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Australia On the Frontline of Climate Change
The burning issue Australia's leaders dare not confront
Irrigated by one of the world's mightiest river systems, the Murray-Darling Basin yields nearly half of Australia's fresh produce. But the basin is ailing, and scientists fear that as climate change grips the driest inhabited continent, its main foodbowl could become a global warming ground zero.
Reports suggest that inflow to the Murray-Darling Basin is at an all-time low. (Getty images) The signs are already ominous: in the Riverland, one of the nation's major horticulture areas, dying vines and parched lemon trees attest to critical water shortages. Farmers have had their water allocations slashed during the recent crippling drought; 200 sold up, and many of those who hung on are struggling.
In Renmark, the region's oldest town, tales of hardship abound. Some families have spent their life savings; others are drowning in debt.
At one school, children have reportedly been stealing packed lunches from classmates. "That's how bad things have got, and I know people in those circumstances," says Jim Belehris, an almond grower.
Since the 1880s, when Europeans settled in the Riverland and began irrigating its arid soil, fruit and vegetable producers have depended on the broad River Murray. However, the river is in a sorry state, and this once lush area - at the southern end of the sprawling Murray-Darling Basin - faces a bleak future.
The picture is similar across the million-square-kilometre basin, which consists of vast inland plains crisscrossed by the Murray, Darling and numerous other rivers and tributaries. The reasons are complex.
The past half-century has witnessed an enormous - and officially sanctioned - over-extraction of water. The river system, which straddles four states and one territory, has been badly mismanaged. Falling commodity prices - and a glut of wine grapes - have exacerbated farmers' woes.
But it was the decade-long drought, the worst for more than 100 years, that tipped the balance. It also brought the basin's plight to public attention, with its images of skeletal cattle in cracked, brown paddocks and broad waterways reduced to muddy trickles.
And such spectacles, scientists say, will become increasingly common in Australia as the planet heats up.
According to the country's Department of Climate Change, global warming will trigger more frequent and severe droughts, as well as more devastating bushfires, cyclones and floods. The government's main scientific body, the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organisation, says there is growing evidence that lower rainfall in south-eastern Australia is linked to global climate change.
Since 1910, the average temperature has risen by about 1C. Professor Anne Henderson-Sellers, a research fellow at Sydney's Macquarie University and a former director of the United Nations' World Climate Research Programme, says: "Australia is extremely vulnerable. Global warming is going to have an extraordinarily detrimental effect on us, more than on any other developed nation."
The challenges facing Australia include managing scarce water resources at a time of rapid population growth, and ensuring food security in a continent with only six per cent arable land. Because of its importance, and its precarious condition, the Murray-Darling Basin could become a flashpoint.
The government's climate change advisers have warned that agricultural production there could fall by 92 per cent by 2100.
Now, with Saturday's federal election looming, and following years of official inertia, the basin has become a political tug-of-war.
The Labor Prime Minister, Julia Gillard, and the opposition Liberal Party leader, Tony Abbott, have both promised millions of dollars to restore the river system - and the unique wetlands at the mouth of the Murray - to health.
Climate change, though, has barely rated a mention in the run-up to polling day. Both the main parties have ruled out a carbon tax; Ms Gillard has been ridiculed for proposing a "citizens' assembly" to gauge public support for an emissions trading scheme (ETS).
Kevin Rudd, who came to power in 2007 promising robust action on climate change, saw his popularity plummet after deferring an ETS. That led to Ms Gillard deposing him in June and calling an early election.
But her government has sidelined the issue - apparently afflicted by the same timidity that has prevented the global community from agreeing meaningful carbon emission reduction targets.
South Australia, Australia's driest state, is where the Murray ends its journey after winding through New South Wales and Victoria. South of Adelaide it spills into two freshwater lakes and into the internationally significant Coorong wetlands before exiting into the ocean. That, at least, is the theory.
Thanks to minuscule water flows, the Murray has not reached the sea since 1996, and only continual dredging has kept the mouth open.
The two lakes and the Coorong's lagoons have grown increasingly saline, threatening the numerous species of birds, fish and other creatures - some of them endangered - that rely on the mingling of sea and river water.
The casualties include hundreds of long-necked turtles, killed by a parasitic worm that thrives in salty water.
