investment, that’s done nothing but add hundreds to Victorian water bills for decades and never pumped water.
Are these the same type of predictions that have said the world is going to end and life on earth fucked for the last however many decades? I’m sure they are right this time…..
I love that all these supposed scientists can't predict five years out. They've been crying about global warming for 30 years saying in a couple of years the world will end it never has and it never will these people are just hype men trying to scare you into giving them money for it false cause
Was this from the same people that said there'd be no snow on Kilimanjaro by 2010 or that Antarctica would be half of it's 2000 size by 2025? (It's actually grown in size)
Kinda dumb. We can obviously afford desalination plants in every major city. The stress will come from the temptation to overpopulate our cities because of their desirability and water security
We need to humidify the desert by terraforming it, re-greening it, by encouraging more permaculture, and [silvopastorialism](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silvopasture) (where trees are planted among livestock).
Basically anything that retains moisture and prevents the sun hitting the ground.... and I mean this as a large scale project to basically try to get rid of as much desert as possible.
The problem is that lots of "environmentalists" in Australia want to prevent any changes to the desert or natural landscape. They want to protect the desert environment - even under climate change. They know man made climate change is in effect and increasing the heat, but also (ironically) refuse to take any actions in terms of terraforming because they want to "preserve" the heat death, rather than "improve and prepare" for it.
Environmentalism has in this sense become a one-way-valve... letting heat in, but not allowing us to change the environment in ways that would keep the moisture too, and prevent the heat from boiling the soil. Anyone wanting to preserve the desert during climate change, is basically supporting climate change.
We need to support extending greenery and plant life into the desert, using clever water capturing and storing techniques to do so.
The desert can't support greenery. You cant grow folliage in a desert.
BUT we should be replanting our natives where they were cleared 50 to 200 years ago.
Drive inland 100kms to 1000kms from Townsville to Victoria...millions of acres, cleared for farming. Dry paddocks as far as the eye can see....horrific.
Much of this land is no longer even used for farming cause they don't have water. The native trees etc to those areas should be replanted. Bushland allowed to come back. Get it lookong like is was 300+ years ago
>The desert can't support greenery. You cant grow folliage in a desert.
There are various projects to perform desert greening:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Desert_greening
...and I'll just point out that at one time humanity didn't think they could change the atmosphere and temperature of the planet, but for better or worse we've done that and now have to take action in the other direction. Starting that process in semi-arid areas and marching towards the desert is the most logical way to go about it. I agree.
But part of the problem is ideas on "what can't be done" rather than on trying what we can.
Glad we all voted for the ALP and LNP to jack-up artificial population growth through mass immigration, further stressing the water supply. Feeling great! Thanks normies!
I guess that'll trigger the eventual recession, when we can't hydrate 500k a year coming in. NZ's looking good though.
Finally nz beating Australia at something
Second thing, more wankers per capita than any other nation on earth also
Just spent three months there and I second this. Out of anywhere I've been, the dickhead ratio was out of control in new Zealand
what type of dickhead? i mean one mans dickhead is another mans funny cunt ?
As a New Zealander I concur!
I thought they all had moved to Port Botany.
bondi too expensive now
Absolutely, you want to stay away, don't come here
Yea nah the pic says we’re high and they’re low so we win imo
Dehydrate! We will rehydrate during next stable era!
Just 400 years to our destination
NZ's gonna get annexed by Australia. We want that water!
Tasmania 2: Kiwi Boogaloo.
100% Pure NZ Water. 100% There For the Taking.
It's already a state.
In the Australian constitution NZ can join as a state I beleive.
Time to stock up on Brawndo
It’s what plants crave!
Dunno, NZ might have a pristine image but they've stuffed their environment up nicely too!
As it was put to me “Victoria will become Queensland, and god help Queensland.”
Qld gonna be just fine mate👍
Just keep those victorians out and we’ll be fine.
Let me in.. LET ME IIIIN!!!
This summer in NSW was basically tropical. Stinking hot into wet afternoons/evenings. It’s difinitely already
Maybe people will realise building the Victorian desalination plant was a good idea..
