Deja Vu

Should a country that experiences floods on a regular basis ever have a water shortage?

Yeah! Incredible as it may seem, in Australia we are told that we have a water shortage crisis while at the same time massive areas are inundated with floods.

A failure in public policy to make plans for contingency that is cyclical and predictable as the day follows night is appalling, is tragic, is comic, is laughable.

Short memories and short sighted policies

Australia is the land of the constantly surprised residents, constantly surprised that there is a drought now surprised that we have floods. As we talk about how to deal with the never ending drought and how to restrict our water use, as we contemplate a restriction on electricity supply because power stations use water boiled by coal to turn turbines to generate electricity, the inevitable floods have arrived. And all people are talking about is the drought.

Seems silly to me that nobody has the capacity for long term thinking and long term planning. Instead we are a nation of panic merchants, whipping ourselves into a frenzy of surprise, indignation and woe about what is so blatantly obvious that nobody wants to see it. That is, that Australia is a continent of extremes, it always has been and not just for the last 200 years since European settlement.
Nevertheless, people continue to go about their daily lives as if flood and drought are anomalies, as if they weren't expected, shouldn't be expected and even worse, that no contingency plan for these natural disasters has ever been put into place. Pathetic isn't it? Short sighted isn't it?