{"id":36554,"date":"2018-08-08T07:01:01","date_gmt":"2018-08-08T12:01:01","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=36554"},"modified":"2018-08-08T07:03:41","modified_gmt":"2018-08-08T12:03:41","slug":"the-lasting-condition-drought-in-australia","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=36554","title":{"rendered":"The Lasting Condition: Drought in Australia"},"content":{"rendered":"<h3 class=\"headline\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.counterpunch.org\/2018\/08\/08\/the-lasting-condition-drought-in-australia\/\" rel=\"bookmark\">The Lasting Condition: Drought in Australia<\/a><\/h3>\n<div class=\"post_content\">\n<p>Humans are a funny species.\u00a0 They create settlements along fault lines that, on moving, can create catastrophe, killing thousands.\u00a0 They construct homes facing rivers that will, at some point, break their banks, carrying of their precious property.\u00a0 Importantly, they return in the aftermath.\u00a0 Existence continues.<\/p>\n<p>The same follows certain settlements of parts of the planet where hostile, environmental conditions discourage rather than endorse a certain form of living.\u00a0 Changes in weather have been vicious catalysts for the collapse of civilisations; extreme climactic variations prevent and retard stable and sustainable agriculture.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe flourishing of human civilisation from about 10,000 years ago, and in particular from 7,000 years ago,\u201d notes earth and paleo-climate scientist <a href=\"https:\/\/theconversation.com\/climate-and-the-rise-and-fall-of-civilizations-a-lesson-from-the-past-51907\">Andrew Glikson<\/a>, \u201ccritically depended on stabilisation of climate conditions\u201d.\u00a0 This had its due results: planting and harvesting of seed; cultivation of crops; the growth of villages and towns.<\/p>\n<p>Australia, the second driest continent on the planet, has never been exempt from such patterns of disruption, and those stubborn, pluckily foolish farmers who persist in the notion that they can make a living in parts of it risk going the same way.<\/p>\n<p>Australia\u2019s agrarian purveyors have certainly been persistent, hopeful as pilgrims in search of holy land.\u00a0 Disasters have not discouraged.\u00a0 A sense of a certain attendant fatalism can be found in the scribbles of Nancy Fotheringham Cato\u2019s \u201cMallee Farmer\u201d:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>You cleared the mallee and the sand blew over<br \/>\nFence and road to the slow green river;<br \/>\nYou prayed for rain but the sky breathed dust<br \/>\nOf long dead farmers and soil\u2019s red rust.<br \/>\nYou ploughed up the paddocks with a stump jump plough<br \/>\nBut the gates were open and the drought walked through.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>The Settlement Drought (1790-1793) <a href=\"https:\/\/theconversation.com\/recent-australian-droughts-may-be-the-worst-in-800-years-94292\">threatened<\/a> but did not overwhelm early European settlers. The Goyder Line Drought (1861-5) savaged but did not kill farming in parts of South Australia.<\/p>\n<p>\u2026click on the above link to read the rest of the article\u2026<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Lasting Condition: Drought in Australia Humans are a funny species.\u00a0 They create settlements along fault lines that, on moving, can create catastrophe, killing thousands.\u00a0 They construct homes facing rivers that will, at some point, break their banks, carrying of their precious property.\u00a0 Importantly, they return in the aftermath.\u00a0 Existence continues. The same follows certain [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[20,41,15948,140,141,21188,5493,220,1912,1219],"class_list":["post-36554","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-environment","tag-agriculture","tag-australia","tag-binoy-kampmark","tag-climate","tag-climate-change","tag-climate-stability","tag-counterpunch","tag-drought","tag-food-production","tag-weather"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36554","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=36554"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36554\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":36555,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36554\/revisions\/36555"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=36554"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=36554"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=36554"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}