Garry Hera-Singh lives at Meningie, on the banks of Lake Albert, and has fished commercially all his life, like his father and grandfather before him. But the area where he catches yellow eye mullet, flounder, black bream and mulloway has shrunk by two-thirds.
The remaining waters are up to five to seven times saltier than the sea. "Nothing grows or lives in it; it's just a preservative," he says. "The whole eco-system is on life support. Salinity is gradually engulfing it, like a cancer."
In his youth, Mr Hera-Singh would see "huge flocks of birds that blacked out the sky". Not any more. When plenty of fresh water was flushing through, the region was alive with fish and aquatic weeds and insects.
"All I've seen lately is a massive loss of life. Watching the place die a slow death, as I have for the last 40 years - it makes you weep."
Once, there were dozens of dairy farmers around Meningie, irrigating their pastures with water from Lake Albert. Just a handful remain. Most gave up during the drought, which saw Albert - and its neighbour, Lake Alexandrina - recede by hundreds of metres, and fall below sea level for the first time in 7,000 years.
Lesley Fischer was forced to sell 700 cattle. She recalls desperately tough times. "We did whatever we could to keep our stock alive. We crawled on our bellies through the mud, to take pipes out to the lake. But there was that much salt in the water, it was making the cattle dehydrated.
"It was terrible, what happened to families around here. It got to the stage where a lot of the wives were watching each other's husbands. If you knew the wife was away, you'd ring up and make sure they were OK. Because those men, it was their life and they could see it disappearing in front of their eyes."
In the Riverland, north-east of Adelaide, the government is buying back growers' water licences in an attempt to relieve pressure on the Murray. Some farmers have taken up an offer of Aus$150,000 (£86,000) to relocate; first, though, they had to bulldoze their trees and pull out their vines.
Jim Belehris planted every one of his 10,000 almond trees - currently a profusion of pink blossom - himself.
But if nothing improves over the next five years, he will turn off the water and let them die. As for the next generation, he vows: "I'll burn those trees before I let my kids go anywhere near them."
Some believe that the Riverland - and other parts of the basin with marginal rainfall - should never have been farmed.
Water-intensive crops such as rice and cotton are grown in places that, without irrigation, would be virtual desert.
Mr Hera-Singh says: "The Romans and the Aztecs tried this thousands of years ago and failed."
He is cynical about the latest political promises. "They should have done something a long time ago, instead of waiting until communities were brought to their knees."
Facing competing demands from agriculture, industry, the environment and even cities - Adelaide depends on it for drinking water in drought times - the Murray is dying from the bottom up.
Along its banks, ancient red river gums have toppled over. The situation is particularly painful for the local Ngarrindjeri people. To them, the Coorong - sometimes called the "lungs of the Murray" - is a sacred creation site where their totems (native birds and creatures) breed.
Matt Rigney, chairman of a group of traditional owners, says: "There used to be 250 species of birds that would come into the beautiful mixed waters of the Coorong estuary.
"Everything was growing and alive there. Now, it's a pure saltwater system. It's very distressing. Our elders are getting sick, and a lot put it down to what's happening to our environment."
Despite temporary relief brought by water flowing down from floods in northern Australia, the prognosis for the Murray is grim. "This is a massive environmental disaster on our own doorstep," says Ms Fischer.
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44 Comments so far
Show AllAnd Australis is increasing it's coal exports to China
but hey, making money from coal mining trumps every other concern.
Australia's PM Kevin Rudd, the most popular PM in generations, was forced to resign because he dared suggest a tax on the largest iron ore and coal mining companies. The subsequent smear program funded by the miners had nothing to do with Rudd's resignation, of course. Australia is going to the voting booth this weekend because of his insolence. Imagine proclaiming that mining corporations profit from extracting minerals that belong to ALL Australians?
This tragedy is as old as the first time man first took a plow to the Earth.
Yes there Global Climate change but there are also lands being used for purposes the ecosystem simply can not support.
Mesopotamia has never recovered from the intensive agriculture of 6000 years ago. Easter Island is still treeless.
When one drives by farms wherein crops grow ONLY because of irrigation, then one should be concerned as it suggests the ecosystem NOT suited for such a purpose.
Man must adapt to what Nature provides rather then try and remake the Earth in our image.
This is true. Even in the American Southwest where Indians used 'responsible' irrigation they had periods of draught when the whole culture had to dry up or move elsewhere. I would say the the agricultural revolution was a bad turn for the human species. It was the first indication that our large brains were a dead end. I doubt if our species will last half as long as the Neanderthal.
