Australia’s Darling River is running dry • Hacker News Board

Re: Australia’s Darling River is running dry

#161

Post by moomin » Sat, Oct 26, 2019, 12:45 PM UTC

pedalpete wrote: post #150

moomin wrote: post #67

Australia has a serious problem with water, and it would have a serious problem even without climate change. The water in the Darling, and in any river, can be extracted free of charge if your land includes the river. This produces permanent drought conditions in a country that exports oranges. Australia has limited water resources and laws that treat it as unlimited. It will be incredibly hard to square that circle.…

Do you have a source for this? I have a friend who is a farmer in Australia, they trade water rights, so these two concepts seem opposed. [updated] As per a comment below, Australia and the Darling in particular have a water market https://www.mdba.gov.au/managing-water/water-markets-and-tra...

Ouch. I’m 20 years out of date. There is indeed a market in water rights now, but it has problems. Here’s a reference:

https://www.google.co.uk/amp/s/amp.theguardian.com/australia...

I read somewhere (can’t find the link) that the rights are allocated on the basis of the previous year’s flow. As you can see from the article, this still means people are pulling out water when there’s not enough water to go around. (There’s the usual complaints about speculation, but IME if you don’t have speculators you don’t have a functioning market. There’s plenty of data from regular financial markets about this.)

Apologies.

Re: Australia’s Darling River is running dry

#162

Post by collyw » Sat, Oct 26, 2019, 9:51 PM UTC

tonyedgecombe wrote: post #121

collyw wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Even those that believe in climate change seem to have a problem with naming overpopulation as a principle cause of the problem.

Because you can't reduce your population by any acceptable method and birth rates are below replacement levels in most parts of the world anyway.

Doesn't stop you naming the problem. If everyone thinks that cutting a straw out is going to solve the problem, then the problem will go unsolved.

Regarding below replacement birth rates - the world population is still growing. The fact this is happening suggests that "most parts of the world" as you say do not have below replacement birth levels.

Re: Australia’s Darling River is running dry

#163

Post by tonyedgecombe » Sun, Oct 27, 2019, 7:55 AM UTC

collyw wrote: post #162

tonyedgecombe wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because you can't reduce your population by any acceptable method and birth rates are below replacement levels in most parts of the world anyway.

Doesn't stop you naming the problem. If everyone thinks that cutting a straw out is going to solve the problem, then the problem will go unsolved. Regarding below replacement birth rates - the world population is still growing. The fact this is happening suggests that "most parts of the world" as you say do not have below replacement birth levels.

Your comment seems as much of a distraction as the demands to cut out straws.

Most of the population growth is through ageing, you can have a below replacement level birth rate and expanding population if people live longer.

Not only this but the places that are still growing their population have negligible emissions compared to the developed world.

Re: Australia’s Darling River is running dry

#164

Post by neotek » Sun, Oct 27, 2019, 8:48 AM UTC

throwawaybbb wrote: post #79

jandrese wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Australia would be a net power exporting nation if they harnessed their solar and especially wind resources. The fact that they still burn coal is ridiculous and shameful.

To where and how? Electricity is not something you can export when your main grid is 5000km from your nearest neighbour

From one state to another would be a good start. South Australians are paying more per kilowatt hour than anyone else on the planet, including people living in active warzones.

Re: Australia’s Darling River is running dry

#165

Post by neotek » Sun, Oct 27, 2019, 8:52 AM UTC

russdill wrote: post #68

0xcafecafe wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That will continue to happen as long as voting/politics remains ideology based rather than issue based.

The first past the post two party systems lock that in.

Australia has a preferential voting system, and our two main parties are actually one primary centre-left party and two smaller centre-right parties that have formed a coalition.

Doesn't stop us making dumb voting decisions every three years, though.

Re: Australia’s Darling River is running dry

#166

Post by neotek » Sun, Oct 27, 2019, 8:54 AM UTC

JacKTrocinskI wrote: post #48

neotek wrote: post #4

Meanwhile we're still voting in governments that don't believe in climate change and which fight tooth and nail to destroy any chance of addressing the problem. No worries giving endless buckets of taxpayer money to climate-denying farmers and coal plants, though.

I think voting with your dollar is much effective then voting at the ballot boxes since politicians go to where the money is and end up not fulfilling most of their campaign promises anyway.

The Labor party have constantly and consistently fought to address climate change, and have been thwarted by right-wing politicians every time. Voting absolutely matter, and anyone who tells you it doesn't has an agenda.

