Harsher dry conditions for Australia.

• 1. 

  A farmer surveys dead livestock in drought-stricken Leigh Creek, Australia. Photograph: Ian Waldie/Getty Images

  Parts of the world may have to be abandoned because severe water shortages will leave them uninhabitable, the United Nations environment chief has warned.

  Achim Steiner, executive director of the UN Environment Programme, said water shortages caused by over-use of rivers and aquifers were already leading to serious problems, even in rich nations. With climate change expected to reduce rainfall in some places and cause droughts in others, some regions could become 'economic deserts', unviable for people or agriculture, he said.

  Steiner argued that only urgent action to combat global warming and poverty could prevent the creation of thousands of 'environmental refugees'. Previous UN agreements to reduce global warming emissions and the Millennium Development Goals on poverty had not been met. His warning echoes those of other environment leaders, who have said that water shortages could be the greatest threat posed by climate change.

  'In many ways [water] is the most dramatic expression of mismanagement of natural or nature-based assets,' Steiner said. 'The day a person or a community is bereft of water is the day that your chance of even the most basic life or livelihood is gone and economic activity seeps away.

  'Unchecked climate change will mean that some parts of the world will simply not have enough water to sustain settlements both small and large, because agriculture becomes untenable and industries relying on water can no longer compete or function effectively. This will trigger structural changes in economies right through to the displacement of people as environmental refugees.'

  

You bin takem our land, boss. You bin fugh our lubras. You bin poison our waterholes an stealin our chilren. You bin put us in chains by crickey an lock us in hollow tree. You shootin us and hungry us too muss.................................. That O.K. boss. We forgive you, cause we know you just ignoran white fella....an one day you gunna git what you deserve, big-fella..You know why? ...Cause we point the bone at you...........Rainbow Snake gunna drink up all the rain and only blackfella know how to dig and make water from the dry billabong.

1. OUTBACK ERNIE'S ADVICE: Combat global warming and save water.. Drink more beer! (and sleep in the raw with your missus. Or anyone, if you can get away with it). Shower once a month instead of once a week. Don't fraternize with the she-kangaroos. They give you Barcoo Rot and your balls fall off.

2. 

• Australian farmer Wayne Dunford walks through his failled barley in Parkes, New South Wales.

• Environment
• Climate change

'Big Dry' claims River Murray lakes

After seven years of drought, flooding with seawater may be river system's only hope.*

• Barbara McMahon in Sydney
• The Observer,
• Article history

Australia's epic drought is tightening its grip as a deepening ecological crisis unfolds in the south of the country. After seven years of the Big Dry, water levels in lakes at the mouth of the mighty Murray river have fallen by up to 50cm below sea level and environmental damage is spreading on a massive scale, according to conservationists.

The crisis has come about because Australia is in the grip of the worst drought in a century. Years of scant rainfall have left vast areas parched and last month it was predicted that up to a million people could face a shortage of drinking water if the drought continues. The report from government officials warned that there could be problems supplying drinking water from the Murray Darling in 2008-2009 unless there is significant rainfall soon.

Another report by scientists predicted that Australasia would experience a tenfold increase in heatwaves as a result of climate change. Exceptionally hot years, which used to occur once every 22 years, would come every one or two years, making drought a part of the landscape. Water in public storage in the basin is at only 21 per cent capacity.

Arlene Buchan, director of the Australian Conservation Foundation, said the lakes need 300 to 400 gigalitres of water - a gigalitre is equivalent to 1,000 Olympic-sized swimming pools - before the year's end. 'Unless we get that water, we are facing an ecological disaster.'

Man lost in desert eats termites to survive for four days.

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2008/07/080731-survivor-video-ap.html

Tourist who stayed too long in the sun.