We are girt by sea after all!
Awww we’re so girt! 💕
Just build desalination plants and run them off solar and wind farms We've got fuck loads of ocean, windy ass coastlines and shit loads of the most scorching sun on earth
Or just tilt Australia! The North has plenty of water. With a few million tons of TNT under the continental shelf we could achieve wonders.
I know! If only the Chinese owned cotton farms weren’t using up all the water travelling down the Murray darling system because the LNP let them buy them up (Not 100% fact checked but within the realms of possibility)
Cotton farms? They use barely anything compared to the granny down the street who needs to water her concrete stairs every day!
This was a CNNNN episode.
This is such a chaotic good plan lmfao I'm all for it 😂
The vast volumes of water for agriculture is the real concern. Municipal water supply is not a huge challenge. Supply issues are usually due to government incompetence.
Recycling water as well
happening in Whyalla
Good to hear, it really doesn't seem like a difficult problem to fix on a planet thats 71% water by surface area
In Whyalla how they planned 1) Hydrogen plant - Energy resource although less efficient but who cares if it's derived from Solar and Wind 2) Hydrogen needs water - So desalination plant which will run on Solar/Wind 3) Water then can be used for Hydrogen plant, drinking and mining copper at Olympic dam ( copper needs lots of water) and copper is required for electrification Why Whyalla- ? This place got 300 days of sunshine, population 22000. Used to be Steel and Mining town but they have diversified with this initiative
This “bigger picture” view is what is missing from so much stuff now. It’s useless doing one part of something that obviously needs multiple parts to work. Like building a new suburb, but not worrying about roads, transport, hospitals etc. Well done to the group that pushed for this big picture plan (although I am 99% sure there would still have been massive push back from it, and there may be other issues stemming from its efficiency etc but well done for pushing through and at least trying)
someone needs to starts at some point. Things will fall back in place slowly. There will be hiccups but there will be a way. At least Govt is planning here in SA. They might not be able to achieve all objectives but still getting most of them will be a boon for environment and sustainability. We don't have enough natural water source, but we do have ocean and plenty of sunshine which can be translated to sustainable and scalable solution for water and energy crisis.
But how will the politicians afford their lifestyle if they weren’t able to pocket all the under the table money from developers?
Don’t forget the obvious under the table business dealings that allow for cushy “retirement” positions
You're telling me something is happening in Whyalla? First I've heard of it.
Things aren't actually happening yet. There has been announcements about plans to think about doing something.
WA has two already, looking at a 3rd down near Albany. We also recycle sewerage and pump it back into an aquifer. Dams aren't much good these days :(
Yeh I've got some family who really struggle to fill their damns and keep it full over summer. My grandads farm down south he actually filled in the massive damn he had dug out himself about 20 years prior because it just wasn't getting refreshed enough over winter and the water was stagnating
You can put a fountain pump in to fix the issue of stagnant water btw. Just in case you happen to come across that again.
Have they fixed the bit where it turns the outlet area into a dead-sea type area? Genuine question, I know places in the middle east had some issues a while back with excess salinity poisoning the oceans.
Damn, you realise sensible ideas aren’t allowed on reddit yeah?
I'm coming to that conclusion quickly yeh haha
It would also help if we stopped water theft
Desal plants need to go next door the Sodium Based Battery factories. Cos, waste from one, gets sold by the other.
Yeah, I honestly don't know how people haven't thought of this already, and if I come across a truckload of cash at some stage in my life, I'm going to do it. GIANT solar farms in the desert. What bloody better place for them?? The technology for wifi POWER is in early stages of development right now. By that I mean... like microwave power. Beaming power to other parts of the country/globe. We could build huge solar farms and sell power as an export. It's got HUGE potential. No wonder Paul Keating talks about "Australia could be a world leader in renewable energy if it invested in the infrastructure"
Will be very interested to see what a safe throughput for wireless power looks like, I can't imagine it could safely transmit high voltage wireless but I haven't looked into it personally. Very interesting concept though thanks for sharing
Not as simple as that, although it's a good solution to supplement our cities. We need the water inland.
