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90 comments on Australia: The Place To Be (Part 1)
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90 comments on Australia: The Place To Be (Part 1)
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GAIA Host Collective
Very insightful mate!
Australia has few more problems than that though. The massive immigration of people who know nothing of the land since the time of your grandmother. However not to say this cannot be fixed if there was some decent minded people (Australia is chocked full of them) and teach.
The main concern I have towards Australia is that the water that is there... May not be there in the future. You read the recent articles about 60 year drouts in the USA southwest what is to stop that from occurring in the Direst Vegitated Continent on earth?
Australia is in a good position to do Nuclear power however. I do think it is a just thing to do. Australia has little to no seismic hazard only one volcano that is fricken old. So why not do it? As you said the Desal takes lots of power so use nuclear to power it using ocean water to cool it,. The tasman is bloody cold enough :)
I look forward to seeing your next post :)
Hello from Brisbane,
As an immigrant, I can easily see that Australia, in comparison to the USA and Europe, has a much better ratio between its population and national resources.
So, this country really is a big bar of Cadbury chocolate.
The problem I can see is that we are surrounded with countries like Indonesia, Malaysia, India.. that all have a 100 million people or more. When things in those countries get hairy, and crowded rafts with hungry and desperate refugees start arriving to Australian shores, the question is, what are we going to do? How to stop them? With megaphones? With machine guns? I don't think so, and I don't want to believe in such scenario. But it keeps bugging me.
I'm glad Miroslave is bringing this to the fore: every place on earth with a relative abundance in the coming squeeze is going to see an ever growing influx of the deprived, the sick, and the destitute, even from different continents.
Dear David, a hat tip to your honest presentation of the 'mild' Ozzy predicament, but I think you're trusting on your splendid isolation too much.
Miroslav is putting the obvious question: what are you going to do, when they're coming in droves? There'll be too many of them to put into 'guarded camps'. You'll feel obliged to feed them, and this will bring on more and more to your shores.
Megaphones will not scare them away, for they are starving and desperate. The MSM will bring their sorrows into your very homes, and people inclined to charity will clash on your very streets with the hard-liners, who, in the end, will opt for gunning those rafts at sea.
In ten years time the Ozzy population may double, and then your supplies will dwindle two times faster, than you're exspecting today.
Yes, it's the ultimate question, but a little premature. But, maybe, in five years or less, the 'haves' are going to make a stand, to protect their shores and borders against a stealthy invasion of the 'have-nots'. On the Mexican border they're building a wall, already, as others did in Palestine.
The future will not bring 'interesting times', prepare for them to be outright terrible, with horrible decisions to be made by otherwise agreeable people. I'm afraid we'll become really scared by ourselves in the end.
I'm looking forward to your next article.
Ronald
Lagedargent has brought up very good points. We need to understand the situation - Australia is NOT an isolated land.
Well, if I'm not too wrong, within 15-25 years, Australia might become the biggest refuge camp in history. Our current population is 21 million. This can double. Or triple.
This is the problem. Do we have a moral right (we, the 21 million people) to keep this entire continent, with the size of Europe, only for ourselves? No. But, are we able to welcome 20+ million people and give them SUVs, air cons, swimming pools, K-Marts, Medicare cards and Centrelink..? Again, NO. It's not sustainable. A good news is that potential refugees could live without SUVs and air cons, because they already live without them. I think our government should have a plan. The plan does not need to be exposed to the public, but it would be fair if the government (Howard's or Rudd's, it doesn't matter) simply says "yes, we are aware of this, and we do have a plan".
The way how I see it, Australia might have to draw a line between, say, Perth and Darwin, which is almost 50% of WA, and say: "OK, if you get here in a bathtub, we're not gonna send you back, we'll give some basic infrastructure, some petrol, some food, medicaments, vehicles, etc. but from that point you'll be on your own. We cannot let you in our big cities because they are already overloaded".
Yeah, I know, this is all like a 'Mad Max' scenario, but you see how things quickly progress..
