Australia, We Are Killing Ourselves
Every where we look we are being given clear signs of the blatant stupidity and arguably outright criminality of a toxic system of decision making. The Menindee Lakes and Darling River disaster is one example
A couple of years ago I was invited to speak at a Private Equity conference at a lovely resort in NSW. My remit was to discuss emerging issues and opportunities from a futurist’s perspective.
Along the way I noted water challenges and the implications of insecure water in Australia and stated that in my view Cotton should NEVER be grown in Australia, a position I’d stated in a published paper I wrote in 2004 (A Drop in the Ocean for Foresight Practitioners). An attendee from the floor pushed back firmly and initially claimed I was one of those types against cotton. I also pushed back and said I have no issues with cotton as a fibre. I DID have a significant issue with it being grown in Australia given the lack of water available and that in my view, there were far better uses for that water.
Attendee stated that ‘..they only grow it when there is lots of water..’ I said ‘not the point, that water should be allowed to flow down stream to replenish ALL parts of the system’. Attendee continued to push back, So I said ‘well I’ve stated my bias, in this country there is NO justification for growing cotton – what’s your bias – where do you stand?’
‘Private investor’
And now we see the implications writ large – toxic rivers upstream and a lack of water flowing into South Australia downstream. Aquifers not getting overflows to replenish; private deals and illegal siphoning; farmers of non cotton and communities being pitted against growers of cotton. It’s the EXACT same challenge as the ‘Eat OR Extract’ concept I’ve proposed regarding farmland or mining – you can’t have both and Australia needs to choose.
Cotton is an EXTRACTION model. With the Darling Basin area providing about 65% of all food grown and using about 50% or so of all water in Australia, creating toxic lakes and rivers can only be seen for what it is:
We are killing ourselves
The link below will take you to the audio of the discussion I had with Annie Gaffney on ABC Radio Sunshine Coast the day after the Opposition released its Broadband policy. There’s been much discussion about the perceived value or otherwise, and I flag my bias here upfront: As a small business owner likely to…
Read More >In the article I link to below, Diana G Oblinger, the President of EDUCAUSE offers the Higher Ed community some insights such as this one: we’ve moved on from the Information Age and are now in the Connected Age. Such a statement will come as quite a shock for many Higher Education Institutions and policy…
Read More >In case you haven’t heard, technology is making so many jobs redundant, that only the adaptable will survive. And when I say ‘jobs redundant’ I mean across EVERY conceivable industry and level of specialisation. Robotic surgery is now so good that not only can it be done remotely, it can be done without human intervention.…
Read More >Coca Cola, Lion Nathan and Schweppes have successfully challenged the Northern territory’s compulsory container deposit recycling scheme in the Federal Court. The scheme had seen recycling rates jump by 30% in just a few months and was widely applauded by the public as the right thing to do. Despite the overwhelming public support, Coca Cola…
Read More >If you’re looking for an accelerated course in Strategic Planning and Advanced Management techniques in the Philippines in July, then TruEventUs has a two day session coming up on the 4th and 5th of June. Marcus Barber, founder of The Australian Strategic Planning Institute will facilitate this intensive program. For full details You can…
Read More >Without putting too fine a point on it, most of us pay little attention to what we ‘deposit’ in our toilets each time the body needs to exit our bodily waste. And yet with a looming phosphate shortage around the world (along with other useful components) our personal waste streams are worth billions of dollars…
Read More >As co presenter of the ‘Future Matters’ series with the National Geographic Channel back in 2004, I discussed the idea of Rapid Prototyping or 3D Printing. At that stage, 3D printers were like very large office photocopiers and the better ones had starting prices of around $150,000. I stated that in the near future, people…
Read More >In tracking shifts across the world and across industries, the rise of Crowdsourcing continues to unleash some amazing innovations in products and services. Importantly it is exposing the capability gaps that even large organisations have. Simply put, the ‘crowd’ is always going to be bigger than your business or organisation. But to tap that latent…
Read More >Allow me to flag my bias from the outset – I’m tinged green. My shade of green recognises that my actions can contribute to a cleaner or more polluted world and that overall, I’d prefer the cleaner version. There’s a huge amount of data that shows that as a species we haven’t been looking after…
Read More >The burgeoning shift in the manufacturing sector has been coming for a touch over a decade and has, I would suggest, now reached your front gate. A whole confluence of factors that include 3D printing, Crowdsourcing, home engineering and freescale Idea Generation leveraging social funding approaches means that EVERY single aspect of manufacturing as we…
Read More >