Everything we do has a flipside. The company I work for builds drilling equipment for geothermal energy. It sounds too good to be true to believe there are only upsides. Nothing has only an upside. Sometimes the downside is just obscured.
The planet is dying because man overpopulated. As simple as that. It's time to stop the madness. One child per couple, maximum. Eligibility for immigration to families and individuals with one child maximum. The rest must stay where they are and face the consequences of their silliness. We cannot absorb the consequences of China's and India's bad population decisions.
yeah boy, let's keep our dependence on fossil fuels up, pump more chemicals into the environment, produce more people than this planet can sustain, expand our economies until there is nothing left of this good earth, then leave the whole mess to nature for a thorough cleansing....
In a few years these problems will solve themselves. It will be musical chairs of perhaps 1 billion chairs... ok 7-point-some-billion humans... let's dance... the music starts... when it stops, each grab a chair... the rest die.
You don't seem to be aware of the consequences of global warming.
An earth with acid, anoxic, dead oceans, uninhabitably hot and dry continental ineriors, and atmosphereic oxygen levels declining to as low as 13 percent, won't support ANY human population to speak of. Please look up "Permian-Triassic" extinction.
The sceintists, conservative by nature, will not give specific scenarios like this, becasue they are advised not to sound "alarmist." But they wouldn't be so concerned if the only consequences of AGW were the relatively mild near-term stuff like sea level rises and more frequenst weather disasters - as bad as they are.
And your contempt of the people of the developing world is absolutely vile. Please go away.
SABO: We agree on this issue. Mr. Edwards has sought to dominate other climate change CD threads with his inane arguments in support of the very status quo that is killing all ecological life-support systems. As if wisdom attaches to the position that asks us to conspire towards our own collective suicide.
I don't support the status quo, you do. Oil is not killing the ecology. YOU are. As paradoxial as it sounds, but by breeding, humanity is exactly committing that 'collective suicide' you speak of. You hate oil because you don't understand how to use a resource properly. Even water will kill you, if you drink too much. There is nothing bad about the resource. What is bad is the abuse and the waste. If humanity had never discovered it, there still would only be at most a billion, and the planet would still be healthy. But then again, none of you complainers are truthful enough to yourself to live without it's use. You are hypocrites. You think that standing on your soapbox and shouting into the streets will absolve you from your crimes against the planet. It will not. And I hope you don't have children, because you will have contributed to an awful future they will have to face. CO2 is the least of your problems. Believe me. Your children will not make it to the proverbial "ripe old age". And that's the reality.
They're not consequences of global warming. They are consequences of overbreeding. Had humans not overbred to 700% of what's sustainable, this planet would be just fine. But I still do not see any of you talk about sustainable population levels. You want to cut CO2, but you want to keep breeding and multiplying at the same time. Silly humans. It is human greed which permeates everything and destroys everything in its path.
You deal with the symptoms, I deal with the causes. The planet is dying because of humanity.
"And your contempt of the people of the developing world is absolutely vile. Please go away."
I don't have contempt for the people of the developing world. I have contempt for globalization. I have contempt for human inability to see beyond today, which has led us to this point. How many children do you have or plan to have? How many grandchildren? You're all at fault.
Every modern irrigation system that turns back to desert has three causes:
First is climate change, these days.
Second, an enormous population descends on the river valley and takes up all the water in plentiful times. Then comes the drought.
Third is corruption. Around the world, crooks steal water. They always waste it on water-intensive crops and leave the cities high and dry. Nobody charges them what the first few gallons of water are actually worth, to the tourism industry wiped out by environmental destruction, or to the people drinking the water downstream.
"Water-intensive crops such as rice and cotton are grown in places that, without irrigation, would be virtual desert."
Notwithstanding global warming concerns, this, clearly, is madness, and yet Australia is not the only place this has occurred. Uzbekistan, where the planting of cotton has led to the imminent death of its portion of the Aral Sea, is one example. (A World Bank project funded the construction of a dam dividing the sea in the 90s. The northern part, controlled by Kazakhstan, is doing better thanks to improved irrigation techniques and management.) In Uzbekistan, there have been many health consequences from the agricultural runoff (fertilizers, pesticides) that has turned to dust. And Uzbekistan continues to extract water for cotton. It has a plan to explore for oil under the dry sea bed....