I think you are forgetting a few things:
1)Crossing the sea in leaky old boats is dangerous. If people do so in large numbers, most will die on the way as the Navy will not be able to save them all. Think about logistics.
2) People aren't going to get on a boat and travel 5,000 km if they are starving. They are going to use their last remaining money to buy food. The refugees we have seen so far have relatively good resources, they are fleeing political persecution.
3) Boats have owners. Remind me again why the owners would be interested in making a long and dangerous journey which will quite likely end with their boat being burned in Darwin harbour?
4)Indonesia won't be starving, it is a tropical country producing its own food via subsistence agricultural. Global warming will increase its rainfall.
5) Anywhere north of Indonesia is just too far for refugees to arrive in large numbers, though some will die trying.
6) If you think millions of people can successfully get to Australia from anywhere, you need to look at a map and thing about logistics.
7) You don't need to machine-gun anyone to stop mass migration. You just impound and destroy every boat you can catch. See point three. "Burn the boats" is a pretty simple and effective strategy that would rapidly dry up the supply of transport. You think people are going to swim?
If we are to believe in things we cannot see or touch, how do we tell the true belief from the false belief?
Great Work David
Two questions:
1. What do you think about hot rock electricity? This looks to be a big potential asset.
2. Do you think that decentralisation and a return to the bush to re-inflate viable country towns that have been slowly wasting away for years will be a predicable reponse to the evolving crisis?
Those towns with rail access, viable local food production and a critical mass of population should become attractive alternatives to big cities.
In cooperation with Paul Roth of peakoilmedicine I have been trying to model Australian health service delivery in the age of energy descent. Declining personal mobility and resource constraints could change the ground rules of health service delivery. If the relocalisation of healthcare becomes an issue, planning for it will require an understanding of potential population shifts. At the moment it's not clear. Do you think there is a chance that disadvantaged rural people might flock to the cities as they have in the shanty town mega slums of Africa and South America? (This would seem to be unlikely.) Or will it be 'Blue Hills', 'Bellbird', 'Dad and Dave' and 'A Country Practice' revisited as enthusiastic and hopeful young families move back to the bush? Or will things not change very much at all? What do you reckon?
Thanks for all your efforts
Jim Barson
Hot rock power has a lot of potential, but is still very experimental.
Look for a post on the subject here later in the week...
Hi Jim,
I'm afraid that I don't express opinions if I feel that I am not qualified, so I am only going to offer guarded comments:
1. Hot Rocks are promising. I hope they work. Early experiments have run into technical hitches, but then early experiments always do.
2. I think that the rural population will probably increase as a consequence of more things being done locally, but this is hardly more than a guess. If we really wanted to flesh this out, I think we would need to sit a few smart people down in a room and let them bat thoughts around.
Good summary of your assets and liabilities Down Under.
From what I understand, the lack of volcanic activity is a drawback from an agricultural perspective. Australian soil tends to require quite a bit of nutrient application to make it agriculturally productive, doesn't it?
Yes that is true. The interior of Australia is billions of years old. The land has been separated from Africa and India for more than 100 million years. So yes, it is one of most infertile places on the planet, especially the interior.
Richard Wakefield
London, Ont.
No one is ahead of their time, just the rest of humanity is slow to catch on.
Put urine to good use no?
Urine is great fertilizer :)
I am not even close to joking here either. who the hell neeeds foertile land when you can use aquaponics or hydroponics anyway? The land means nothing. Use a inert media "Australian Soil" and run large hydropoinc systems out there.
Sure it would be a logistical nightmare but the water usage would be by far lower than conventional agriculture. It would create a market for extra fish if done with aquaponics. It would be sustainable, you can simply grow duckweed to feed the fish. Urine added to the mix creates huge potential for plant growth.
But then again I am starting to see how I can grow huge quantities of food in my living room through hydro/aqua. I am going to be expanding it to 200sqft in the garage then ultimately 400-600sqft outside in the yard for summertime growth. I will be selling extra yields at the farmers markets.
Fish and Produce fresh as you can get ripe on the vine :)