For most of the great sweep of human history on this planet, fish have been plentiful, we've never had to worry about how many there are out there or how many we take because there has always been enough to satisfy our wildest demands. Nothing I think better captures that for me than the Dutch masters' painting still-life tableaus of fish markets in the 17th century. Within paintings like these you can see not just the incredible variety of seafood that was on offer, ranging from sturgeon to halibut to cod, wolf fish, even porpoises and seals, sea lampreys, gurnards, salmon, the whole range of fish that was on offer was simply extraordinary, but also the enormous size of the animals displayed in these paintings. This is not just mere artistic exaggeration. It is very consistent across a whole range of different artists across different decades through this period, they were painting in a very naturalistic way to depict what they saw, and it tells us something about the abundance of life in the sea.

The size of fish was simply incredible some of the time, and there are some wonderful descriptions from early accounts such as that of Olaus Magnus the Goth who was a Swedish cleric from the 16th century, and he wrote, 'It is no trivial danger that looms over these fishermen as they pull with their hooks at fish of gigantic strength and bulk, 12 feet long, such as halibut, skate and other winged fish,' and you think to yourself, well, that's a bit over the top, a bit exaggerated. He goes on to say how the fishermen had to lash themselves to the masts sometimes in order to haul these things out. But then when you see pictures from the past century of enormous fish, giant halibuts, then you understand really what he meant.

Everything changed though in terms of fishing in the late 19th century with the addition of steam power to the fishing fleet, and this changed all the rules. We were now cut loose from the bonds of wind and tide that had held us for so long. We were able to travel much farther offshore, we could get fish back to market in a fresh state from much greater distances. You could go deeper down, you could drag bigger nets, you could fish round-the-clock seven days…no, six days a week, they never fished on Sundays in those days. But it was an incredible alteration in the amount of fishing power being expended.

And it was also a time of great controversy and change in the fishing industry, and that was partly because of the effect that the industry was having on the environment around it. It was, for the first time, really beginning to have an impact on the fish stocks and the fishermen started to complain, and royal commissions of inquiry were held to investigate what was going wrong and why it was taking more effort to land fish than it had before. And the inquiries usually ended up saying, well, we don't know really, he says this, he says that, it could be either.

And so one positive thing that came out of these inquiries was the initiation of the collection of fishing statistics in 1889 in the United Kingdom, and from that a careful observer can see some interesting trends in the supply of fish. What you can see is that in 1889 with a largely sail powered fleet still, we were landing about five times more fish into England and Wales from the bottom trawl fleet, that is boats that are dragging their nets across the seabed, as we do today, which is pretty extraordinary. And that certainly caused me to pause and think about it.

http://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/scienceshow/the-coming-crisis-for-the--oceans/4735314#transcript

The areas in Australia with the strongest take-up of solar energy have MPs who largely don't support the sector, according to a new scorecard of federal Australian MPs that grades them on his or her attitude to solar power.

The 100% Renewable Energy's solar scorecard has ranked each House of Representatives member on various criteria, including their commitment to the renewable energy target, carbon pricing and support for large-scale solar projects.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, Adam Bandt, the only Greens member in the lower house, came out on top, with full marks in each of the categories.

Liberal Alby Schultz, who has called the renewable energy target "the biggest government sponsored fraud in the history of our country" came bottom of the rankings.

The top half of the rankings are dominated by Labor MPs, with Graham Perrett, Julie Owens and former speaker Harry Jenkins all ranked as strong supporters of solar.

However, there are exceptions. Four Liberals, headed by shadow communications minister Malcolm Turnbull, are ahead of environment minister Tony Burke, who is deemed to have uncertain support for large solar projects.

Interestingly, in terms of electorates with the highest solar panel take-up rates, Wright, Mayo, Kingston, Grey and Fisher lead the way. Ironically, only one of these electorates has a Labor MP, with the rest presided over by Coalition members who are ranked lowly on the solar scorecard.

100% Renewable Energy said solar power in Australia has created 15,000 jobs, saved three million tonnes of CO2 and knocked $551.6 million off household power bills.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/jun/21/mps-solar-energy-ranking

Tony Abbott's insistence that the election will be a ''referendum on the carbon tax'' has been undermined by polling showing that just a third of voters support the Coalition's plan to abolish it.
Fewer voters want to see the carbon tax removed now than before it took effect on July 1 last year. Nearly half, or 48 per cent, wanted the tax scrapped a year ago.
But a poll of 1009 people, conducted by JWS Research for the Climate Institute, found just 37 per cent of them now supported the Coalition's intention to wind the tax back in favour of its ''Direct Action'' policy, which involves paying companies to reduce emissions.
Even fewer people - 34 per cent - would back an Abbott government calling a double dissolution election to fulfil its ''pledge in blood'' to repeal the tax.

