Asia-Pacific News
Howard urges Australians to pray for rain (Roundup)
Apr 19, 2007, 5:35 GMT
Sydney - Australians should pray for rain as the worst drought on record has parched the nation's prime agricultural land and put domestic supplies at risk, Prime Minister John Howard said Thursday.
Without heavy rains in the Murray-Darling basin in the next six weeks farmers won't get an allocation for irrigation so that townsfolk further down the river system can be assured of drinking water.
'It's a grim situation and there's no point in pretending to the Australian public otherwise,' Howard told reporters in Canberra. 'We must all hope and pray there is rain.'
Householders in major cities are already on tight water restrictions and these are likely to be tightened further to cope with a changing climate where temperatures are higher and rainfall is lower.
Murray-Darling farmers account for a third of agricultural production and three-quarters of irrigated acreage like vineyards and orchards.
Howard refused to say whether farmers whose wells were dry would be forced out of business.
'It will be another blow if it doesn't rain, that's self-evident, but I don't want to start using these apocalyptic terms in a general fashion,' Howard said. 'We know already that the drought has taken up to three-quarters to 1 per cent off our growth - the longer it goes on the harder the impact.'
New South Wales Irrigators Council chief executive Doug Miell said orchards of oranges, grapes, olives and almonds would not survive the hot summer without water pumped from the Murray-Darling.
'The quality of their produce, if there is any, will be a lot lower than it ever has been and I would suspect most of them would be struggling for income and struggling to survive,' Miell said.
Grape-grower Bill Caddy predicted the cut in water supplies would force many farmers off the land. 'If we don't get rain in the catchment areas we are going to be in diabolical trouble,' he said.
His alarm was echoed by Winemakers Federation chief Stephen Strachan, who said the country's next wine vintage could be crippled because over half of it was produced in the Murray-Darling.
Opposition Labor Party deputy leader Julia Gillard blamed the Howard government for the water crisis, saying its refusal to sign the Kyoto Protocol on curbing climate change was evidence of its indifference.
'Unless this country addresses the challenge of climate change, future water shortages and future droughts may go from bad to worse,' Gillard said. 'A mob of climate change sceptics can't fix climate change for this country.'
© 2007 dpa - Deutsche Presse-AgenturCOMMENT
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Older Talkback
page: 1
of course it is! on your knees and pray! pray geebus christ comes and saves your life!
Strewth - pray for rain. That should do the trick! Never thought of that one when my lawn went brown.
How hapless hopeless Howard has the gawl to tell us of the dire consequences of his stubbornness to tackle climate change years ago, is beyond my comprehension.
Generously assuming that the IPCC is right about the current change in global climate has an anthropogenic origin, and that is being VERY generous, and also assuming that everyone agreed to the Kyoto treaty and fervently adhered to it, Australia would still be experiencing this drought.
You see, we are talking about a very very large system and like all such systems it has an enormous amount of momentum. It will take at least as many years to reduce GHG concentrations as it did to increase them.
So what is the upshot? We are going to get hot and thirsty before this thing is sorted out. It is STUPID of us not to realize this and take appropriate steps to prepare for it. Just stopping the GHG increase will not put water in your bathtubs, Kids.
Noharness you are absolutely spot on. Still, the faithful may feel better if they get down on their knees and pray - why not throw in a few rain dances as well. Politicians and religion, the cause of all global strife, give me the squits and should be banned forthwith.
Survive Global Warming
We need to plan to survive global warming, survive climate change even though we know the ice caps are melting and the complete effect on climate change from the damage done to our atmosphere since 1970 will not be felt totally to around 2040 regardless of whether we are successful in reducing green house emission by up to 10% every year for the next ten years just to stop this cycle from getting worse. When will governments and corporations begin to accept our fate and begin to plan to survive global warming and to survive climate change.
While were all praying for rain lets pray for other things as well...
1) Pray that in this years election we will all vote for the political parties who are dedicated to solving climate problems.
2) Pray that inspite some sneaky tactics to force some Australians out of the electorate role we all respond in time and make each of us count by enrolling and electing correctly.(see www.getup.org.au)
3)Pray that we stop polluting the air byfrivolously digging up our natural resources to ship overseas to make the rubbish we buy for cheap to put in our house to throw away next year and save it to build our own industries and employ more Australians.
3) Pray that we all stop shopping at chain stores to buy cheap plastic rubbish to put in our homes because we realise that millions of under payed Chinese are suffering and have no rights as workers..including children and that China is a big polluter because of us!
5)Pray that we can all be bothered buying the right light buld, useing the half flush toilet and installing water tanks....(funded by the government please!)
6) And pray that once those water tanks are installed..pray for rain
page: 1
GeorgeRobsonApr 19th, 2007 - 07:58:48
Pray for Rain???
Do you think that's smarter than being a part of the Kyoto agreement?.
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