S
Stay The Course
Guest
SYDNEY (AFP) - An unprecedented drought that has withered Australia's
major food production zone could be a taste of things to come as
global warming ramps up, experts said Friday.
Prime Minister John Howard, who said the six-year drought was so
extreme the country's prime farmland could be left without irrigation
water this year, has refused to blame the crisis directly on climate
change.
"I recognise the ongoing debate about the link between the two things
and I don't vary from that," he said Thursday, announcing that the
country faced an "unprecedentedly dangerous" drought crisis.
But scientists said the link between climate change and the drying up
of rivers in the vast Murray-Darling Basin, which threatens the
survival of Australia's prime agricultural zone, was strengthening.
"You can't say that definitively, but I guess on the balance of
evidence from southern Australia, rainfall patterns appear to have
shifted," Adelaide University's Professor of Natural Resources Science
Wayne Meyer said.
"There's no question about the evidence in terms of increased
temperature. We have seen this persistent increase in temperature over
the last 30 or 50 years. All the projections are that that will
continue."
Meyer said Australia, with its warm climate, vast deserts and lack of
mountains, would be one of the first countries in the world to be hit
by the hardships caused by global warming.
"We are the ones that are going to be at the forefront because we're
less buffered," he told AFP.
The Murray-Darling basin in southeastern Australia covers more than
one million square kilometres (386,000 square miles), including most
of New South Wales state and large parts of Victoria, Queensland and
South Australia.
Containing 72 percent of Australia's irrigated crops and pastures and
much of the nation's grape crop, it is regarded as the country's food
basket.
Farmers say that unless drenching rains fall within weeks, the drought
will devastate grape, citrus, stonefruit and apple production, cripple
the wine industry and see food prices soar.
"Well, we'll never prove it's climate change until after the event but
a lot of farmers have said this drought has the fingerprints of
climate change all over it," the government's Murray-Darling Basin
Commission chief Wendy Craik said.
As the country debates further water restrictions for major cities,
building desalination plants to provide fresh water, and even
transplanting farms to the tropical north, the opposition has attacked
the government for its previous climate change scepticism.
"It's not the Howard government's fault in itself. I mean Mr. Howard
can't make it rain, I understand that," Labor Party leader Kevin Rudd
told the Australian Broadcasting Corporation.
"But for half a decade or more the government has been in a state of
denial on climate change and water."
Environmental historian Daniel Connell said it was irrelevant whether
the current water shortage was a result of the drought or global
warming -- cultural change was now needed to ensure water was used
more efficiently.
"This is an indication of what's going to happen in the future," the
Australian National University academic told AFP.
"These are the sorts of conditions we need to be able to manage.
Society has got to change its attitude to water and how it uses
water."
http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/2007042...environment;_ylt=AgDSCWz0gQlQ4ms6h_3sI1kEtbAF
major food production zone could be a taste of things to come as
global warming ramps up, experts said Friday.
Prime Minister John Howard, who said the six-year drought was so
extreme the country's prime farmland could be left without irrigation
water this year, has refused to blame the crisis directly on climate
change.
"I recognise the ongoing debate about the link between the two things
and I don't vary from that," he said Thursday, announcing that the
country faced an "unprecedentedly dangerous" drought crisis.
But scientists said the link between climate change and the drying up
of rivers in the vast Murray-Darling Basin, which threatens the
survival of Australia's prime agricultural zone, was strengthening.
"You can't say that definitively, but I guess on the balance of
evidence from southern Australia, rainfall patterns appear to have
shifted," Adelaide University's Professor of Natural Resources Science
Wayne Meyer said.
"There's no question about the evidence in terms of increased
temperature. We have seen this persistent increase in temperature over
the last 30 or 50 years. All the projections are that that will
continue."
Meyer said Australia, with its warm climate, vast deserts and lack of
mountains, would be one of the first countries in the world to be hit
by the hardships caused by global warming.
"We are the ones that are going to be at the forefront because we're
less buffered," he told AFP.
The Murray-Darling basin in southeastern Australia covers more than
one million square kilometres (386,000 square miles), including most
of New South Wales state and large parts of Victoria, Queensland and
South Australia.
Containing 72 percent of Australia's irrigated crops and pastures and
much of the nation's grape crop, it is regarded as the country's food
basket.
Farmers say that unless drenching rains fall within weeks, the drought
will devastate grape, citrus, stonefruit and apple production, cripple
the wine industry and see food prices soar.
"Well, we'll never prove it's climate change until after the event but
a lot of farmers have said this drought has the fingerprints of
climate change all over it," the government's Murray-Darling Basin
Commission chief Wendy Craik said.
As the country debates further water restrictions for major cities,
building desalination plants to provide fresh water, and even
transplanting farms to the tropical north, the opposition has attacked
the government for its previous climate change scepticism.
"It's not the Howard government's fault in itself. I mean Mr. Howard
can't make it rain, I understand that," Labor Party leader Kevin Rudd
told the Australian Broadcasting Corporation.
"But for half a decade or more the government has been in a state of
denial on climate change and water."
Environmental historian Daniel Connell said it was irrelevant whether
the current water shortage was a result of the drought or global
warming -- cultural change was now needed to ensure water was used
more efficiently.
"This is an indication of what's going to happen in the future," the
Australian National University academic told AFP.
"These are the sorts of conditions we need to be able to manage.
Society has got to change its attitude to water and how it uses
water."
http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/2007042...environment;_ylt=AgDSCWz0gQlQ4ms6h_3sI1kEtbAF
