A <em>really</em> vicious cycle | Gristmill: The environmental news blog

A really vicious cycle

Are Americans smart enough to learn from Australia's crisis?

Posted by JMG (Guest Contributor) at 1:26 PM on 26 May 2007

Read more about: climate | climate change impacts | United States | Australia

What if there was a country that was like America in many ways, such as the obstinate refusal of its government to acknowledge that pursuing economic growth at the expense of the environment is simply a way to commit suicide faster, a fondness for beer, and an enormous capacity to live the high energy lifestyle as if there was no tomorrow?

Could Americans learn anything from it?

Bart A's always-excellent Energy Bulletin brings this chilling story about the very non-chill Australia, where a drought is putting big thermal plants out of business due to water restrictions.

Is it possible -- maybe just barely? -- that Americans could look at a people much like themselves, see what disasters are befalling them, and not simply go back to sucking on the 55" plasma screen glass teat?

Do we even possess the empathy needed for self-preservation, to recognize that the pain that others are experiencing as the the environmental chickens come home to roost is a foretaste of the pain we will experience if we don't get smart (and busy) fast?

I sure hope so.

For story: A really vicious cycle
9 Comments | Post a Comment

Biting the Green Hand That Feeds It

Wait...you're condemning Australians from having built hydropower and thermal plants -- which reduce CO2 -- because they're suffering from a water shortage brought on by natural causes?

Texeme.Construct(function(x)=Participation(x))

by jabailo at 3:13 PM on 26 May 2007

By thermal plant

By thermal plant, he means coal plants.

Austrailia also happens to be the world's largest exporter of coal.

by GreyFlcn at 5:20 PM on 26 May 2007
[ Parent ]

Empathy? We don't need no stinkin' empathy!

Depressing, but I don't see America as a country (not the people, the country) ever able to be truly concerned with anything other than America's own good.

He who laughs last will be whomever gets the last breath of available oxygen in our atmosphere.

Biodiesel Information

Alternative Fuel All The Way

by biomark at 9:33 PM on 26 May 2007

Australia first!!!

Well, at least it looks like they will be the first to find out what Global Warming looks like from the inside. If it doesn't start raining in appropriate areas of Australia they are done as a first world nation.

Who knew Mad Max and Road Warrier represented the actual future of Australia? Of course it's water the nomads will be after instead of oil but what the heck.

Put the Carbon Back

by Pangolin at 11:22 PM on 26 May 2007

I dunno

I'm beginning to wonder if Americans are even that astute to see that the same thing could happen to us, perhaps in denial or delusional? Our government definitely is,too many of the politicians are too self interested and egotistical or "religious" to care about the environment. Why do the American people elect losers anyway.Hey sorry if I don't agree that the bottom line and the economy and my pocket book aren't the only reasons I vote.When I read about the FDA and EPA and how they have been undermined, it makes me cringe. It shows me that there is a great deal of incompetence at the top, as well as faulty decision making. The problem with American people they just put up with it or do nothing but gripe,when they could do something about it. Sorry to say we get the government we really deserve and we act like helpless victims to boot, something our forefathers would turn over in their graves about, they meant us to participate in the political process and to hold our leaders accountable and to get rid of bad government if we deemed it necessary.On top of that we believe everything the damned fools say and don't really educate ourselves on the issues and they get by with murder while we act dumbfounded. The thing is many of our leaders are not even trustworthy or ethical, but have become cynical old men corrupted by greed and power. I guess Americans are "gluttons" for punnishment. Will we ever learn????????? I guess if we get to the point when we end up in a similar situation like Australia , we might "get it." But the it is too late, the damage is done.

by 00kak at 5:38 AM on 27 May 2007

Doom

No laughing matter. Water shortage spells big trouble for chemical agriculture, conventional economic development,coal, nukes, and geothermal.

What's left? Renewables and conservation. An energy revolution?

Waste water recycling, organic agriculture using mulching and pinpoint water injection irrigation, composting toilets, low water use compressed air/water for showers and dish and clothes washers, and of course distributed solar, wind, wave, and biogas power generation.

Wave, wind, and solar powered desalinization.

Will Australia turn to these alternatives before it slides into economic depression? Will the US?

http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog

by amazingdrx at 7:33 AM on 27 May 2007

Well apparently

Well apparently this American sympathsizes with Austrailia.

http://greyfalcon.net/murdoch

by GreyFlcn at 10:59 AM on 27 May 2007
[ Parent ]

We need to look elsewhere for leadership

Australia is used to droughts, but if climate change shifts our rainfall patterns further south (and it already has started), then our water shortage will certainly become a water crisis. We run on 80% coal-fired power, and the only option our PM wants to consider as an alternative is nuclear, which uses even more water than coal-powered plants.

Unfortunately, our Prime Minister seems content to copy US policy on climate change, echoing the same arguments against doing anything. The US and Australia both need to look at the rest of the world instead of each other if they want to avoid the worst of climate change.

---- ---- ---- Go Greener, Australia - you know you want to.

by gogreener at 8:17 PM on 27 May 2007

Murdoch

Austrailia's most virulent destructive human disease. Is this drought karmic eco-justice?

They produce one of the most powerful propagadists for the cause of global corporate feudalism, the main force keeping GHG disaster from being averted. Mother nature fights back.

http://amazngdrx.blogharbor.com/blog

by amazingdrx at 10:15 PM on 27 May 2007

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