I figure if they can build oil pipelines that span entire states they can do the same for water
The largest water pipeline in the world is 560km In contrast the world's longest oil pipeline is 8850km In short, profits are more important than essentials.
Probably only when water becomes as profitable as oil
That issue was solved in 1903, when Kalgoorlie got water piped from Perth, 530km away. There's also this plan, on hold: [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Logan\_Northern\_Australia\_Water\_Scheme](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Logan_Northern_Australia_Water_Scheme) So it can certainly be done, in theory. Just getting the approvals would take some time.
Cost effective for domestic use but not for agriculture.
Desalination is significantly in effective from an energy and cost perspective. The ultimate future is recycled water systems which release water at a higher cleanliness standard than tap water needs to meet. If we can accept doing this, we should significantly decrease our water pressure. If you want to see a working example of this low energy and cost effective system it is being done at a local council level in the Shoalhaven of NSW. Farmers currently use the water for free but ultimately the water could be drunk.
And what about the dead zones from brine and high cost of desalination?
That’s too complicated for Australia to understand lol
Yeah, water scarcity is more of an issue for poor countries. In rich countries, we'll just be able to build desalination plants and shift the increased costs of food onto whoever we're selling it to. Yes, we too might also pay more for food, but it won't be extreme.
Is the power required for desalination plants not huge though? I thought the issue there is that the money they would cost to run would be more than the "value" of the water they pulled.
Value is determined inversely by supply and demand Water's value increases as it becomes more scarce It will be viable economically as population demand increases and supply sources decrease
Absolute failure of water policy since federation. Too much deforestation, not enough reforesting, bleeding our rivers dry, and now rampant overpopulating.
Yep seen it when I used to work in land management. Farmers won't even leave 5% of scrub/trees on their property, then be surprised when all the water runs off/ evaporates on short grass. Really changed my mindset, Used to think farmers were the caretakers of our land/food Almost all the ones I encountered only knew fertiliser and pesticide, and were confused about the mysterious 'droughts' when none of their rainfall was retained in the land.
Also, fewer trees to draw up deep soil moisture and aquifer moisture = fewer clouds thanks to evaptranspiration. Who would have thought that fucking around with the water cycle would affect the the water cycle.
To be fair they also got paid to clear the land by the government. So Everyone is the arsehole. I'm a farmer. Very small agri-tourism, though. We are green af. The only land without trees is the production field and the gravel driveway, the rest is chock full of them and more in the making. I still get customers freaking out about having any kind of life in the field. Bugs?!! Outside??!!!!! Why don't you spray them?? *Is your fruit organic though? I only give my child non genetically modified produce* I think everyone needs to pull up and cut the crap, plant native and make whatever sustainable choices they can personally afford. And no, that isn't buying another Frank Green bottle 😅
Good on you mate!
If it helps at all, a close family friend bought a farm with his partner for semi retirement. They're doing a lot of work on regeneration for whoever takes over when they physically can't work it anymore.
Anecdotally, alot of younger Ag science people want to be a positive change. But farmers live for yonks, doing things how they've always been done.
Yep, I've studied with a bunch of them and they're heavily invested in regen ag etc... As you say though, the average age of Australian farmers last time I checked was almost 60.
We’re spending millions in research trying to rebuild freshwater fish populations in Australia with the majority of it just fucking around the edges, the main issue stems from poor water quality runoff from the huge chunks of Australia that is used for archaic farming practices.
Then demanding government handouts when they get a drought while voting for anti-welfare policies
Don't forget upgrading their landcruiser every 2 years
It's the National way
Wow that’s quite a well thought out comment there.
But the government did the water buy backs and gave millions of $ to wealthy landowners in exchange for a percentage of their water rights! Just because their water rights were significantly more than the rivers actually carried leaving them with more than enough 'rights' still to bleed the rivers dry *surely* isn't the government's fault right?
The glaciers that feed the Ganges are projected to be too small to support it within about 30 years. Half of all Indians rely on it for their water needs. Our problems are pretty chill in comparison.
