david f
I it not the first time I answered to this question, simple you do not know that protagoras did not answered to my question about.
1. If you check the size of our arable land and our population and compare it with other countries you will find that our Arable land is many, many times biger from the land of developed countries with many times bigger population.
2. "without much modification" our land mainly needs water, we can do it with big costs and we do not have to do it from one day to an other but we start a long term plan to convert our country to a paradise and we can do it. We have the land, we have the water, we can use our brain to minimize the cost for the water and there are ways.
Sir I finished late last night from my work and now I must go shopping!
Our real problem is that our beaurocracy is very lazy, our governments depend on the corporations and land developers and the political parties lost their contact with australians, It is npt that we can not but that WE DO NOT CARE OR TRY AT ALL,
I WILL ANSWER TO PROTAGORAS MAY BE TONIGHT I HAVE EXTREMELY LIMITED FREE TIME.
BUT I HAVE FEW SUGGESTIONS WHICH WILL MAKE THE DIFFERENCE!
Antonios Symeonakis
Adelaide

*It is npt that we can not but that WE DO NOT CARE OR TRY AT ALL,*

Nope Antonious, its that those in the know have a bit of common
sense and understand that dreamers sometimes float along on the
clouds of ignorance.

So lets crunch the basic numbers. Its costs around 1$ to desalinate
1000 l of water, using el cheapo gas at the old price. As gas prices
rise, so will that cost.

It takes around 500l of water to grow a kg of grain. So your
proposal means spending 1$ on water desalination, to produce
50c worth of grain and you havent even yet allowed for the cost
of pumping that water, growing a crop, paying for fertiliser or
paying for transport from the desert to the coast.

Next you'll be telling us that taxpayers money should be used to
fund this kind of nonsense.

Antonious, my advice to you is don't give up that day job :)

"If you check the size of our arable land and our population and compare it with other countries you will find that our Arable land is many, many times biger from the land of developed countries with many times bigger population."

Ant - Could you supply us with some data please?

I do know that Japan's total land mass is only some 378,000 square kilometres but its arable land mass totals about 12%. Japan has a higher precipitation (rainfall) rate than Australia, however, since its only self-sufficient in rice crops, it has to import sixty percent of its food.

Australia feeds some sixty million people - give or take a few million subject to ongoing droughts and subsequent crop failure.

Africa in total has 30,365,000 Km2 of land mass and is a total failure in feeding its people and/or maintaining peace.

Australia's economical survival depends on agriculture and mining exports but it has trashed its fragile lands as a result. I mean it's time Australia acknowledged the desecration of our lands by the gold mining industry alone, an industry polluting and digging massive holes so someone in a faraway country can appease their vanity by sporting a ring or gold chain. Furthermore mining exceeds the CO2 emissions of electricity generation with some of its carbon-based chemicals and other hazardous waste emissions.

Therefore, if you know of other countries which surpass Australia's performance, you may also check on the state of their environment. Australians all agree I'm sure that we must honour our foreign aid commitments to assist in mitigating global poverty, however, Australia suffers a paucity of fertile soil and is well known for its ignominious high carbon emissions and pollution. As a result, our enlightened citizens have no intention of trashing what's left of this nation's environment by importing "billions" of humans who've already trashed their own environments.

Your mission to dump the problems of other countries onto Australian soil will not be well received. Australia must address its own pressing environmental problems since the Darwinian theory (survival of the fittest) is already in play. Learn from it Ant.

Protagoras,
Small point but one that rankles me Darwin's theory DOESN'T say "survival of the fittest". that was quoined by an Astronomer and fundamentalist critic of evolution.

Darwin's theory in context says 'Survival by the most adaptable' a whole different concept altogether.

Antonius

I know you mean well, BUT you could help yourself a great deal in learning a bit of basic ecology and how environments are effected by even the slightest change.

You have mentioned the well-being of camels a number of times, camels are an introduced species, along with pigs, rats, dogs, cattle, cats and so on. As much as I like camels (when they're not spitting) introduced creatures like them have already altered the Australian eco-system irrevocably.

Creating artificial environments on ecosystems that cannot support the demands, such as the type of "parks" you envisage, is part of the problem we are now facing with climate change, species extinction and depletion of our natural resources.

Establishing cities in deserts, for example Phoenix, Arizona has depleted the natural water table, not only leading to water-loss but land degradation as cracks and subsidence occurs, which further effects the natural flora and fauna which can no longer live in the changed environment.

Every thing we do has consequences, everything on the ecosystem we call planet Earth is interconnected - what we urgently need to learn is to live WITH the environment instead of impacting ON the environment.

“Small point but one that rankles me Darwin's theory DOESN'T say "survival of the fittest". that was quoined by an Astronomer and fundamentalist critic of evolution.”

Apologies for “rankling” you Examinator and I acknowledge the error. However, I shall continue to use the coined phrase: “survival of the fittest,” plus “unnatural selection” a result of Man’s technical ingenuity which has cocked up the entire genetic and evolutionary process and continues to do so:

WWI: Man-made Dichlorethylsulphide:- mustard gas: Total non fatal and fatal mortalities: 1,296,853.

WWII: Japan "Little Boy" and “Fat Man” nuclear bombs - immediate deaths of around 120,000 people (mostly civilians) from injuries sustained and acute radiation sickness, and even more deaths from long-term effects of ionizing radiation - numbers unknown.

Vietnam War: Agent Orange (dioxin) – endocrine disruptors, gender benders - carcinogenic, teratogenic, mutagenic – total deaths unknown and not about to find out in the near future. Litigation ongoing.

Stockholm Convention: Man-made POPs (ongoing): Killer Chemicals: Aldrin, Dieldrin, Chlordane, Heptachlor, HCB, Mirex, toxaphene, PCBs. DDT, Dioxins, Furans (additional nine pending.)

Chernobyl: Radiation poisoning and deaths of humans and animals - ionizing radiation effects ongoing

Iraq: The poisoning of Iraq by depleted uranium

Union Carbide (Orica): Dioxin poisoning of Sydney Harbour - bioaccumulative – biomagnification plus 10,000 tonnes of indestructible hexachloride benzene (HCB) languishing for twenty years in sheds at Botany Bay – a terrorist’s dream realised!

Swan, Canning and Helena Rivers in WA on life support – man-made chemicals

Dioxins and heavy metals: The poisoning of the planet – from the Arctic Inuits to Antarctica

“'Survival by the most adaptable' a whole different concept altogether?”

Examinator – Are you referring to these concepts of "adaptation" and "unnatural selection?":

Warning: 1 & 2 - Shocking graphics:

http://lorieh.multiply.com/journal/item/284/Depleted_Uranium_-_Iraqs_Nuclear_Nightmare_Warning_This_Is_Graphic

http://digitaljournalist.org/issue0401/pjg33.html

Statistics:

http://www.llrc.org/health/subtopic/russianrefs.htm