CAN OUR COMMUNITIES SURVIVE CLIMATE CHANGE? First published September 2019.
SURE, ARTIFICIAL, EXTERNALLY-FUNDED COMMUNITIES CAN SURVIVE in hostile environments; in Nevada, Dubai, Antarctica, for example, but what of our towns in Australia, when suddenly deprived of water?
Within three months of the start of this Queensland drought, water is being tankered-in to many townships.
The ramification of this current weather-stasis has not yet dawned on the Australian people. In particular, it has not impinged on the combined conscience of politicians. In general, it does not occupy space in newspapers, radio, television, or the internet. Yet.
Trucking water to a town! What? No alarm-bells ringing? No future foreseen?
Of course it had to be done: absolutely necessary, but the situation is more serious, the problem far greater than the immediate requirements of a township.
Extrapolate, extrapolate. Suppose this Queensland drought does NOT break. There is science to support open-endedness to this current climate period. There is no prediction of drought-breaking rain at any specific future. Right now, all media and policy should be focused on the possibility that water-supply is no longer guaranteed for the majority of settlements in Australia.
Not all centres of population are affected. The far North and South are at present beyond this Prolonged Weather Stasis pattern, and perhaps will receive higher-than-average rainfall. It is inevitable that these areas will suffer a major surge in growth due to the evacuation of waterless communities elsewhere. Curiously, the Northern Territory is losing population right now, perhaps because of the soaring temperatures of climate change, but its rainfall is so far guaranteed.
Bearing in mind the above, consider the ramification aspect.
Immediately, those towns shipping-in water will have reduced real-estate values. Likewise with fire-affected rural areas. The longer the drought, the worse the outlook. Jobs, infrastructure and population will disappear along with dam-levels Townships will become deserted within a surprisingly short time. It has happened before; there are ghost-towns in Australia, and some as a result of drought.
Disaster is already near for dairy farmers, and this is no fear-mongering, it is happening right now. Small-crops, nurseries and orchards are in immediate danger, and bores are running dry. What on Earth will replace bore-water?
Folk being what they are, hope will have the majority hanging-on in the dogged expectation of better times. And it would certainly take courage to assess the situation critically and calmly, and conclude that a quick exit would be wise and beneficial.
We have experienced terrible hope-destroying drought in Australia before; read Henry Lawson for the awful tragedy affecting selectors. But this drought and its cause may be a situation never-before experienced by Europeans, and may even be the reason the Aboriginal population became peripatetic, forsaking farm practice.
The frustratingly-variable rainfall we all experience in Australia, and are resigned to, may be on the cusp of change for the worse: a sudden and permanent decrease. It is possible that the country has been through many similar episodes, and that the cause is continent-wide and on-going burning by humans, for 50,000 years. (See blog: ‘Will it ever rain again in Qld?)
The drying episodes are self-accelerating. After each prolonged drought, that is, a drought of longer than six months or much more, the desiccation of soil-moisture reaches a depth such that even deep-rooted species fail, never to return. We are perhaps experiencing such a hiatus. We must include ourselves, as a deep-rooted species. There is a limit to our hanging-on. At present there are no agencies stating that the drought WILL break: it will rain again, but that’s not the same thing. Will the ground-water ever be replaced, the bores run as before?
As with other recent blogs on this vital and current theme, I hope to hell I’m wrong. It would be the most marvellous relief to be proved to be a fear-mongering idiot, as a vast weather system rolls across the entire continent carrying steady, solid rain for week after week. No good praying, no good wishing, no good putting down more bores. If the rain does come, plant trees, trees, trees. And NOT eucalypts. They are weeds, not trees.
Post Script, 12th December 2019: What a difference a few months makes to awareness of the severity of the situation. All news is now full of the drought. ABC news/weather yesterday mentioned ‘no break in the current pattern until April 2020. This is an increase by two months of the previous estimate. This putative date takes us past the period of our ‘normal’ summer rains and into what used to be the ‘dry’ winter.
The winter/summer rain patterns have broken down during the past decades; coastal Qld. and NSW no longer seem to experience the xmas thunderstorm deluges, nor the dry months of winter, although this concept is very much of the author’s memory. Nevertheless, should the dams and the soil continue desiccating, what then?
Seriously, no rain for a further five months, and an open-ended forecast, is a reason for drastic action by governments AND individuals. Think, think: what will YOU do?