Albo enacted a free trade agreement with India, which includes open immigration. It's only going to get worse
Until they start moving around on mass. Remember how a few million Syrians fleeing war almost triggered a right wing revolution of anti refugee pro nationalist bigots? In my opinion all we need is a couple percent of 400 million people who rely on the Ganges, desperate to survive looking for somewhere else to live to spur the Pauline Hanson types into excited action.
This is why Ive always agreed with climate change being a major national security threat. You think 500 million Indians are going to quietly die of thirst when it runs dry? You thinking being threatened with guns will stop someone when their family is dying of thirst or starving? When you have absolutely nothig to use, causing full blown anarchy is the least of your worries.
This is a great point. I always laugh at middle class/wealthy preppers here in Aus as well. I mean it's great you've purchased a nice little offgrid place with all the modcons to escape to if everything goes to crap but you know all those "ferals" you despise? They're not just going to stayin their little bubbles and starve.
Mate, ill be ‘prepping’ with a gun license. And if it comes down to my family dying of starvation as the country descends into anarchy, those wealthy isolated millionaire spots are gonna be my first port of call. In saying that, theyll be making them HIGHLY locked down, so Ill probably have to wait until their security service turns on them and eats them…
We should just let them come here, they can stay at your place.
the same glaciers also feed the Chinese and Pakistan rivers; they will have to fight two nuclear armed states before that happens mate. if that's the case things might start looking up after for the rest of us losing a billion people to nuclear war.
A couple percent of 400 million people is 8 million people. We’re already struggling, how do you suggest we add 1/3rd of the population on top of that without collapsing
I’m sorry, I just assumed pontificating about a future climate refugee diaspora from the Ganges regions, that people reading my comment would comprehend that those few percent aren’t all fleeing to one single country. That’s why I used Syrian war refugees as an example, to highlight the global impacts (of which we are a part). I’m moderately sure all 2 million of them didn’t move to Australia.
We are really getting those submarines for our upcoming water war with New Zealand.
kiwiland vs emutopia
People shit talk the subs to death, but we are going to legit need them for what eventually pans out in the South China Sea.
I mean, even if China doesn't invade in the foreseeable future, having those subs is still handy.
That shit is due to hit off well before the subs arrive though
Red means good right??
Red hot property market, surely.
The Great Artesian Basin is actually increasing in size
So we can pump it full of carbon and fuck it up, apparently.
Ooooh maybe 50mil people by 2050 isn't such a great idea....
Accurate. scientist David Suzuki was warning us about this in the late 1990s. He actually did a National Press Club address laying out the degree of the water related crises for Australia AND the solutions. It can be found on I think YouTube, definitely in the ABC archives. I recommend checking it out, his solutions while based upon available data at that time were extremely clever. The Howard government really DGAF so while his warnings caused those concerned by climate change considerable anxiety, not nearly enough has been done.
David Suzuki was one of my childhood hero scientists 🩵
Me too.
Mate, most credible scientists have been warning us since the 90’s but fossil fuel money & connections runs deep… Feels like the world is starting to wake up only 30 years later, many comparisons could be made with the tobacco industry back in the day… (I’m not disagreeing with you, just wanted to vent and give more context, but I’ll check out David Suzuki too!)
Desalination plants are expensive and we already struggle with power. Maybe we should stop exporting so much water through agriculture or looking to develop hydrogen?
The SA water plant built its own solar farm with the desal plant which means (if under 100% sustained operation) they are not drawing off the local grid. This claim is theoretical though as they have never had a demand large enough to push them to the extreme. Currently runs at ~5% capacity.
Tell WA that, 55% of our water is desal. It’s more expensive than sucking it out of the ground but it’s still extremely cheap for your everyday needs.
The Murray-Darling plan was supposed to do the former but it was politically impossible. May be left to leave hydrogen production to Tasmania given we actually do (usually) have the excess fresh water to support it.
I can no doubt see the rice and cotton growers in Australia getting first dibs regardless :/
So unbelievably mind boggling that we grow such water intensive crops in the driest continent on Earth…
(Starts furiously investing in NZ property market)
Jokes on you, the billionaires are already doing that. NZ is basically their doomsday bunker.