Fewer than half the Coalition voters would back Mr Abbott taking Australia back to the polls.
JWS pollster John Scales said the Opposition Leader had failed to convince people that carbon pricing should be scrapped because two-thirds of Australians believed climate change was real.
Climate change believers accounted for 66 per cent of voters, compared with 64 per cent a year ago.
Mr Scales said: ''The Coalition's complaint that everyone wants to get rid of the carbon tax is not backed up by the numbers.''

Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/opinion/political-news/abbott-carbon-tax-mantra-blunted-20130622-2opjp.html#ixzz2X29xflpr

US President Barack Obama has promised to outline his plan to deal with climate change in a speech at Georgetown University on Tuesday.

He said it would include measures to reduce carbon pollution and to lead global efforts to fight climate change.

Mr Obama has said repeatedly he would tackle climate change, but has been blocked by Congress.

He is believed to be planning to pass the new measures by executive action, meaning he will bypass Congress.

"There's no single step that can reverse the effects of climate change," he said in a video message.

"But when it comes to the world we leave our children, we owe it to them to do what we can."

He made similar points earlier this year at his inauguration and in his State of the Union address.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-23017961

US president Barack Obama has laid out a broad new plan to fight climate change, using executive powers to get around "flat Earth" science deniers who have blocked action in Congress.

Mr Obama called for new restrictions on existing and new power plants to curb carbon emissions, pledged to push new generation clean energy sources and to lead a fresh global effort to stem global warming.

Officials said the plan would allow the United States to meet a goal of cutting greenhouse gas emissions by 17 per cent below 2005 levels by 2020, a pledge Mr Obama made at the inconclusive Copenhagen summit in 2009.

The president argued that Americans across the country were already paying the "price of inaction" against climate change, describing 2012 as the warmest year in human history, which parched farmlands in the US heartland.

"As a president, as a father, and as an American, I am here to say we need to act," he said, in a speech delivered in the sweltering early afternoon heat outside Georgetown University, with an eye on his political legacy.

Mr Obama said he had no patience for climate change deniers, including many in Congress, who dispute the science holding that carbon dioxide emissions contribute to a dangerously warming planet.

"We don't have time for a meeting of the Flat Earth Society," he said.

"Sticking your head in the sand might make you feel safer, but it is not going to protect you from the coming storm."

read more: http://www.abc.net.au/news/2013-06-26/obama-lays-out-plan-to-fight-climate-change/4780474

see also: http://www.yourdemocracy.net.au/drupal/node/2002

Gus toon first published in December 2005 on this site, when Bush was president....

Western US states baked by blistering heat wave

Western US states are baking under an extended heat wave, with temperatures threatening to break the all-time high recorded on Earth.

In Phoenix, Arizona, the mercury hit 47C (116F) on Friday, and in the desert of Death Valley, California, the thermometer approached 51C.

The heat wave is expected to last through the weekend.

Cities in the region are opening cooling centres and officials fear the heat could delay air travel.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-23107652

See stories about global warming all over this site including the Vostok record... See picture at top and stories below it...

Lester Brown says grain harvests are already shrinking as US, India and China come close to 'peak water'

Wells are drying up and underwater tables falling so fast in the Middle East and parts of India, China and the US that food supplies are seriously threatened, one of the world's leading resource analysts has warned.

In a major new essay Lester Brown, head of the Earth Policy Institute in Washington, claims that 18 countries, together containing half the world's people, are now overpumping their underground water tables to the point – known as "peak water" – where they are not replenishing and where harvests are getting smaller each year.

The situation is most serious in the Middle East. According to Brown: "Among the countries whose water supply has peaked and begun to decline are Saudi Arabia, Syria, Iraq and Yemen. By 2016 Saudi Arabia projects it will be importing some 15m tonnes of wheat, rice, corn and barley to feed its population of 30 million people. It is the first country to publicly project how aquifer depletion will shrink its grain harvest.

"The world is seeing the collision between population growth and water supply at the regional level. For the first time in history, grain production is dropping in a geographic region with nothing in sight to arrest the decline. Because of the failure of governments in the region to mesh population and water policies, each day now brings 10,000 more people to feed and less irrigation water with which to feed them."

