THE APOCALYPTIC bushfires. The towns running out of water. String beans at $20 per kilo!
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We are facing problems of Biblical proportions.
But what annoys me, is that this is Australia. This is the land of sweeping plains, of droughts and flooding rains. But what have we done to respond to this fact of life.
We need a paradigm shift on how we engage with nature. Since 1788 our society has treated Australia as if it were Britain.
We've ploughed wafer thin topsoil and planted broadacre crops and deforested 30 per cent of the tree cover, as if it were the wet, metres-deep black topsoil of Britain. Madness!
Imperial arrogance demanded that nature obey and conform to our will. Well ? Guess what ?
We live on the second driest continent on Earth, beset by periodic devastating droughts. We arrogantly looked down on the Indigenous for not building thriving British towns, with resource consuming standards of living.
How backward - the Colonisers saw them. We'll show them, the heavily clothed Colonists smirked.
Then in the 1960s a descendant of these colonisers decided to grow cotton on our semi-desert - 25cm a year rainfall - out on the Darling River (who cares that the cotton fields of Alabama receive 2500cm of rain a year ,,, we'll just pull it out of the river).
Dates: $75/ kilo - millions of dollars worth imported from the Middle East. Hemp: 30 per cent water requirement of cotton - less pesticides . A superior fibre. Olives: filling the semi-desert centre of Spain, etc. Produce that befits the environment! Production that does not destroy the environment. Sustainable production!
See 'permaculture' as the alternate, environmentally sensitive way to produce. See the tonnage of topsoil lost per year because of our inappropriate farming methods.
When will we reappraise the inadequate, inappropriate approach to our environment that we have inherited from an the arrogant all conquering, British Empire mentality of the 19th century!
The relentless, recurrent, repetitive El Nino seems to have meant nothing to our British mentality.
Adapt to the environment, said Darwin. 'Survival of the fittest' referred to adapting and 'fitting in' to the prevailing environment. We need to adapt.
We need to build hundreds of dams and prepare for the next El Nino.
The expressways in Sydney are a luxury. The millions we waste on luxuries per year ... while here we are seeing many towns in NSW running out of water.
This is an inherited problem - just like alcoholism . Let's get serious and address our number one need! Water.
