The Big Dry continues and basically we're stuft for another year

Eighty percent of New South Wales is in drought once more as The Big Dry threatens to continue its relentless ten-year roll on into another decade of unreliable rainfall across the state and the rest of Australia.
El Nino predictions mean that water security may get quite desperate, for many on the land and in country towns already under pressure, before May 2010 hopefully brings an easing of this weather pattern.
While the big metropolitian areas across Australia may again have to severely ration water consumption.
Our national food bowl, the Murray-Darling Basin, will fail if this long dry continues.
Here's what NSW looked like at the end of November according to NSW Dept of Primary Industries:



















And here are four Bureau of Meteorology maps to show just how stuft we are as 2009 ends:



Click maps
to enlarge

The Not Evil Just Wrong! team are at it again

The anti-global warming Not Evil Just Wrong team are presently at the UN Climate Change Conference in Copenhagen busily trying to live up to their brag You helped us make history! Now help us redefine it!

According to one Standford University view at Fiat Lux:

Professor Stephen Schneider, leader of the Stanford delegation to COP 15 and co-winner of the Nobel Peace Prize in 2007 with the IPCC, was yesterday verbally assaulted by an Irish documentary filmmaker at the UN event in Copenhagen.....
The culprit is one Phelim McAleer, a little-known Irish filmmaker who recently completed "Not Evil, Just Wrong" a feature-length documentary attacking the environmental movement. Judging from the man's tremendously disrespectful behavior, one could easily distinguish that he views environmentalists with disdain, contrary to what his restrained film title might suggest....
With McAleer apparently intent on pursuing his harassment of Schneider, a security guard escorted the irate Irishman away from the professor upon completion of the Q&A.

Alternatively the Not Evil Just Wrong team over at Jennifer Marohasy's blog:
"A Stanford Professor has used United Nation security officers to silence a journalist asking him "inconvenient questions" during a press briefing at the climate change conference in Copenhagen.
"Professor Stephen Schneider's assistant requested armed UN security officers who held film maker Phelim McAleer, ordered him to stop filming and prevented further questioning after the press conference where the Stanford academic was launching a book…

The Huffington Post reported:

Nobel laureate, renowned climate scientist and good friend of former US vice-president Al Gore, Dr. Stephen Schneider, was verbally attacked today during a press conference at the United Nations Climate Talks in Copenhagen.
Dr. Schneider, an outspoken proponent of climate legislation, was announcing his latest book, "Science as a Contact Sport: Inside the Battle to Save Earth's Climate , " when an unidentified man jumped on stage and began to intensely interrogate Schneider. The man became angry after Schneider addressed the leak email controversy from The University of East Anglia's world renowned Climate Research Unit. He repeatedly shouted, "do you approve of deleting data, Dr. Schneider? Do you approve of deleting data?" The man then accused the professor of attempting to censor the press.

As these particular climate change denialists have a recent history of being very loose with the truth, I know who I'm inclined to believe when it comes to what actually happened at this press conference.

Japan's Foreign Minister makes an understatement about an overstatement on whaling

From an interview with The Australian and ABC on 11th December 2009:
"When I met with your Foreign Minister Mr. Smith, I said to him when I described the situation: 'For the Japanese, whaling is equivalent to the Australian beef". I may have overstated, maybe I shouldn't have said that."
Yeah, talking up whaling in that way is definitely an overstatement - whale meat is getting harder to sell to the general public in Japan and beef consumption is on the rise over there with imported beef dominating the market - and "I shouldn't have said that" gets my prize for understatement of the month.

Climate 1 Stop website should settle some of those arguments about climate change impacts

Climate 1 Stop is a new search tool which "provides a single location to access proven climate change tools, resources and information, with a primary focus on adaptation in developing countries.The Climate 1 Stop is a partnership of southern and northern organizations working at all levels, from grass roots to global.
We envision a just and equitable world, where learning and collaboration overcome climate change barriers to development. To that end, we seek to build climate resilience in all sectors. We are open to all and driven by user needs."

The Institute for the Application of Geospatial Technology appears to be acting as webmaster and information co-ordinator for a diverse group of twenty partners which include the United Nations and NASA.

This site is still evolving and it would be nice to see it live up to claims that it is a one-stop shop for climate change information for those vulnerable nations and island groups in the developing world.

Just for the sheer joy of it. Pictures of Antarctica

Emperor Penguins from the UK Telegraph photo gallery:

Extreme diver Norbert Wu's journey into the Antarctic underworld

Coalition super-duper accountant's obsession with China

Nats senator and Coalition front bencher Barnaby Joyce has become a trifle obsessed with the ol' yellow peril it seems.
If you believe this former Queensland accountant from St. George we're all in danger of being seriously in hock to China, which is coincidentally one of our more significant export markets.
Small problem for Joyce though - China doesn't figure as anywhere near our biggest creditor because that honour is reserved for the UK and US.
Hong Kong (which is China's only representative on the creditor list) holds around 3% of Australia's total foreign debt, but Britain holds in the vicinity of 24% and America 22% of the $114 billion or so red ink still on the books racked up by federal or state governments, financial institutions and private companies.
Less than a quarter of Australia's foreign debt is contractually long term if this Australian Parliament Library 2009 research paper has a good handle on the subject.
Barnaby mentions China so often that it's almost a nervous stutter.
Here is an abbreviated list of his comments on China over the last three years from Hansard and the media:

This is money that people want back. Most of them are from overseas. How much more money do you want to owe to these people? The biggest one being the Communist People's Republic of China.
Under this massive new tax of the Australian Labor Party, they will be signing us up to an agreement as a result of which we will be borrowing money from China to pay the interest to China to send back to China to develop China.

The Labor Party cannot tell you exactly how this tax is going to do anything to the temperature of the globe by itself. They aspire to grab America and China.

We have this ridiculous proposition that if we pass this bill we are going to be borrowing money from China to send back to China to help develop China. We will be borrowing money from China and from Saudi Arabia to send to African despots.

We have no money. We are in debt up to our eyeballs. We will be borrowing money from countries such as China to send back to China to help China develop, when we thought they were already doing a pretty good job at it.

So we will be borrowing money from China to pay back to China to develop?

It has stacked us up with debt to the eyeballs so that we could go out on some spending spree and have the stimulus of the nation spread across the carpet on Christmas Day with 'made in China' written on the back.

I have clearly stated that I have no problems dealing with China—I have no problems with the trade to China. I have clearly stated that over and over again.

When this legislation came forward, there was only one other nation on earth that had legislation like this, and that was the communist People's Republic of China, which I thought was peculiar.

In fact, I stated that the stimulus would be spread across the carpet on Christmas Day with 'Made in China' written on the back of it and that it was a complete and utter waste of money. Time has proven us correct.

We will develop a plant in China. We will develop another plant in the United States. But we're not going over there, because those people are half crazy.

Do we implicitly, by association in legislation, say that ovaries are now commercial property disassociated from the person and as property can be extracted from prisoners in China or aborted foetuses in Australia?

The Australian Government would never be allowed to buy a mine in China. So why would we allow the Chinese Government to buy and control a strategic asset in our country? Stop the Rudd Government from selling Australia.