Re: Australia’s Darling River is running dry

#167

Post by ekianjo » Sun, Oct 27, 2019, 12:51 PM UTC

lisper wrote: post #101

ekianjo wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It could be simply solved by selling water usage rights or incentivizing saving water wherever the river runs. This was done with success in some parts of the US.

Until the amount of water available becomes less than the rights that have been sold. Then things get sticky again.

The price should be obviously elastic. I never mentioned "fixed prices" anywhere.

Re: Australia’s Darling River is running dry

#168

Post by collyw » Sun, Oct 27, 2019, 6:51 PM UTC

tonyedgecombe wrote: post #163

collyw wrote: post #162

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Doesn't stop you naming the problem. If everyone thinks that cutting a straw out is going to solve the problem, then the problem will go unsolved. Regarding below replacement birth rates - the world population is still growing. The fact this is happening suggests that "most parts of the world" as you say do not have below replacement birth levels.

Your comment seems as much of a distraction as the demands to cut out straws. Most of the population growth is through ageing, you can have a below replacement level birth rate and expanding population if people live longer. Not only this but the places that are still growing their population have negligible emissions compared to the developed world.

Most of the population growth is from less developed countries breeding like rabbits for want of a better term. And these low emissions countries all want to live like more developed countries. China and India don't have "negligible" emissions.

Re: Australia’s Darling River is running dry

#169

Post by manicdee » Mon, Oct 28, 2019, 12:42 AM UTC

pedalpete wrote: post #150

moomin wrote: post #67

Australia has a serious problem with water, and it would have a serious problem even without climate change. The water in the Darling, and in any river, can be extracted free of charge if your land includes the river. This produces permanent drought conditions in a country that exports oranges. Australia has limited water resources and laws that treat it as unlimited. It will be incredibly hard to square that circle.…

Do you have a source for this? I have a friend who is a farmer in Australia, they trade water rights, so these two concepts seem opposed. [updated] As per a comment below, Australia and the Darling in particular have a water market https://www.mdba.gov.au/managing-water/water-markets-and-tra...

The market is a sham, with overallocation of water resources being done by the Minister responsible as favours for party sponsors.

Agribusinesses are growing rice, cotton, and almonds in the most arid farming region in the world.

The MDBA is a toothless regulator with the government deliberately reducing their budget any time policing or enforcement action is actually performed.

The MDBA could be a self-funded statutory authority if it was allowed to collect water licensing fees directly, with approvals for dams and other water works going through the MDBA instead of the various states.

Ideally there would be no scope for ministerial direction, or at least any such direction would only be through publicly visible instruments.

Also the NDBA should have the authority to demolish illegal dams and water-affecting earth works. For the moment the worst it can do is write strongly worded letters.

And in the meantime we have Queensland farmers continuing to claim that all the water falling on their land should be theirs to do with as they please.

Re: Australia’s Darling River is running dry

#170

Post by rstuart4133 » Mon, Oct 28, 2019, 6:25 AM UTC

nshepperd wrote: post #52

shusson wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Darling river has a water market [1] [1] https://www.mdba.gov.au/managing-water/water-markets-and-tra...

Nice! Perhaps the problem is that there's too much water on the market, due to the government handing out too much too cheaply? Edit: Ah, looks like yes; the government was working on undoing this mistake by buying back water rights at large expense, but stopped because, errr, politics. Although it sounds to me like the real mistake here was maybe giving away rights to use water in perpetuity in the first place (whic…

> Nice! Perhaps the problem is that there's too much water on the market, due to the government handing out too much too cheaply?

No, the original design was done by CSIRO, the government scientific arm. AFAICT, is was pretty well done. The problem is entirely political.

The river system is about 3000km long, and passes through 4 states. The state politicians suffer almost no repercussions by white anting the agreement or just wilfully breaking it, but often get lots of kudos from their local constituents by shoving it to the other states and the federal government.

The media has done a number of exposés on farmers violating the agreement with no serious repercussions because the local state politicians - and the states run their respective police forces. It then degenerated into one state saying "if they are going to do that then we will too", aka tragedy of the commons.

But, ask any politician and they will tell you it can only be fixed in a drought, when farmers all over the country are going broke and leaving the land in droves, and it's plain to every one if you want to avoid a repeat there are no other solutions bar a compromise that everyone follows. This is the first country wide drought since the one that gave rise to the original agreement. It will need to go on for a bit longer before some sensible things happen, but we live in hope.

So despite how it's painted in the article, it's really an opportunity to put our house in order.