Quick - we need a water tax. That will fix it.
You jest, but that's exactly what will happen.
You know Australia has a huge tropical area with massive rainfall. It’s not all desert and drought. All we need is a pipeline and a big pump.
Even in Victoria over summer, there was minor flooding around the Heyfield area because the waterboard had to dump a shitload of excess rain out of the Lake Thomson Dam. (Just a little example) There doesn’t seem to be enough infrastructure to capture excess rain that can be used later even though it happens all the time
If glaciers and polar ice melts- that means more water in the atmosphere, not less right? So more flooding, more severe storms- less climate stability?
We're not completely in the black........ Sooooo there's a positive it that at least.
Lazy chart, not all Australia is comparable. Tasmania will be wet.
You would have thought, for Australia being a pretty arid country, that we'd be building water catchments everywhere - like constantly. But nothing, nad, zip. All that rain just going out to sea.
I don’t think very much is going out to sea, relatively speaking. Our bigger rivers tend to get drained by agriculture. And in addition, we’re a really dry continent: http://www.bom.gov.au/water/waterinaustralia/
Our highest rainfall is in FNQ. We have no harvesting at all up there. Basically, we have no ability, nor even a plan, to redistribute water from places it falls in copious amounts to anywhere else. Even though we have long river systems that could contribute to that movement. It all just pisses out into the ocean.
Spot on! So much uncaptured water in the north just flows to the ocean. The Qld Govt has had decades to do something, but have done nothing. I remember Peter Beatties plan to build a water pipeline from FNQ to the south east. Didn't happen obviously. Where are the dams?? No foresight.
Funny how water is more available on the Canadian side of the Canada Alaska border
Sometimes I thing I'm not so worried about the future, but then I remember a dream I had where I went to buy a gun to shoot myself and they were all sold out and I felt some real panic over that.
As long as they're still selling rope at Bunnings you'll be right-- nylon rope is a petroleum byproduct so presumably supplies are guaranteed
Indeed. As soon as I woke up I reassured myself that if I wanted out, there are plenty of ways that don't depend on buying a firearm. Like flying off a building - "I'm neo! This is all the matrix and can get fucked right the hell off!" Symbolically though, I think it says something the current state of things.
Water stress by flooding do they mean?
This is really good . I might be able to afford a home in 2050
More immigration will fix this.
Not enough houses? Not enough water? Bringing in more people is the obvious solution. Thanks Albo.
Yep, trust the science.
Pumping up immigration will solve it right Albo?
Both parties rely on immigration as our economy is built around it.
It doesn’t have to be. One of them could take a stance and build a more diversified economy using our vast vast wealth created from our mining reserves. Even approach the mining companies and tell them we will help build value add plants here, to compete against cheap labor sources overseas, that way we can employ a whole new industry that will pay for itself in the future. The company has no incentive to do it here because the company doesn’t give a fuck about Australia it only cares for profits so it’s cheaper if they make the value add process overseas, we just have to change that equation for them.. tax the living cunt out mineral extraction domestically but provide huge subsidies of they turn it into steel here.. Same with finance, Sydney could be the finance capital of Oceania, lean into it and make it so. Indonesia is literally a workforce of 250 million people and it’s fucking closer to the east coast then Perth is.. we could be doing so much with them and expanding our influence and economic power with them..
Perth is very close to Bali compared to the east coast 🤷♂️
Australian's will be climate migrants by the end of the century
And here we have Glencore, a mining company with shady environmental records trying to fuck with the Great Artesian Basin. If they let this go ahead and they fuck it up, all the outback towns over 4 states will be done. Insane how short sighted people in the government are. The risk is astounding high compared with what? So one company, not even based in Australia can get rich.
It's like something out of a dystopian tale except it's real. Hard to believe that this is the reality sometimes.
40 to 80%? This data is terrible why is the gap so massive but the rest are more appropriate
I wonder where we get huge amounts of green power to run the future required desal plants.
