Western Antarctic ice sheet collapse has already begun, scientists warn

[doodab]

That seems a rather poor counter-example. I don't know the details but a drought is a rather tangible thing. If you have a drought that has lasted for 5 years and people will be dying in 3 years if it doesn't stop, and it will take you 3 years to build something to mitigate that, you don't really have a choice.

The other thing to bear in mind in Australia (though this might be more relevant to WA) is that the drought was causing the water table to drop and become salty so that it was impossible to irrigate crops. The cost of losing their farming and winemaking industries would be pretty significant, and they'd become much more dependent on imported produce. Hoping for a change in the weather in what is more or less a desert clearly wasn't the best option available.

[BrilloPad]

I was sure this thread would prove popular. We have not done climate change for at least a week.

[EternalOptimist]

The other thing to bear in mind in Australia (though this might be more relevant to WA) is that the drought was causing the water table to drop and become salty so that it was impossible to irrigate crops. The cost of losing their farming and winemaking industries would be pretty significant, and they'd become much more dependent on imported produce. Hoping for a change in the weather in what is more or less a desert clearly wasn't the best option available.

Anyone who builds a desal plant in Australia because it hasnt rained for three years and because the water table is falling is a sensible bloke imho.
Anyone who builds a desal plant in Australia because the models tell him we are in permenant drought is an eejit.
Doing the right thing for the wrong reason will lead to massive stupidity , like trying to control the climate through tax, rather than by mitigating the effects, and like brainwashing our kids in school

[pjclarke]

One of the characteristics of the climate change debate (if it qualifies for such a dignification, which I doubt), is the stark contrast between the attitude of the public 'how is it affecting me now and tomorrow?', the politicians, 'how will it affect my chances of re-election in 4-5 years?' and the the timescales on which the effects will be felt, and the mitigation is needed, which is decades. It has taken decades for scientists to tease out the signal for the noise, and in fact the consequences in the lifetime of people my age, in a wealthy country may even be benign, but by mid-century and into the next we're running the risk of producing a climate which will have severe, worst case catastrophic, negative humanitarian and economic consequences, when mitigation, as every economic study tells us works, out a lot cheaper than adaptation.

Sea level is a good example, and shows that climate change is impossible to disentangle from other factors. It is not just inundation and increased flood damage and higher storm surges that are the only threat, as we over-extract fresh water from underground aquifers near the coast, salt water intrudes and pollutes the supply. These two effects combine to amplify he damage done by sea level rise....

Roughly half the world’s population lives within 60 kilometres of the coast. Eight of the ten largest cities on earth have been built beside the sea. Many of them rely on underground lenses of fresh water, effectively floating, within the porous rocks, on salt water which has soaked into the land from the sea. As the fresh water is sucked out, the salt water rises and can start to contaminate the aquifer. This is already happening in hundreds of places. The worst case is the Gaza strip, which relies entirely on underground water which is now almost undrinkable. As the sea level rises as a result of climate change, salt pollution in coastal regions is likely to accelerate

The Water Boom Is Over | George Monbiot


Oh and the prediction of a 'permanent drought' in SE Australia is another myth, it is meant to have been said by Professor Tim Flannery, but it is just another made up quote. A sign of desparation. The desalination happens in another part of the country and a good thing too, Certainly Perth would be in trouble without it ...

Water Corporation of WA - Desalination

[BlasterBates]

Here is Tim Flannery's interview verbatim

Landline - 11/02/2007: Interview with Professor Tim Flannery . Australian Broadcasting Corp

Can't pin this one on a deaf journalist

[EternalOptimist]

Wasn't Flannery the guy who persuaded the Australian government to invest in a geothermal project ?
But he forgot to mention he was a director of the company doing the work.

Unfortunately the geothermal boreholes had to be shut down after they were flooded

by the rain that wasnt supposed to fall any more

[pjclarke]

So the word 'drought' or the phrase 'permanent drought' or any permutation thereof occurs nowhere in the article, ho hum. Hint: 'problems with irrigation' <> drought.

Meanwhile

[BlasterBates]

So no change from the climate of the last 200 years

http://http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...t_in_Australia

Australia is a dry continent, that was is and always be prone to drought somewhere or other.

[d000hg]

So no change from the climate of the last 200 years

http://http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...t_in_Australia

Australia is a dry continent, that was is and always be prone to drought somewhere or other.

So the rain is the anomaly then.

[pjclarke]

Well, records were broken in 2002 and 2012, but that was not the claim, the claim was that Flannery, in 2007, predicted 'permanent drought' in Queensland, resulting in the construction of desalination plants. In fact what he actually said was 100% accurate, that drought ran for another 2 years and famrs and whole towns ran out of water, Brisbane dropped to 15% capacity. And Perth would be out of water now if it not for its desalination plant.

Flannery is a shareholder in Geodynamics, one of its geothermal projects was at one time delayed by heavy rain. That much is true, the rest .....