Dear Griffith: Shooting the messenger won’t stop climate change

Media Release
The Wilderness Society (Sydney) Inc.
15 December 2011

• Irrigators ignore climate change at their peril
• Tony Abbott ignores climate change in Murray-Darling
• Rainfall could halve by 2030

Griffith, fired up by the Big Irrigation Lobby, may have made lots of noise at the Murray-Darling Basin Authority’s public meeting today, but irrigators are ignoring the 10,000-pound gorilla in the room – climate change, the Wilderness Society said today. Rainfall could drop by 50 per cent in the southern region of the Murray-Darling Basin.

"Irrigators who are complaining about reduced water allocations are ignoring the reality that we face a future with less water, with or without a Basin Plan," Wilderness Society Rivers Campaigner Chris Daley said. "You've got mining taking massive amounts of groundwater, and on top of that there’s climate change reducing rainfall."

The CSIRO’s Murray-Darling Basin Sustainable Yields Project found that under the dry extreme 2030 climate projections, diversions in driest years would fall by about 40-50 per cent in New South Wales regions and over 70 per cent in the Murray. Under pressure from the states, the MDBA has removed all references to climate change in its modelling and has vastly increased the amount of groundwater that can be taken, ostensibly for the mining industry.

"The choice here is clear. You can adapt now or stick your head in the sand and pretend it’s not happening. A strong Basin Plan offers a way out by providing a $10 billion structural adjustment package the likes of which no other industry has seen."

"Shooting the messenger today might give the residents of Griffith an outlet for the anxiety and grief they’re feeling now but it won’t stop the place from becoming a ghost-town when climate change really starts to bite. This is what happens when you don’t recognise that the interests of the economy are based on the interests of the environment – you lose the lot."

"Tony Abbott should be condemned for attempting to incite fear and anger in a sensitive community. He says we should act on climate change yet he refuses to acknowledge what this really means for irrigation-dependent communities."

"Irrigators will be hit hard by reduced rainfall but they, Tony Abbott and the rest of the Coalition refuse to accept the serious social, economic and environmental challenges this presents."

For further comment contact: The Wilderness Society Rivers Campaigner Chris Daley: 0451 007 915
For further information contact: The Wilderness Society Media Adviser Alex Tibbitts: 0416 420 168