My mentor at Emeco, Ron

COOL, YET SCARY BUMPER STICKER...

A COUPLE OF OPTIONS...

Option:                Costs:       Construction         Ongoing /yr      mT CO2/yr  

Kimberley Pipeline              $11,000,000,000       $100,000,000         2.5

15-20,000l water tanks       $ 1,377,840,000           $   0                  ?

for all @ $3000 ea

This might keep the wolves at bay for a few decades at least.  This leaves us with $9,622,160,000 change and a saving of $100,000,000 per year. Can anyone tell me how much carbon dioxide it would take to build 459,280 water tanks?

WHAT DO YOU SEE?

I have posted here a series of rainfall trend maps for Australia from the BOM webite. Please comment on what you see...

THE HISTORY OF WATER INGENUITY...

History is littered with the signs of lost ingenuity. Incredible feats of engineering with limited materials, but almost certainly designed by people who knew that a long term investment in the supply of water was required for their continued survival.

• The Nabataeans ( الأنباط‎ ), inhabitants of Petra in the Middle East 
• The Persian kārēz ( كاريز ) irrigation systems
• The Chinese hydraulic engineers, Sunshu Ao (孫叔敖, ca. 630 BC - 593 BC) and Ximen Bao (西門豹 445 BC-396 BC)
• Roman aqueducts
• Indian aqueducts at Hampi, Karnataka

    and many more...

If we could replicate their resourcefulness with modern technology, then there would be water for all future civilisations. There needs to be a greater focus on the way water, and other natural resources are viewed and used in all societies. There needs to be more control and insight invested in the planning of future development and expansion of communities. Above all, the guaranteed supply of water needs to be the limiting factor for ALL population growth.

POLITICS AND WATER...

Our future water problems will take generations to fix. Politicians are not in government for generations. They also try and fix problems that they will be able to fix in their term. This is the nature of politics. When we look at what people (including politicians) are willing to do, we have to look at what motivates them, and then we can have an insight into what they are likely to end up doing.

Politicians (no offence intended) want to do whatever is most popular with the majority of the people, they will then get re-elected. Most people (no offence intended) vote on what they are feeling and experiencing right now. On a very basal level, if people are hungry, they will vote for a politician offering food. When they are sitting in a communal hall amongst hundreds of other people while their homes are flooded, they will vote for the politician who is offering to build dams. Politicians know this and use it to their advantage. It’s the “What's important now?” principle.

When the water runs out, we will probably vote for the politicians who are offering water. But there will have to be an election, a Parliamentary Inquiry, new Members given their roles, Government will have to form a policy and Parliament will have to sit, etc, etc, etc...    How long can we live without water again? A couple of days at the most...

Can we trust the future planning of our water supply to Government? What is their motivation again?

Would the people of this country ever realise if we are getting down to our last drop? How will we know when it’s going to run out?