Brown warns that Syria's grain production peaked in 2002 and since then has dropped 30%; Iraq has dropped its grain production 33% since 2004; and production in Iran dropped 10% between 2007 and 2012 as its irrigation wells started to go dry.

"Iran is already in deep trouble. It is feeling the effects of shrinking water supplies from overpumping. Yemen is fast becoming a hydrological basket case. Grain production has fallen there by half over the last 35 years. By 2015 irrigated fields will be a rarity and the country will be importing virtually all of its grain."

There is also concern about falling water tables in China, India and the US, the world's three largest food-producing countries. "In India, 175 million people are being fed with grain produced by overpumping, in China 130 million. In the United States the irrigated area is shrinking in leading farm states with rapid population growth, such as California and Texas, as aquifers are depleted and irrigation water is diverted to cities."

Falling water tables are already adversely affecting harvest prospects in China, which rivals the US as the world's largest grain producer, says Brown. "The water table under the North China Plain, an area that produces more than half of the country's wheat and a third of its maize is falling fast. Overpumping has largely depleted the shallow aquifer, forcing well drillers to turn to the region's deep aquifer, which is not replenishable."

The situation in India may be even worse, given that well drillers are now using modified oil-drilling technology to reach water half a mile or more deep. "The harvest has been expanding rapidly in recent years, but only because of massive overpumping from the water table. The margin between food consumption and survival is precarious in India, whose population is growing by 18 million per year and where irrigation depends almost entirely on underground water. Farmers have drilled some 21m irrigation wells and are pumping vast amounts of underground water, and water tables are declining at an accelerating rate in Punjab, Haryana, Rajasthan, Gujarat and Tamil Nadu."

In the US, farmers are overpumping in the Western Great Plains, including in several leading grain-producing states such as Texas, Oklahoma, Kansas and Nebraska. Irrigated agriculture has thrived in these states, but the water is drawn from theOgallala aquifer, a huge underground water body that stretches from Nebraska southwards to the Texas Panhandle. "It is, unfortunately, a fossil aquifer, one that does not recharge. Once it is depleted, the wells go dry and farmers either go back to dryland farming or abandon farming altogether, depending on local conditions," says Brown.

"In Texas, located on the shallow end of the aquifer, the irrigated area peaked in 1975 and has dropped 37% since then. In Oklahoma irrigation peaked in 1982 and has dropped by 25%. In Kansas the peak did not come until 2009, but during the three years since then it has dropped precipitously, falling nearly 30%. Nebraska saw its irrigated area peak in 2007. Since then its grain harvest has shrunk by 15%."

Brown warned that many other countries may be on the verge of declining harvests. "With less water for irrigation, Mexico may be on the verge of a downturn in its grain harvest. Pakistan may also have reached peak water. If so, peak grain may not be far behind."

http://www.guardian.co.uk/global-development/2013/jul/06/food-supply-threat-water-wells-dry-up

---------------------------------------------

As global warming starts to bite, there is a strong chance that increased humidity in the atmosphere can allay some of this problem, on the margins... But there is strong chance as well that some regions will be drenched while others will go drier. This can exacerbate the problem of food supply. Drier places will not be able to sustain crops while wetter areas might see crops ruined by floods and too damp soils. 

See image at top...

Meanwhile:

The CSIRO has found there is a pattern of declining annual rainfall and stream run-off here in the south west of Western Australia. A trend that has been evident since about 1970. The region’s average annual rainfall has fallen by around 20 % since that time.

If the trend of diminishing rainfall in the south west continues, annual rainfall in Bridgetown will be insufficient to sustain the Southern Mahogany trees.

The Blue Gums too, under these conditions, will stress and die before they reach maturity.

We may get the next crop of Blue Gum logs off in 2019 but the following crop, in 2029, is looking tenuous at best.

Annual surface run-off in the south west has reduced by about 45 per cent since 1970. We will need to build more desalination plants. Our dams are simply not filling up any more.

Farmers on the edge of the wheat belt aren’t sowing wheat anymore. This is due to the reduced chances of their crops receiving suitable rainfall.

http://www.independentaustralia.net/2013/environment/what-will-we-leave-our-children/

We think of Earth as watery – the blue planet. But how much water is there, and where exactly is it held?

As well as the obvious places like the oceans, large stores of water can be found in some surprising corners of the planet – even beneath the world’s driest deserts.

It's difficult to imagine how much it all adds up to, but the Earth Unplugged team have a thirst for answers, and so decided to tot up the numbers for our planet’s most precious resource.

http://www.bbc.com/future/story/20131108-how-much-water-does-earth-hold

see image and comment at top...