Mega Cities with Few People and Fewer Ideas. – Part 2
01 July 2009
The 'Utegate' affair has drowned out a significant group who fronted Canberra this week seeking a debate on a far more substantial issue – where will all our food come from? With the world's cities doubling in area every forty years, how we feed a growing world population is of serious concern.
By 2030 half of all fresh water will be used by cities and with the lack of water in the nation's food bowl the Murray Darling basin, tinkering around the edges of this issue will not be enough. So a group of mayors and community leaders from 18 councils in Western NSW have come to the government seeking some long-term policy solutions to these issues.
This debate gains little traction across Australia due to the lack of votes and power held within regional Australia. How different it would be if the NSW town of Wentworth was selected as the nation's capital all those years ago instead of Canberra. Wentworth is where the Murray and Darling rivers meet and missed out on becoming the nation's capital by 1 vote. If our politicians were living the dire water situation Australia faces every day a far more substantial solution would be reached than simply buying back water licences.
The only solution as we have discussed in previous blogs is to tap into the water in the nation's north. That would take some serious political fortitude. Let's hope they can someday muster it.