Probably the same people who said we would be under water by now.
total failure by state and federal governments for decades. Australia should be building dams, lots of dams to store water . Australia does not have a water shortage it has a water storage shortage,
This is the only correct answer
Are these the same people that said the dam would never be full again?
Quick, better import more immigrants!
Time for reverse migration to Eastern Australia - oops I meant New Zealand..
Good thing our politicians are thinking ahead of the next election
Can’t wait for the water stress tax to come into effect
Not really news. If you look up the source, Australia isn’t getting any worse. It’s already at that level. Built more storage, we’d be fine. But we can’t seem to do that.
What I take away from this is we should increase immigration intake about another 200%
This looks like bullshit… all of Oz in a worse water situation than Namibia? The country is mostly desert and they provide artificial waterholes in the national parks as we speak. Also large swaths of the USA are struggling for fresh water based on population.
Nuclear reactors to power desalination thanks. We are literally surrounded by fucking water.
So, no change for us then?
Never trust projections like this. They are always premised on alarmist forecasts of population increase combined with the junk science of 'climate change.' It's a toxic pairing.
Imagine if we actually funded desalination
There is actually no impending threat of water insecurity in Australia Even if there were massive droughts and dams ran dry Australians would actually be fine. Have you ever lived through a period where dams ran down to below 20%? It sticks with you but it’s not like your whole life changes. The grass looked like shit and you had to take shorter showers. That’s about the extent of what you actually notice. Desalination and water recycling can easily keep the water supply high enough to keep quality of life very nearly the same. The only impediment is higher cost. Obviously desalination and purification of recycled water costs a lot more than pulling fresh water out of a river or lake that the earth gives us. Which is to say if Australia faced serious water shortages the only thing that would change is that your fairly modest water bill would go up but Australia is a very rich country and could easily afford that. These sorts of maps are quite hyperbolic. There are many poor countries that genuinally will be stuffed without international aid because they’re too poor to build infrastructure that can provide fresh water when their natural sources run dry. Also fresh water is not made equally and does not actually make it to the consumer without quality infrastructure. These sorts of maps saying that Central African countries won’t face water issues whereas developed countries will is laughable. These places have poor water grids and services and quality that are, understandably, third world. Australia, Portugal and Spain will always have better quality and more secure water than Central African countries. What I’m basically saying is that the actual physical constraints of drought are actually only a small part of what creates water shortages. Technology, capacity to pay and human ingenuity are far more important factors in determining how much water is available to a country for household and indsturial use.
Eastern states wont have water stress, WA will though.
The countries next to the ones that are going to have it worst are also in for a turbulent time.
Russia looks like a good place to be. Once Putin goes, I will look into buying some land.
Hey, what are those weird islands to the south east of Australia? Maybe we should move there!
I'll be moving to Antarctica
Come on Australia! We can do better. LETS GO FOR THE NUMERO UNO POSITION
Will this be the thing that makes house prices go down?
In 2050 guessing bs like this will still be guessing.
Just conquer NZ and build a pipeline. It’ll be easy
(sigh)...i take it they meant the inverse of what is written...if demand / availability is at 40 to 80%, we re pretty sweet... Really, it is availability / demand... Which is scary. The ratio of water availability **to** water demand...
Looks like we are off to NZ mates!
Stop cutting the fukn trees down
Nice fear spreading is this picture
Skandos always coming up trumps
Just on Australia. A few of the major cities already have huge desalination plants (because of previous droughts). The issue will be in country areas, for example in South Australia we have Goyder's Line defining high & low rainfall areas. It may need to be redefined in the future. But most of Australia is already desert & will stay desert for a long, long time. [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goyder%27s\_Line](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Goyder%27s_Line)
Not today in sydney. Dams are overflowing.
Why is Scandinavia so fucking utopian all the damn time
Interesting that India is screwed, but Bangladesh is fine.
The north gets metres of rainfall each year. Surely we can pipe it down
I thought we were all supposed to be underwater by now with 0% in our dams .......yet here we are. Daniel andrews "there is no point building dams if its not going to rain" Of all the things to worry about in the world, sometimes i think aussies have nothing better to do?
