Emotional intelligence? Left and right brainers? Strong leadership? Just what we really need in water policy, another basket weaver using 'education 101' theory to fix a complex scientific issue.

When we have solid, transparent and verifiable science that is presented without gross political spin by people who have not completely squandered their credibility, we might make a start on examining a few issues. But this left-brain-right-brain crap is nothing more than a pretext for one collection of interests to imply that other interests are somehow 'less developed', immature perhaps, and lacking in legitimacy.

If you want real progress in water policy we could start by sacking the entire executive team at the MurrayDarling Basin Commission.

Perhaps there is a need for a new set of first principles for water and general environmental management. But we also need to sort out a few of the structural problems around water management. The mishmash of state and federal control hasn't worked. Industry and lobby groups are fighting over the dying body of our water supplies. The control of water releases from the Snowy scheme, water licensing of cotton growers in the Darling basin, land clearing, salination, use of Federal funds for environmental grants, sustainable growth in the cities, sustainable farming- all of these things need fixing up and soon.

Where is the politician or party that will lead us into a better future of environmental and water management? Not the Howard government, captive of big business. Not Labor, captive of Greens preferences. Where?

Perseus, you suggest sacking he Murray Darling Authority, but what will replace them? And what is this reputable scientific source that you are waiting to appear? Don't you know that science is politicised especially when it is government controlled eg CSIRO & universities?

Dear Editor,
This kind of "touchy-feely, aren't I groovy, let's all learn to think in this new way and all our problems will be solved" argument is simply despicable.
It has nothing to do with water or with 'new ways of understanding', it is simply about giving the writer a sense of importance which she clearly does not deserve.
The mindless "why can't we all just be nice?" type of argument demonstrates the authors failure to grasp the basic facts of life and proves she is unable to join in a rational discussion.
I strongly suggest that you introduce more rigour into your editorial policy.

b Dams, wetlands, HECS fees and midbrain lateral thinking.

It's not smart to outsource skills to a 140,000 immigrant intake while you reduce skills internally using HECS fees to discourage continuing education. Neither is it smart to NWI diminishing internal water supplies when you can outsource the problem to coastal rain bands that currently dump all their rain in the Tasman sea. This thinking shows a lack of faith in the citizens who elected John Howard and in the geography of the country that supports all Australians.

HECS fees are exacerbating skills shortages, so we DON'T NEED TO OUTSOURCE skills to immigrants, we need to remove HECS fees. NWI is relying on diminishing internal water supplies and growing user numbers so we need to OUTSOURCE our water supply to coastal rain bands.

Outsourcing water: Continental Thermodynamic manipulation is the concept. The way to achieve this is:

* Patchwork flooding of South Australia's salt lakes using solar desal technology and canals and pipes from Port Augusta. This will very slightly cool central SA and allow purely coastal rain bands entry to NSW and Victoria on a more regular basis.

* Creation of 100,000 engineered wetlands (EWBs) at strategic catchment saddle points all across Australia. This retains desert heat energy which can WORK for the country. It currently moves in atmospheric and oceanic gyres to the roaring forties where it does a fine job of melting fringe ice caps, much to the delight of fundamentalist Greenhouse Warmers.

Continued ..

Continued ..

As for Dams, they have several damaging effects leading to prolonged droughts. They:

* sequester nutrients to dam floors, never to be seen again, starving downstream ecosystems or water and NUTRIENTS.
* divert water MORE efficiently than ever to humans, to become polluted and to run off into coastal waters, accelerating environmental damage. Thermodynamic imbalances caused off coasts in this way, where dams are present, are a significant contributor to global climate change as they attract low entropy heat sources from deserts and tropical seas.
* create thermodynamic imbalances over land that are small and easily blown out to sea with little or no rainfall.

Engineered wetland (EWB) networks on the other hand have advantages:

* sequester nutrients in reeds and other biomass that can be spread around as total catchment fertilisers.
* keep all sections of a catchment moist and productive.
* retain thermodynamic heat that can do more work in the environment and in human habitats. This prevents drought, migration of moisture to coastal seas. It promotes more regular precipitation over farms and towns.
* can be designed to favour native plants and animals over introduced species like toads.
* If dams have EWBs at all their sources and EWBs downstream from all their human clients then dams will become ecologically sustainable options. All their negative aspects are overcome.

This paper http://pubs.acs.org/subscribe/journals/esthag-a/40/i02/html/011506news2.html, shows the benefits of EWBs for Arizona which is arid like much of Australia. This article also shows that Wildlife in some wetlands will be hard hit by the pollutants. They will evolve to hardier species. However, this will be to the benefit of species (and humans) below those polluted wetlands in the catchment network. This is an important issue. EWBs act as barriers. They are designed and engineered to sustain, control and destroy high pollutant loads using an array of bioreative materials and plant and animal species.

There is a very simple flaw in this argument.

>>We need to include a fourth leg on to our triple bottom line planning. Why? When we lean on one leg, be it social, economic, or environmental we are leaning on one leg of a three-legged stool. We now need to add a fourth leg to our stool which provides a mechanism for balance.<<

As every skoolboy kno, a three-legged stool is inherently more stable than one that has four.

I notice that Ms Kearney has a passion for dot-to-dot drawing books. Her previous article here was entitled "Water, Food, Poverty: Time to join the policy dots", this one opens with "[as] a child I remember enjoying playing with “dot to dot” drawing books.

I hate to draw conclusions from this, far less postulate "outcomes", but the entire piece seems just a little.... dotty?