Colonial powers organized water schemes that provided water for growing water-intensive crops to deserts or near-deserts in places like Pakistan and Chad, and in recent years the World Bank has lent money for similar irrigation schemes in countries like Mali. (Dams and irrigation schemes are a favorite of the WB, because they are big, and generally offer a quick return on investment.)
They have worked in the short term. In the long term, as most of us know, countries are withdrawing more water from aquifers than is being replaced. Many irrigation schemes result in the salination of the land. Also, cultivating a fragile desert soil can result in huge soil losses.
For more about this, a great source is Fred Pearce's "When The Rivers Run Dry." Very readable, highly recommended. Why not track it down at your library?
Cotton covers 2.5% of the world's cropland, but consumes 16% of the world's insecticides, more than any other crop. Genetically-modified cotton is supposed to reduce the amount of pesticides used, but is controversial for obvious and not-so-obvious reasons and has led to farmer suicides in India, In the long term its lowered pesticide benefit may dwindle and even disappear.
Meanwhile cotton is so cheap that I can see denim skirts and jackets in my town's newspaper adverts (from H&M, the discount Swedish clothing company) on sale for $10. What is wrong with this picture?
An another example of prime stupidity, don't forget the growing of rice (and other unsustainable crops) in California's Central Valley. The upshot of this is that all water is harvested before it reaches Mexico, with profound implications for Mexican farmers. Yet this might be a good thing; all fertilizer and poisons that are washed down stream are accumulating in the Salton Sea, at least spatially confining this toxic cocktail.
I keep thinking that I may see a version of Frank Herbert's "Dune" in my lifetime.
The burning of rice every year in the central valley is a disaster for those who try to breathe the air. It effects everyone, including those in Sacramento. I know, I lived there for 10 years. Rice growing does nothing for anyone but those 'farmers' getting richer with their monoculture and greedy growing methods.
Your geography is a bit off, california's central valley is irrigated with water from the San Joaquin river from Fresno and the American river from further north, there are more rivers than this, but regardless they empty into San Francisco bay. The Current Salton Sea was created by a swollen Colorado River in 1905 that broke through levies and took 2 years to seal the breaks. Two totally separate water systems. The Colorado does or did empty into the Gulf of Baja. Most of that water is stolen by Arizona and So. Cal.
Thanks for the correction. It is too late to update my post.
"Uzbekistan, where the planting of cotton has led to the imminent death of its portion of the Aral Sea, is one example. (A World Bank project funded the construction of a dam dividing the sea in the 90s. The northern part, controlled by Kazakhstan, is doing better thanks to improved irrigation techniques and management.) In Uzbekistan, there have been many health consequences from the agricultural runoff (fertilizers, pesticides) that has turned to dust. And Uzbekistan continues to extract water for cotton. It has a plan to explore for oil under the dry sea bed...."
One point: the drying and death of the Aral Sea dates back to Stalin and Stalin's idiocy and totalitarianism. His plans to use the Syr Darya and Amu Darya, the 2 feeder rivers of the Aral Sea, to irrigate crops such as cotton, rice, fruits were known by Soviet scientists to have serious detrimental effects on the Aral Sea, but they did not dare to really protest.
"Meanwhile cotton is so cheap that I can see denim skirts and jackets in my town's newspaper adverts (from H&M, the discount Swedish clothing company) on sale for $10. What is wrong with this picture?"
This is a case of swings and roundabouts though. Replace cotton with what? Synthetic fibres? Sounds great, until you think about what is needed to produce synthetic fibres. How does cotton compare to flax / linen in terms of water consumption, I wonder? And how to animal fibres such as wool, silk, and also leather. Leather of course, brings up another host of issues; wool to a similar but lesser extent.
Also, cotton is a very very versatile fabric material. Depending on how it is weaved, it can be turned into a whole range of fabric types: from denim to fine types that are as fine as silk.
Hemp is also a very versatile fabric material. It does not require intense growing methods. Worth thinking about.
Rejected for political reasons. It would be a great material and, as I understand it, is not as demanding as cotton plants.
