It’s official: all of NSW is currently in a serious, prolonged drought at the beginning of August, and the state government are mobilising over a billion dollars in aid to the brave men and women on the land, while the federal government are ploughing millions into emergency payments.
“This is tough, there isn’t a person in the state that isn’t hoping to see some rain for our farmers and regional communities,” NSW Primary Industries Minister Niall Blair told the ABC, while the Bureau of Meteorology confirmed that usually the state would expect rain throughout the winter months, but that hasn’t happened for the last two years.
Also, in completely unrelated news, that same federal government are currently fighting to negotiate a National Energy Guarantee through the state and territory governments which is explicitly about power prices and not about reducing greenhouse gas emissions, not least because a sizeable number of the government’s members don’t buy into this climate change thing.
And hey, we’ve always had droughts, right? It’s right there in I Love A Sunburnt Country! Why is this even an issue? It’s what Australia does! Stop being such a climate alarmist, you greenie leftist!
Interestingly enough, while Australia’s having an unusually dry and mild winter the northern hemisphere is breaking temperature records right and left – to the point where the tallest mountain in Sweden has actually shrunk – in a horrifying indication that this “warming” is “global”.
Meanwhile a former Prime Minister, a former Deputy Prime Minister and a number of backbenchers are pushing for the construction of coal- and gas-burning power plants which will increase the amount of greenhouse gases released into our atmosphere, accelerating the global warming which is already wreaking havoc on weather and climate.
So, to recap: this drought is a crisis which must be addressed, although the factors contributing to it are not important and should not be politicised under any circumstances.
Got that? Good. Carry on.