Sunday, October 22, 2006

Water consternation

Nothing is more obvious to those of us whose training and role is to help people plan for droughts, is the city centrics desperate mood over the current drought. Desperate enough to do silly things with our money. Desperate enough to act without thinking or consulting water conservationists .

Individually we should be very seriuos about saving water in dry periods . But what's a sound way to respond collectiveley when the drought is happening ---promises of grand infrastructure for 100 yr events; ? How do you pay for something that only happens once in 100 ( ofr now 1000) yrs ?
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We are experiencing a very dry year in Victoria .- probably a 1:100 but unlikely to much worse that that. (Both global warming effects- if they exist and periglacial or other cycles are best planned for on a probabaility basis for the moment - otherwise panic, rather than what we do know, will determines our responses )

Investing in expensive infrastructure for a 1:100 drought is no sound use of our collective resources for such a time as this .

This drought is sending us an important message. Many city centrics are living as if there is no limit to the resources available .This is wrong . But let's not panic - we don't recycle much water at all yet - in the driest continent on earth . Let's not seek to add to supply (more dams etc myth) when management of a genuinely limited supply is the issue .
And if we calm down and set recycling in train for the first time in our history we will probably have more than another 100 yrs before 'we need to panic again" .
I'd vote for a recycling commitment,, not some wet dream that goes dry before christmas. more here