Have our governments left it too late?

It is never too late really, as doing something at any time is better than doing nothing at all. For many years I have been in favour of recycling water and we in fact did this on our farm to a small extend. Also desalination is another option as is allowing people to instal rainwater tanks, which were banned for many yeas in the Melbourne metropolitan area. Every new house that is build or where there are major renovations done should have to instal a recycling system as well as a rain water tank. There are just so many things that can be done and are not although when Toowoomba held their referendum last year on recycling water the electors voted with a resounding NO. There should be subsidies for those who do these things and also incentives in the way of rate reductions but again we will have to be out of water completely before anything is done in the majority of states. When we are in a drought, forget the environmental flows into the rivers as they never had them in the past. Look back at the history of various explorers who wite about having to carry their canoes because there was no water. I know that South Australia is in serious trouble with water unless we get a lot of rain in the coming months. So, it is never too late and people can do their little bit to assist without waiting for the Government.

I was interested to see in the newspaper today that the PM has appointed Malcolm Turnbull as Minister for Environment and Water Resources and there is going to be a national summit on these issues. It shall be interesting to see what will become of it actually, although I suspect that the States will still not be interested in handing anything over to the Federal Government. At least this is a step in the right direction.

I don't think it's ever too late to make an effort - but yes. the Australian governments have been very slack. The Victorian government liften restrictions earlier last year - WHY? We are in such dire starits now. Our reservoirs are way below the 50% mark. And what are they doing about it? Introducing restrictions they should have kept in place all along. And talking about recycling sewage. That might be OK for gardens, etc, but what about desalination? And what about bulding more dams! There must be a way to bring over the ice bergs that are in the Antarctic Ocean - these are sources of pure water. There must be other alternatives but for some reason they all seem to be tunnel-visioned about such things.

Well we have already invested in solar panels for our place, although they do not cover all our needs of course. So the extra money allocated in the budget for solar panels is a great thing. We are not too sure if we will be eligible for the whole amount, because we already have part of it done. It would be nice to think we will get the whole amount, as that would be the cost for the rest that we need. It will cover the house but not all the shedding but maybe later on that will happen too. We walk where we can to do shopping and so on, but with work it has to be driving because of where both my partner and I work. We save where we can though, more for the money but it still helps. We grow all our fruit and vegetables organically, and compost heavily with that. Anything we use is certified organic, no herbicides, pesticides etc and we companion plant instead. We put down old newspapers and straw on the plant beds to conserve water, and have done this even before the drought really hit. We use the grey water from laundry, kitchen and showers to go out onto the fruit trees. I think that things can be fixed certainly, and the subsidy for solar power is a step in the right direction. Last year we got subsidies for putting LPS on vehicles, and that was a bonus too. If everyone did a little bit, all over the world, it would all help. But many countries will do absolutely nothing, which negates what others do. We have planted hundreds of trees on our small patch of dirt, and everyone should plant trees too as that all helps. W