More News From the Anthropocene  

Tim Flannery has a good commentary piece in today's Herald about Sydney's looming water shortage and makes a number of pointed comments about the actions currently being considered. (Tim has previously predicted that Perth may become the 21st century's first ghost metropolis).

One of Tim's theories in "The Future Eaters" - that the arrival of humans on the Australian continent resulted in the rapid die off of the native mega fauna (which was a shame, as I'd love to see giant wombats wandering around) - seems to be unlikely if this theory (Did Climate Kill the Pleisto-beast ?) is correct - apparently climate change had more to do with it.

What makes the climate change hypothesis so worrying is that the triple whammy to Australia's rainfall is, in all likelihood, permanent, and it's occurring faster than anyone imagined. Last year I said Sydney would be unlucky if it didn't get a good dump of rainfall over summer. The rain never came, and this summer will be a crucial test - for if Sydney is unlucky again, water reserves will be below 30 per cent and crisis management will be required.

Sydney's power is driven by burning coal. For every tonne of coal burned, 3.7 tonnes of CO2 is produced. As the principal greenhouse gas, CO2 is the force behind climate change. As well, burning more coal is just adding to the problem of Australia's water crisis. We must consider that coal-fired power plants are very thirsty: those that power Sydney use a fifth as much water as Sydney's residents do. This year the Hunter received good rains. But this cannot be depended upon, so a society that remains tied to coal is vulnerable to power disruption due to a lack of water, as well as the water crisis itself.

What about Sydney's water emergency? The city has little groundwater and few other options for increasing its supply, and time may be very short. In the worst-case scenario, you can forget about rescue by desalination plants or recycling plants, since they take too long to build. Only managing existing supplies to eke them out sufficiently long to build the required plants offers hope. Think very carefully before using water on the garden or washing your car. Next year you might be needing that water to drink.

Sydneysiders should be furious at the prospect of a new coal-fired power plant, for that only leaves them more vulnerable to climate change and drought-caused interruption of power supply. Nuclear is no option either, because of the long construction times. Instead, emergency measures supporting existing technologies should be implemented.

Mandating a shift to solar hot water over five years would reduce overall household electricity consumption by at least 30 per cent, removing the need to build new baseload power plants. Higher energy standards for electrical goods (particularly air-conditioning) would result in further savings, while gas-fired plants could cope with peak demand.

It seems we aren't the only place that is rapidly drying up - Spain seems to be in dire straits as well. Although in southern Spain's case, climate change and dropping water levels in dams may be at least partly due to massive changes in local water usage, as this section from the new release of the UN Environmental Atlas shows (via Energy Bulletin).

The Almeria region of southern Spain was once a typical rural agricultural area, satellite images from 1974 show.

The Almeria province along the southern coast of Spain, showing undeveloped land in an image taken from space on Jan. 24, 1974.

The latest image tells a different story showing how an area of around 20,000 hectares has been transformed into a vast glass-house for producing greenhouse crops. The development has important implications for Spanish water supplies with the government looking at technologies such as desalination plants.

The same area in an image taken from space on July 18, 2004. Compared to the picture taken 30 years earlier, the area is covered by a patchwork of greenhouses growing food for European markets that required the building of 118 dams and 22 water plants that moved water from parts of the country to the Almeria region.

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