Further to my last post…

As untenable as it might seem Stuart, you and everyone concerned about water issues MUST surely address the population side of the equation, or if you like, the continuously increasing demand side of the equation, as well as the improvements-in-average-per-person-efficiency side of the equation.

This is critically important.

I’m sure you can see exactly what I mean. But I feel that you won’t, as is almost always the case.

To me, it is one of the strangest phenomena that people who care about sustainability have this enormous blind spot with population issues. Do they get hung up on the connotations of elitism, racism or Fascism? Do they fear going against dominant government and business doctrine and thus perhaps jeopardising their jobs or funding? Is it that the message from government, media and business people is so powerfully pro-growth that many environmentalists get psyched into believing that growth is good and only good? Or is it just some innate feeling that human expansion is entirely good and shouldn’t be questioned?

In southeast Queensland, these things are now critical – with new dams having just been confirmed and reasonable water-conservation measures having being implemented…..but no efforts whatsoever even considered for slowing the population influx.

Jamo
you seem to be missing the point with your analysis of the water content of dried rice. You must be a rice grower!!

Its not the water contained in the exported rice thats important, which of course is miniscule.

Its the water used to grow the rice which is relevant; my understanding is that this is more than our environment can afford.

You are probably right that this is not very relevant to household consumption issues, because the source is remote from population centres.

My view is that conservation and nill immigration could go a long way to solving our urban water problems.

Rice growing would be a good topic for OLO.

Here we go again, Ludwig. Population growth is irrelevant if every new house has a 13,500 litre water tank. The water is already delivered in good order to the roof top and a proper sized tank will deliver it at a lower cost than existing mains water. Those in apartments use much less anyway (no lawns) and can get their water from the roof of their local supermarket etc.

Funny how the CSIRO issued a full apology for the gonzo science behind the recent attack on the rice industry but the mug punters never got to hear of it. Blame the AGE, SMH and ABC for keeping that load of bovine excrement in the vacuous heads of the metrocentrics. Garbage in, garbage out. People don't even wipe their backsides with those papers anymore.

Of course we need to halt immigration and one day we might even have the guts to introduce a one-child policy. I'll rephrase that: we might have to. Academic commentators on water not only consistently fail to grasp the population nettle, they also continue to ignore the wrecking of rivers by poorly regulated mining operations. As for everyone having tanks: sorry to have to throw a little cold water on this one - as housing developments remorselessly mushroom across all arable land near the coasts, a multitude of tanks will contribute mightily to the desiccation of catchments, rivers and aquifers, which will no longer be replenished, and this at a time when rainfall in southeatern Australia has been decreasing by an average of more than 50mm each decade since mid-20th century.

Perseus, sometimes you seem to accept that population growth / continuously increasing demand is obviously a major concern, and then sometimes you seem to denounce it entirely.

It seems to me that you are somewhere between your ‘traditional’ position of being highly critical if not totally condemning of those who express concern about this issue and some form of acceptance of what really is the bleeding obvious.

Please realise that your push for the acceptance of water tanks is not at odds with the need to accept that the number of water-consumers simply cannot continuously increase. They fit together.

And please reconsider your statement; “Population growth is irrelevant if every new house has a 13,500 litre water tank.” It is a million miles from the truth.

Wrong, Ludwig. The shift from Dam based water supply to roof based water supply, and its incorporated shift from public supply to private supply, involves a 40 fold improvement in catchment yield in an average year and a more than 400 fold improvement in a drought year. In a drought year a Dam catchment delivers no runoff (zippo)while a roof top will still yield, at worst, half the volume of an average year.

And as I have stated to you on numerous occasions, population increases are only minor increments of 1 or 2% a year while the shift to rooftop catchments involve a 4000% improvement. And while there may be certain circumstances where population growth is an issue, it is not even statistically relevant in respect of domestic water supply. In this case the population horse is dead, so stop flogging the damned thing.