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December 15, 2008
The first steps to a low carbon future are modest. Timid even. It is all about handouts to the polluting industries. So much for political courage.
Writing in The Australian George Megalogenis says that:
Kevin Rudd’s carbon pollution reduction scheme is a form of cash-for-sacrifice. The risk in choosing to give households back more in handouts than the higher gas and electricity they will face under carbon trading is that the price signal is dulled beyond all meaning.
The modest targets and lack of investment in alternative energy will mean tougher conditions in the Murray-Darling Basin and kissing goodbye to the Great Barrier Reef. I'm not sure about the effect on the Kakadu wetlands.
Tougher conditions in the Murray Darling Basin means a new dry regime. Monthly inflows for the Murray system have been below average now for the past 37 consecutive months. For every degree centigrade rise in temperature you get a 15% reduction in stream inflows. The inflows are consistently lower than what the Murray-Darling Basin Commission plans for.
That means irrigated agriculture is going to take a massive hit. Do they realize what is coming? Or are they still thinking in drought terms?
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So we will have more of the big dry.
Stream inflow in the Murray Darling Basin is projected to drop by 10-25%; the frequency of drought will increase by 40% by 2030 and irrigated agriculture will suffer a massive 92% fall.
That's the prognosis of the Murray Darling Basin Commission.