Australia: Never a World Power?

[Neferti]

THIS is the middle of Australia. Maybe we could send the Asylum Seekers out there? Have them dig channels and so forth to collect "water", so they can build houses and re-settle, etcetera.

[Rorschach]

[mellie]

Fantastic continent to test nuclear weapons .... you could drop/test a WOMD and who would know?

No wait, we already do/did that.

http://australianmap.net/

On a serious note, I found this article amusing.

http://au.news.yahoo.com/thewest/a/-/of ... ristralia/

I prefer the name Ausmerica myself.

[Chard]

the US has much more water and puhlease don't even try to tell me the centre of your country is as deserted as ours... after all ours is mostly desert.

Oh, so you've never heard of the South-western quarter of the US? The entire area is mostly desert occasionally broken up by mountainous desert and scrub brush. It also happens to be heavily populated, and in the case of the southern half of California, also is some of the most productive farmland in the US.

You need water to support a population... MOST ARID POPULATED COUNTRY IN THE WORLD... let me know when you get it.

[/quote]

I'm willing to bet that with a moderate amount of exploratory drilling you'll probably find aquifers all over the place in Australia's interior. After all, that's where the majority of water used in the US south-west comes from.

It's called "irrigation", dumbass. The concept has been around for a few thousand years now. Or are you trying to tell me that cattle-sacrificing primitives in ancient Egypt are smarter than everyone in your country?

[Chard]

THIS is the middle of Australia.

And this is theMojave Desert stretching from South-eastern and Central California in the west all the way to South-western Utah in the east. Death Valley is located in the Mojave, btw.

To the North of the Mojave you find the Great Basin Steppe covering Nevada.

To the South and South-east of the Mojave is the Sonoran Desert in extreme south-eastern California and the south-western third of Arizona

Seriously, stop acting as if the outback is a big deal. Lots of countries have deserts, and many nations manage to make them livable, sometimes even creating thriving cities in them.

[Jovial_Monk]

Idiot! Try imagining the US with the desert being the well watered part and the rest of the lower 48 as desert. That is a truer picture.

Some of those “thriving” cities are depending upon inadequate and fossil aquifers. They will collapse within ten years.

[Rorschach]

the US has much more water and puhlease don't even try to tell me the centre of your country is as deserted as ours... after all ours is mostly desert.

Oh, so you've never heard of the South-western quarter of the US? The entire area is mostly desert occasionally broken up by mountainous desert and scrub brush. It also happens to be heavily populated, and in the case of the southern half of California, also is some of the most productive farmland in the US.

You need water to support a population... MOST ARID POPULATED COUNTRY IN THE WORLD... let me know when you get it.

I'm willing to bet that with a moderate amount of exploratory drilling you'll probably find aquifers all over the place in Australia's interior. After all, that's where the majority of water used in the US south-west comes from.

It's called "irrigation", dumbass. The concept has been around for a few thousand years now. Or are you trying to tell me that cattle-sacrificing primitives in ancient Egypt are smarter than everyone in your country?[/quote]

IDIOT!!!!

[AiA in Atlanta]

Phoenix, Arizona (in the middle of a miserable desert) is America's least sustainable city because it's water supply comes from far, far away. More than likely the city will one day dwindle and possibly disappear.

The enormous Ogallala Aquifer that keeps the American Great Plains green for farmers is almost depleted.

Chard's solutions are temporary at best.

[Rorschach]

Big difference Chard...

Shall we count rivers perhaps?

Mountains or mountains with snow perhaps?

Should we discuss soils perhaps?

Never heard of the Snowy Mountains Scheme or the Ord River Project, Lake Argyle or the great Kalgoolie Pipeline either I'll bet.

[Neferti]

Americans are a funny lot aren't they? Rorschach attached a picture of Australia that showed just how much ARID area there is in Australia ..... it is huge and there is absolutely nothing out there, even the kangaroos avoid the area. We do have feral camels though!



Chard, did you know that Australia has the largest population of feral camels in the WORLD*?. They are an introduced species and were imported here in the late 19th century for transport across the centre of our arid continent.



Spread of camels in Australia.



How many camels do you have in your "arid" (Nevada) area?

* World means the whole world and nothing but the whole world, not just from the East to West Coast of the USA.