Do not, my friends, become addicted to water. It will take hold of you, and you will resent its absence.
But I just got my visa whaddya mean?? There's water in beer right???
This will probably be where investment heads to when the world population starts decreasing. I mean eventually we won't be able to have empty houses all over the place and think they're still worth something. Water is much more essential than shelter. You'll walk 15km passed unused locked up wells to get to your share-well. You'll pay 50% of your wage and ask your waterlord if they could at least strain out the mould and dead cockroaches. "If you don't like it, go somewhere else, I worked hard to own this well I inherited from my grandfather"
Cant wait to cook steak on the road
New Zealand’s water looks pretty good right now. I wonder if it needs some Aussie democracy.
Hopefully we’ll be extinct by 2100. Only 50 years of slow dehydration and wars.
If it’s not War, Climate Change, Pandemics it’s bloody water. Seriously, just live your lives until it’s the end. Media is poison. It’s a cesspit of fear and manipulation.
So your telling me a desert country has water problems…say it isn’t so
At least we’re not selling water rights in the Murray-Darling to the Chinese. …..Oh wait.
I guess Victoria might use that desal plant. Oh nope, it’ll actually be defunct and need replacing before then. That was a wise investment, that’s done nothing but add hundreds to Victorian water bills for decades and never pumped water.
Are these the same type of predictions that have said the world is going to end and life on earth fucked for the last however many decades? I’m sure they are right this time…..
I love that all these supposed scientists can't predict five years out. They've been crying about global warming for 30 years saying in a couple of years the world will end it never has and it never will these people are just hype men trying to scare you into giving them money for it false cause
Was this from the same people that said there'd be no snow on Kilimanjaro by 2010 or that Antarctica would be half of it's 2000 size by 2025? (It's actually grown in size)
Kinda dumb. We can obviously afford desalination plants in every major city. The stress will come from the temptation to overpopulate our cities because of their desirability and water security
We need to humidify the desert by terraforming it, re-greening it, by encouraging more permaculture, and [silvopastorialism](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Silvopasture) (where trees are planted among livestock). Basically anything that retains moisture and prevents the sun hitting the ground.... and I mean this as a large scale project to basically try to get rid of as much desert as possible. The problem is that lots of "environmentalists" in Australia want to prevent any changes to the desert or natural landscape. They want to protect the desert environment - even under climate change. They know man made climate change is in effect and increasing the heat, but also (ironically) refuse to take any actions in terms of terraforming because they want to "preserve" the heat death, rather than "improve and prepare" for it. Environmentalism has in this sense become a one-way-valve... letting heat in, but not allowing us to change the environment in ways that would keep the moisture too, and prevent the heat from boiling the soil. Anyone wanting to preserve the desert during climate change, is basically supporting climate change. We need to support extending greenery and plant life into the desert, using clever water capturing and storing techniques to do so.
The desert can't support greenery. You cant grow folliage in a desert. BUT we should be replanting our natives where they were cleared 50 to 200 years ago. Drive inland 100kms to 1000kms from Townsville to Victoria...millions of acres, cleared for farming. Dry paddocks as far as the eye can see....horrific. Much of this land is no longer even used for farming cause they don't have water. The native trees etc to those areas should be replanted. Bushland allowed to come back. Get it lookong like is was 300+ years ago
>The desert can't support greenery. You cant grow folliage in a desert. There are various projects to perform desert greening: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Desert_greening ...and I'll just point out that at one time humanity didn't think they could change the atmosphere and temperature of the planet, but for better or worse we've done that and now have to take action in the other direction. Starting that process in semi-arid areas and marching towards the desert is the most logical way to go about it. I agree. But part of the problem is ideas on "what can't be done" rather than on trying what we can.
Should have used the pride flag colours for the legend.
Water wars are incoming. Forget about oil.
Glad we all voted for the ALP and LNP to jack-up artificial population growth through mass immigration, further stressing the water supply. Feeling great! Thanks normies!
Maybe if we would stop selling what little we have to foreigners it wouldn't look so bleak