Climate Change: Australia Faces ‘Epic Drought’
Australia has warned that it will have to switch off the water supply to the continent’s food bowl unless heavy rains break an epic drought - heralding what could be the first climate change-driven disaster to strike a developed nation, reports The Independent.
“The Murray-Darling basin in south-eastern Australia yields 40 per cent of the country’s agricultural produce. But the two rivers that feed the region are so pitifully low that there will soon be only enough water for drinking supplies. Australia is in the grip of its worst drought on record.
“Unless there is significant rainfall in the next six to eight weeks, irrigation will be banned in the principal agricultural area. Crops such as rice, cotton and wine grapes will fail, citrus, olive and almond trees will die, along with livestock.
“A ban on irrigation, which would remain in place until May next year, spells possible ruin for thousands of farmers, already debt-laden and in despair after six straight years of drought.”
And the editorial in the same paper says: “Moreover, this is a taste of things to come - not just for Australia, but the world. As the latest report from the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change makes clear, the runaway warming of the earth will bring severe drought in its wake. And the economic consequences will be disastrous.
“Sir Nicholas Stern’s report for the (British) Treasury outlined last year how climate change could be as economically traumatic as the Great Depression or the world wars of the 20th century…”
