GREENIES HATE IRRIGATION

It leads to food abundance and prevents the scarcities and disasters they so fervently desire in order to makes themselves look wise and important.

So Australian Greenies are doing their best to take irrigation water away from farmers -- on the flimsiest of pretexts.

"LAST month, Prime Minister John Howard reaffirmed his Government's commitment to saving the Murray River, despite having dismissed the findings of a report that says the scientific evidence does not support claims that the river is dying.


The interim report by the House of Representatives Standing Committee on Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry -- which included seven Coalition and three Labor members, with one Labor member dissenting - was issued after the evidence had been carefully assessed, yet it was subsequently strongly condemned by many politicians, scientists and environmental activists.

I looked for the evidence to support the claims of declining water quality, declining native fish stock and dying red gums. Instead, like the committee, I discovered junk science supporting predetermined agendas. Murray cod was listed as vulnerable to extinction in July last year on the basis that there had been a 30 per cent decline over the past 50 years. This newspaper published two stories, "Murray cod on national list" (July 2, 2003) and "For cod's sake, Murray needs stronger flow" (July 5, 2003). But there is no data to support the claims.

The most widely quoted source on native fish status in the Murray-Darling Basin is a 1995-96 NSW Fisheries survey. The report's principal conclusions include the statement that: "A telling indication of the condition of rivers in the Murray region was the fact that, despite intensive fishing with the most efficient types of sampling gear for a total of 220 person-days over a two-year period in 20 randomly chosen Murray-region sites, not a single Murray cod or freshwater catfish was caught."

Most remarkably, at the same time and in the same regions, commercial fishermen harvested 26 tonnes of Murray cod.

At the time of the fabricated cod crisis, the CSIRO website claimed "salt levels are rising in almost all of the [Murray-Darling] Basin's rivers". After a challenge, this whopping lie was eventually removed from the website of our most respected research institution. The reality is that salinity levels have dropped over the past two decades, particularly at the key site of Morgan, which is just upstream from the off-takes for Adelaide's water supply."

More here.

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Many people would like to be kind to others so Leftists exploit that with their nonsense about equality. Most people want a clean, green environment so Greenies exploit that by inventing all sorts of far-fetched threats to the environment. But for both, the real motive is to promote themselves as wiser and better than everyone else.

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