water

The 'densification' that planners push to accommodate overpopulation drives increasing water pollution risks, along with climate change.

Is this how our politicians and economists deal with water shortage?
Oliver Trymble of Uralla writes: "Dear All, I have just emailed the Premier and Barnaby Joyce to tell them that I am starting a social media campaign. (I don’t actually know how to do this, being the wrong generation...). Perhaps you can help.

Some of you may have heard a segment in 'Blueprint for Living' program last Saturday which dealt with water (identified as a finite resource) and in which population growth was mentioned but then went on to discuss several technical solutions and the economics of selling rural/agricultural water to cities where it could command a higher price.

To keep up with global food demand, the UN estimates, six million ha of new farmland will be needed every year. Instead, 12 million ha are lost every year through soil degradation. Australia lost 36 million ha of agricultural land in just the four years from 2005 till 2009.

The House Standing Committee on the Environment and Energy will hold a public hearing tomorrow for its inquiry into the management and use of Commonwealth environmental water.

The Committee will hear from the National Farmers’ Federation and the National Irrigators’ Council.

The inquiry is focused on the role of the Commonwealth Environmental Water Holder, including how environmental water is being used, the outcomes achieved and options for improving community engagement.

The Stanley Plateau nestled in the foothills of the Victorian Alps, is fighting for the right to preserve its water resources from extraction by a company that transports the water to a plant in Albury, across the border in NSW, for bottling. The bottled water from Stanley and surrounding areas is for domestic and overseas distribution processed by a multi-national company.

There is a humanitarian catastrophe unfolding in Syria and the "western" media ignore it. On December 22 al-Qaeda aligned Takfiris in the Wadi Barada valley shut down the main water supply for the Syrian capital Damascus. Since then the city and some 5-6 million living in and around it have to survive on emergency water distributions by the Syrian government.

Privatisation on the backfoot as new book shows that the growing wave of cities putting water back under public control has now spread to 37 countries impacting 100 million people.

Entirely predictably, the Murray Darling river system is toxic with effluent again, host to masses of poisonous cyanobacteria. As the Weekly Times reports, "WATER will be switched off to hundreds of farmers and town residents in the Mallee this week as the Murray River blue-green algae emergency worsens.

Thanks for the invitation to be involved in your recent Water leadership workshop. I enjoyed the experience.

Regarding my point about population in the notes you took and have reproduced below, I think your notes play down the problem and don’t reflect the entirely of what I said.

On the current trajectory Melbourne would be 8+ million by 2050- just 34 years away. And it is irresponsible to represent the issue as having any chance of stopping there.

Confused about what the US and NATO are doing about Syria? Not satisfied with explanations in the mainstream press? Worried that we are promoting more refugees instead of peace in the region? This article gives a very good simple overview of the history and society in Syria, regional religious pressures, recent events and politics, including water theft, background to ISIS, and Turkey's role in opening the refugee floodgates towards Europe. This article represents the text of a talk at a panel on Syrian refugees given by the author in the United States. You can read more of Judy's work on The Deconstructed Globe.

ALEPPO, SYRIA: We have received the following report, which attests to knowledge of ISIL using chlorine as a chemical weapon and controlling water supply from the Tishrin Dam on the Euphrates.

The plain truth:

- 10,000 years ago humans and our livestock occupied just 0.01% of all the land-air vertebrate biomass on earth.
- Now humans and our livestock occupy 97% of all land-air vertebrate biomass.
- Humans and our livestock now consume over 40% of earth’s annual green land biomass production.
- 1 million people born every 4½ days. People live longer.

This song contains photos from protests in multiple US states as well as some from Europe. The footage is very impressive. Music is a great way to communicate, so send this round if you want to help resist the technology that is fracking democracy as well as razing entire landscapes. Fracking costs more than it is worth in terms of production as well, according to Bloomberg. See inside.

This research is significant for Australians who, with government engineered population growth causing rising water costs, are attempting to recycle water in many ways. "Researchers have identified that the use of wastewater to irrigate vegetable crops, which is common across developing countries, may significantly contribute to deadly health risks such as rotavirus, a major cause of diarrhoeal diseases." (Report from Melbourne School of Land and Environment)

International Biodiversity Day May 22
Humans are appropriating too much water for their own needs and not leaving enough for the survival of other species, according to Sustainable Population Australia (SPA).

A study published by McGill University in Montreal and Utrecht University in the Netherlands, analyzed data from global ground water use against computer generated models of underwater aquifers and concluded that the "groundwater footprint" of reliable resources above ground is 3.5 times larger than
the known aquifers.

An Australian Farm Institute study provides a comprehensive review of what is currently known about the amount and location of Australian agricultural land, the rate of land use change occurring, and how governments make decisions both in Australia and internationally.

The period since the Murray-Darling Basin Authority released its guide to the proposed plan, nearly two years ago, has been marked by sustained outrage from all quarters.

Aussies take action! Lock the gate!" Australians to gather in Brisbane to defend water and land from coal and coal-seam gas fracking, which has already been totally banned in France. (See comments.) On Sunday October 16, 11a.m. Queens Park Cnr George & Elizabeth Sts. Brisbane City.

Andrew Chapman is calling for a Royal Commission into the Victorian (Wonthaggi) Desalination Plant. We publish here his comments and some early discussion. We also publish some correspondence with Tim Holding, the Minister for Water under the Brumby government. There seems to be wide support for a royal commission into the matter, which is perceived widely as corrupt.

Australia uses huge volumes of water to produce products for export, but cannot find enough water to keep its river systems alive.

Murray Darling Basin Authority (MDBA) – independent authority or rubber stamp?

ScienceDaily (Oct. 1, 2010) — The world's rivers, the single largest renewable water resource for humans and a crucible of aquatic biodiversity, are in a crisis of ominous proportions, according to a new global analysis.

Remember the lesson of the great Newfoundland cod fisheries. Rudyard Kipling’s Captains Courageous gives a description of fish so plentiful that the waters seethed with them. In 1977 Canada tried to stop the reduction of the cod stocks by declaring 320 kilometers off Newfoundland off limits to foreign factory ships. The local industry flourished, bringing prosperity to Newfoundland.

National public water rights and environmental advocacy group Fair Water Use is encouragedby the broad recommendations made in the guide to the draft Basin Plan released earlier today by the Murray Darling Basin Authority, but is concerned that Federal and