Drought Expected To Eliminate 1-2% Of Australian GDP - Drought May Last For Decades - VOA

[hatrack]

EDIT

Many towns and cities in the southern half of the continent are subject to severe water restrictions. Those who break the rules face fines of up to $150, and it is thought that more stringent controls on domestic use are only a matter of time. The effect is being felt worst on the country's farms, however. The government is paying millions of dollars in emergency farm relief to help those struggling to stay on the land.

Government estimates are for overall GDP to fall by one to two percent as a result of the drought. Finance Minister Peter Costello says the impact is far worse than he had expected.

"The drought will detract from growth," he said. "Rural production had a negative quarter and I would expect that rural production will have some further negative quarters. Where you have negative quarters in a row, where there's an actual decline in production, you can call that a farm production recession, and that's what we'll see."

Five years is a long time, but experts like Professor Andy Pitman, a climatologist at Macquarie University, say the drought could actually go on for decades. "The really scary thing is last time we had a drought of this intensity that lasted about five years - it lasted for about 50 years. And I really find it difficult to imagine what Australia would look like - or at least east coast Australia, where the major population centers are - what it would look like if this current rainfall regime was sustained for 40 to 50 years. The politicians truly believe this is a five-year or six-year drought that will break sometime in 2007 or 2008. It mightn't break 'til 2050," said Pitman.

EDIT

http://www.voanews.com/english/2006-12-21-voa10.cfm

[phantom power]

1. I'm suffering some cognitive dissonance here...

A fifty-year drought will eliminate only 1-2% of Australia's GDP? Do they think this is just a matter of xeriscaping their golf courses? Do they get that agriculture and industry use 90% of a typical water budget?

[hatrack]

2. 1-2% figrure is just for this year but there's some, shall we say, potential downside here . . .

Assuming one is willing to life the eyes from beyond the quarterly report.

Can't wait to hear what Lil' Johnny Howard comes up with next!

:eyes:

[phantom power]

3. 1-2% for this year makes sense.

I guess they think that's a "disaster" because they haven't yet grokked what things will be like in 2050.

[kestrel91316]

4. A couple decades ago I knew somebody who had been to OZ

several times. He said they were a bunch of religious nuts down there (I realize this may be overgeneralization). He was a nuclear physicist, himself,and Jewish, so he knew religious whackodom when he saw it.

Their tendency toward denial and magical thinking WRT climate change rivals ours...........

The good news is: he said lots of folks there still had outhouses. They are going to need them when the taps run dry.............