You are of course correct, there is nothing wrong with cotton and it is a very versatile fiber. The problem is not with using cotton to clothe ourselves. The problem is that we have a system which squeezes profits out of poor workers in third-world countries and devastates their landscapes in order that we can have cheap clothing, disposable at our whim. The price of cotton does not reflect its real cost, the "externalities" that economists are fond of referring to.
I choose to respond to this situation in several ways. I don't buy new clothing, with the exception of underwear and the very occasional winter coat. Or if the new clothing is organically grown, I consider that ok. I shop at the Unique Thrift store not far from my apartment. You have to pick through the racks. I even found a pair of dress slacks there suitable for 'formal' occasions-- as formal as I get, anyway. I'm not sure they were ever worn-- symptomatic of our age.
And I agitate for fairer agricultural and labor policies. It's what I have arrived at-- others may choose to follow a different path...
Agreed, when I go to thrift stores, it seems a lot of the donated stuff on the racks was enver worn at all. Sport-coats are almost always like new.
Linen and Hemp are better and more durable than cotton. Without really researching it, I have a feeling that cotton perhaps became the dominant 'fiber' due to the slave trade which boosted the cotton industry.
I don't know much about how hemp handles as a fabric, but I don't agree with your contention about linen vs cotton.
Cotton's strength is its versatility. If you want it to be tough and durable, it can be woven so. If you want to be fine, soft, and lustrous, you can weave it to be so. Go into a good tailor / fabric shop, and take a look at their swatch books, at the humongous array of different types of cotton fabrics that exist. Or if you can, a cotton mill.
Linen is much less versatile.
I agree with much of what you say.
Anecdotal comment: After about 10 years of trying to get a water toy I invented to market, I got a contract with an Australian toy company to produce it (in China, of course). They did a nice job on it (kids like it, it is quite durable, needs no batteries, not made in sweat shops, educational for curious minds, first alteration of Archimedes' concept in 2,500 years), and the gizmos were ready to go. Then the Big Drought struck, and all swimming pools across Australia were closed! No receipts to show the Big Boys here in the U.S., to prove the saleability of the product. I considered myself an early victim of global warming.
I'm also an early victim of resource depletion, with helium escalation of prices, depletion of this limited resource, for my other project, involving airships. Not crying here, just noting that we're all headed in the same direction. I think change is possible, but I sure don't see enough of it!
(My sites, should you be interested: www.aquaglider.us and www.hyperblimp.com.)
Hi Daniel,
I like the blimp and the water glider. I sent links for them to my kids. The oldest one, who's getting ready to pursue graduate math studies, sent me these links. Thought you might like them!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F_citFkSNtk
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UxPzodKQays
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jPGgl5VH5go
mankind is mad. absolutely FING MAD.
when we we learn?
Perhaps after the cull.
The link to this article "Climate change brings once bountiful Australia to its knees" is slightly disingenuous. Climate change has certainly played a role in the problems farmers are facing in the Murray river basin; however, it should be noted that sections close to the basin that scientists had deemed unsuitable for mass farming had water diverted to them for the production of unsustainable, resource intensive crops. Thus, "bountiful" Australia was an aberration in history.
If anyone is interested, here is another article on this subject from National Geographic. The article originally had a map that showed the areas of the Murray river basin that were suitable for crops, and it showed the sprawl around it where farming had unsustainably spread.
http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/2009/04/murray-darling/draper-text/1
I don't know if they grow apples and oranges in Australia, but the ones in your comment look like they could use some distinction fertilizer.
Good comments.
Let's connect some dots, shall we?
The recent high temperatures in Russia have significantly diminished grain production, and Russia will not be exporting this year.
This article explains how Australia is seeing a decimation of some of its crops due to water shortages.
The Gulf of Mexico is not going to recover as quickly as the PR people would have us believe. The loss of plankton associated with oil/corexit will have major impacts up and through the food chain.
Pakistan has lost a good deal of its harvest to recent cataclysmic floods. Ditto, Haiti.
These are just some of the more dramatic events in the news this year, but taken in sum they point to food shortages.
What sickens me most is the likely fact that commodities brokers on Wall St will play fiscal havoc by gaming prices in an already increasingly food-scarce world.
I would like to see ALL trades in futures of basic food staples rendered illegal. With all the influences pitted against them, impoverished 3rd world mothers don't need some vultures on Wall St further liberating them from the prospect of a simple subsistence meal for them or their children.
And yet the fact is people in Africa will starve so that Goldman Sachs can manipulate the commodities markets.
