Anyone reading this might be forgiven for thinking that farmers must be getting increasingly rich - look at how much the prices for their produce have gone up! Lets just confirm that SOME farmgate prices have risen due to shortages from the drought. However, a lot of livestock producers have suffered huge setbacks, as many had to sell off their stock quickly, and suffered the results of a flood of stock onto the market (not that food buyers saw much of a decrease -when lambs went from $80/head to $20/head, did our supermarket prices take a 75% dive??).

Consider that a lot of the price hikes are wholesalers and retailers taking advantage of a situation where they can put the blame for rising prices elsewhere, and dont forget the impact of higher fuel prices on the transport of this food!

So much gets blamed on climate change - its an easy scapegoat. Notice that so many of the "records" that we have had recently are measured against some previous high/low. Eg, its been the lowest rainfall for 75 years - dont forget this means that its been lower than this in the past. Lets remember to take everything we hear with a pinch of salt (or two - plenty of that to go around)!

Nothing the Australian government, public or industry does will make any discernable difference to greenhouse-gas induced climate change. So the poor battler the author purports to be concerned about will be paying no less for their food in whatever the government does. If government imposes solar energy requirements or demands other costly greenhouse initiatives, however, the battlers will also be paying much more for energy, transport, and everything else that needs energy to make or to transport.

That doesn’t mean we should ignore greenhouse, but it means we should be clever about how we respond. Do the low-cost easy stuff first, invest in technologies for the future and participate in the global initiatives that are the only real hope of doing anything that will actually have any effect

Country Gal et al.,

We have known about climate change for decades. I recall in the 70S reading about "Cow Boy" [sic. cattleperson] and "Spaceman" [sic. spaceworker]. The former frontier and latter controlled, of obvious reasons.

Circa 1970, plans should have been in place to relocate farmers away from existing contributions towards new ones. This happens in Commerce, between the 60s-present department stores have become suburban. When I was child we would go into "the City" to shop Waltons and Woolies.

Think farming groups [protected by the Oz taxpayer]whom wish to preserve their way of life and a week-a-head-minded politicians have slowed progress.

In Scandinavia, policies have some farmers work part-time on farms and part-time in locate industries, not corner stores, manufacture.

If I own a newagency or a pie shop and my sales fall, because of a Westfield complex, I consider moving to a new site or opening in Westfields. Farmers seem to just stay put and wont move. They have the right to do so, but, Australia is the most arid countries going, and, we know it is only going to become worst, yet, farming is protected, in ways others are not.

Once, I recall interviewing farmers for research purposes; I was told told a property depreciated in value from eighteen times to three time the value of a house in an exclusive neighbourhood. I see some point. But, the property was presumably inherited, without a mortgage. The farmer held an assettaht a more needy young couples in the City could on dream about.

[Likewise: The eighty year old granny in a million dollar terrace in the inner city on a small fixed income, does have the option of moving to the environs. Street kids and poor families are not similarly placed.]

Handling the rural climatic crisis means, not taxing the income to support the asset rich, retraining/multitasking, and, importantly relocation. It will break-up communities? Yes. But this is War. War against nature. That's the toll. If its a rout. This is the penalty for our procastination.

If this bloke has any expertise in the carbon cycle, or anything else, he sure hid it well. His article is the greatest pile of male cow manure to be posted here, for qiute some time.
I wonder if emotive claptrap earns some sort of promotion, or just brownie points.

Gotta love it. Talk about lacking scientific rigour.

Climate change is a useless notion designed to scare the masses. Almost always it has to do with how human activity has influenced it.

The problem is....there is no way to confirm this. Worse still is the logical shennanigans used to justify it.

For instance
Nasty cyclone is given as evidence of climate change, but when america has a really quiet hurricane season shouldn't this be given as evidence against?

Temperatures going up is evidence of climate change, but the record low temperatures we are having are also given as evidence of climate change.

Lets make it obvious...the climate always changes, the scientific record makes this clear (including large amounts of 'green house' gases being present way way back)....whether it is the human caused catastrophe that the chicken littles keep screaming about is another question entirely

Oliver wrote:
“We have known about climate change for decades. I recall in the 70S reading about "Cow Boy" [sic. cattleperson] and "Spaceman" [sic. spaceworker]. The former frontier and latter controlled, of obvious reasons.”

We did not know in the 1970’s that we would experience the warming that we have had through the 1990’s, neither could we have predicted that El Nino conditions would dominate the 6 years to 2007. We also don’t know for sure that we will get drought more often in the future.

Oliver wrote:
“If I own a newagency or a pie shop and my sales fall, because of a Westfield complex, I consider moving to a new site or opening in Westfields. Farmers seem to just stay put and wont move. They have the right to do so, but, Australia is the most arid countries going, and, we know it is only going to become worst, yet, farming is protected, in ways others are not.”

It’s very easy to move a shop – you just take out a new lease. You can even set up a virtual shop: there is no limit. Farms are very different. Firstly, selling a farm and buying a new one is burdened by stamp duty. Secondly, a farm is limited by the need for good soils and reliable water, which there isn’t much of in this country. Thirdly, agriculture sectors in all developed countries receive special attention. Were we to deny ours special attention, we would immediately disadvantage our international position. By adopting your brilliant ideas Australia may have to import all its food in order to feed your precious young city couples. That won’t help our appalling trade position either.