Australia: NSW Premier tours region hit by historic drought
THERE was only one way to describe it: “Terrible.” That was the response from cattle grazier Mick Tomb when new NSW Premier Kristina Keneally asked him how things were on her first visit to drought-ridden NSW. His one word answer was no exaggeration. If it doesn’t rain in the next two months, the Tomb family will have to sell all their 3500 head of cattle on their property at Bundarra in the state’s northwest. He pays $30,000 a month for feed and half his cattle in agistment. The region has experienced its lowest rainfall in the past 140 years. Eighty of the 100 damns on the Tomb’s 600 hectares have dried up – along with two rivers that run through it. In the past six weeks 150cm of water has evaporated. The latest official figures show 80.8 per cent of NSW is in drought and 14.8 per cent is almost there. “You don’t get a sense of the impact it is having on the farmers until you talk to them,” Ms Keneally said yesterday after promising a further $8 million for the state’s drought assistance program. … “It takes two years to recover from something like this,” Mick Tomb said. “I’m hoping we won’t totally run out of water because the stock will be worth half as much when we sell it.” …
Holy Cow! Did I miss something, or did that entire story not even mention climate change from fossil fuel emissions as being just a teeny bit related to the unprecedented drought??
This is denial brought to the level of pure insanity.
Come to think of it, last I heard, California farmers blame the federal government for withholding water for irrigation, and not climate change, for their scorched fields and orchards.
Yes, I read in a recent story that many NSW farmers still don't believe in climate change, even as they are abandoning their farms.