And then, we all shout 'lets do something about Global Warming', and Goldman Sachs stands up and, without a shred of embarrasment, yells 'lets create a market in carbon!'.
Yup. You got it. Goldmann Sachs LOVES carbon trade and carbon tax. It will result in the most rapid depopulation this world has ever seen.
Can you cite an economic analysis that shows this?
Oil prices have already gone up thousands of percent over the past 4 decades (at OPEC's founding, they set their price at $2.50 per barrel), and I have heard of no food cost or security issues arising out of it.
What about the loss of most of the earths arable land from AGW?
And finally, who are you, and why do you come her to comment solely on AGW articles, solely during work hours on weekdays?
Some would say... what we need is a carbon tax, so that food prices go through the roof, and billions of the world's poorest die off, as envisioned by some of the world's "green"-billionaires.
South Australia's drought woes could be remedied by widely deploying Atmospheric Vortex Engines along the shores of Spencer's and St. Vincent's Gulfs, eventually building them inland as the coastal areas became wetter.
http://vortexengine.ca
By slowly expanding the "forest" of vortices near the coast and inland, the prevailing westerly winds would become humid enough to provide cooling cloud cover and eventually rain to the M-D headlands during the fall, winter and spring.
The whole process of "reverse desertification" would take less than twenty years after which life would return to "normal".
But unfortunately, TPTB in Australia, not to mention the environmentalists, appear to be totally ignorant of this possibility.
"Are humans smarter than yeast?"--indeed!
I like your posts about the AVE, an idea that I had for years, but of course, everyone told me I was crazy. Anyway, since reading your posts here on CD, I have done some research on AVE's (to my delight, there are actually others who had the same thinking) and I, also, think it is time to put more money into research and tweak-out the unforeseen problems.
I got the idea as a teenager while climbing up a huge "golf ball" shaped water tower. There was a passageway that went right through the center of it to a hatch at the top. Whe the hatch was opened, there was a huge and steady rush of wind blowing upward. So, I sat down and thought about it and WALLAH, something similar to the AVE came to mind. So, for almost 30 years I have tried to tell people about this idea and like I stated earlier, everyone told me I was crazy.
PS - I doubt that humans, on average, are smarter than yeast, but definitely more greedy.
I like your posts about the AVE, an idea that I had for years, but of course, everyone told me I was crazy. Anyway, since reading your posts here on CD, I have done some research on AVE's (to my delight, there are actually others who had the same thinking) and I, also, think it is time to put more money into research and tweak-out the unforeseen problems.
I got the idea as a teenager while climbing up a huge "golf ball" shaped water tower. There was a passageway that went right through the center of it to a hatch at the top. Whe the hatch was opened, there was a huge and steady rush of wind blowing upward. So, I sat down and thought about it and WALLAH, something similar to the AVE came to mind. So, for almost 30 years I have tried to tell people about this idea and like I stated earlier, everyone told me I was crazy.
PS - I doubt that humans, on average, are smarter than yeast, but definitely more greedy.
"Water-intensive crops such as rice and cotton are grown in places that, without irrigation, would be virtual desert."
As elsewhere, this is an effect determined by profit: for reasons of distant markets, someone made more money destroying the land than raising what might have grown sustainably.
Fans of "the invisible hand of the market" might decide that "Oh, those people were just foolish." But if people are just foolish, by our nature, then a social or economic system ought to take that into account and not demand universal cleverness.
In reality, though, many of those farmers may have had little choice. When unsustainable profits make property values spike, any farmer with a recent mortgage has to gross over a certain amount or lose title to the land, whatever stewardship might suggest. The result is not just the cruelty of making individual farmers bet on commodities and bet on the rain and the frost, but the certain eventual loss of the services of the land to the entire community as individuals move to protect themselves.
If you hear about "the invisible hand of the market," sleep on your back and on your wallet.
Nicely stated, bardamu.
If we lose our small farmers.....
Let us support them in any way we can, wherever we are.
Tragic. History is replete with nations which failed due to environmental collapse. Why don't we learn from them?
Natural Selection works on individuals, or on large groups that don't plan ahead for their food production:
http://www.darwinawards.com/darwin/
Don't forget that Australia started out as a prison for Great Britain's dumbest criminals - not a good foundation for tackling the 21st centuries biggest problems.