From our newspaper
Editorial, Have Your Say page:
"Triple Soaking"
"Last time we experienced a triple-dip La Nina was 1998-2001
Victoria, Queensland and NSW all got drowned, as happens when these rarer events occur a few times in a century.
This time 20 years on, we've now got even more buildings, infrastructure and humans directly in the way of mother nature.
Following that last event we unfortunately entered strong El Nino conditions, bringing 10 years of terrible drought, death and destruction.
Australia imposed severe water restrictions and built huge desalination plants. But not dams.
We rarely learn from history.
Rob Burns, Modbury North"
Let me repeat one CRUCIAL point: BUT NOT DAMS
and why the heck not??
DAMS to capture the flooding rains, BEFORE homes and lives are lost. PIPELINES to redirect those flooding waters DAMS in drier areas, drier states, to be used by the people.
WHERE is the government that will do this to save our country?
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I wish I knew. And our current dams are already full. There is no room for more rain.
ReplyDeleteElephant's Child; brace yourself, more rain is coming. Which is why we need more dams around the country in every state and pipelines to move the water from overfull to dry areas. How can "they" not see this?
DeleteCertainly a huge problem. We haven't had a lot of rain where I live but they have down south. Our Northern Rivers flood as many other rivers flow into them.
ReplyDeleteMargaret D; I just wish "they" would do something about it.
DeleteDams are on their way out because they block migrating fish. In the US they are tearing dams down. Especially in the northwest.
ReplyDeleteMike; I'm talking about dams in the interior, we don't have a lot of rivers and having catchment dams with larger stormwater drains and pipelines to feed to drier states wouldn't block any fish. I don't think we have those anyway, not like your migrating salmon etc
DeleteThat´s how Ingo came to Braunschweig. His apartment flooded a second time in Rhüden and he´d had it.
ReplyDeleteNow they built one tiny dam.
So tiny my SIL´s house got flooded anyways. We do not learn or other: The government sits privately in safe houses and does not care.
I see Mike´s point for some, but in most places fish find a way.
We live far enough from RIver Oker (I hope - one street between us!), but if we get such an event... glad I can swim... or can I in such wild, dirty waters... reckon no.
Iris; I think you hit the nail on the head there: the government sits safely in their houses and don't see the problem. Yet year after year the floods are on the news and in the papers, how can they not see? We don't need dams in our few rivers, we need huge concrete dams built away from the cities with stormwater drains leading into them and pipelines leading out to the drier states. Building would be a HUGE job but there is a great opportunity for construction workers to have jobs there also.
DeleteYes, homes will be saved, jobs created.
DeleteWhat is so difficult about that?
Creating dams for water catchment and disbursement seems a no-brainer. Besides creating jobs it would solve two problems, flooding and drought. Think you ought to really bombard your politicians with the idea and see if you can't rally support. I don't know if the average citizen can write newspaper editorials but it would be a start. Good luck.
ReplyDeleteArkansas Patti; several people, including me, have written to the "Have your say" page often on this matter. Perhaps it's time to start writing to actual MPs instead.
DeleteClimate change is a huge problem everywhere. And solutions seem to be far from pols' minds as they feather their own nests.
ReplyDeleteXO
WWW
WWW; feathering their own nests won't do them much good when the world is in sever trouble, but that's a way off still and all they can see is the here and now of their fattening bank accounts.
DeleteI don't know enough about hydrology and population and wildlife in Australia to know if dams are the answer -- Arundhati Roy has nothing good to say about dam projects in India -- but all our governments are going to have to find ways to manage our increasingly extreme climates.
ReplyDeleteSteve; Australia is a huge country with an extremely dry interior, while cities are built around the coastline. Fly over via google earth and have a look. Building catchment dams in the states that annually flood and sending pipelines to dams in the dry areas so they can be populated and used seems like a great idea to me.
DeleteUnfortunately, like so many things, the obvious answers are not followed up because the projects take more time than the political cycle. Politicians are concerned with what they can do in the next couple of years so they can say "see what I did" and get re-elected. Dams are undoubtedly a long-term project. As for fish, isn't there something called a fish ladder that's used for migrating fish to bypass dams? But to your main point - YES, solutions are needed to counter climate change and they're needed as soon as possible.
ReplyDeletejenny_o; I'm pretty sure we don't have migrating fish here, there just aren't enough rivers or lakes. As for building dams etc, this is one area where the political parties should work together so no one party has to try and get anything done in "their" time.
DeleteI wish we knew the whole, real solution.
ReplyDeleteJoanne; even then we'd have to convince the politicians.
DeleteLike here, they see, but they cannot deal realistically with what they see. There's too much desire to get reelected to do the hard work of telling the people what they don't want to hear, making them (us) see what it's going to cost, and bracing ourselves to do it anyway.
ReplyDeletemessymimi; I think you are right, they cannot deal with what they see. So they create "smoke screens" to take our attention away from the big issues and promise us they will "fix" this and that, all the while hoping they can get away with it and we will forget.
Deletewell that just plum sucks..I hope that gets corrected soon..
ReplyDeleteyellowdoggranny; it's not likely to. Governments have been ignoring our drought/flood weather patterns since the first fleet almost. It seems no one is interested in budgeting for that amount of money or time, nor do they consider the jobs that will be created by the constructions necessary.
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