The Best Years of Your Life are Just Beginning!

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John Howard, whose tenure of over 11 years ended Saturday with his election loss to Kevin Rudd, may be looking for work as it now appears he will be ousted additionally from his seat in Australia’s legislature.

Rudd, according to the AP, campaigned on a platform including the withdrawal of Australian forces from Iraq and greater attention to ecological crises. Howard was known all round as a “staunch ally” of the Bush administration, a position which earned him increasing domestic criticism in recent years.

Tony Blair, the former UK PM, has taken up the role of “everyone’s envoy” to the Middle East. And, with the usual sardonic, gritty wit, Get Your War On has made a prediction for Bush’s coming retirement from the Oval Office:

So, cheers, Mr. Howard—there’s plenty ahead! Your mate George will be joining you soon enough.

Anglosphere to World: Indi-ge-who??

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The United Nations General Assembly adopted on 13 September a Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. This non-binding document (are they ever binding?) is described by the UN as “an important standard for the treatment of indigenous peoples that will undoubtedly be a significant tool towards eliminating human rights violations against the planet’s 370 million indigenous people and assisting them in combating discrimination and marginalization.”

Various UN agencies have been chewing on this proposal since its inception over twenty years ago. Having finally reached the vote in the General Assembly, the declaration found itself approved by an overwhelming majority of 143 nations, with 11 abstaining and 4 voting against. The naysayers, in this instance, were (perhaps not that surprisingly) the United States of America, Australia, New Zealand, and Canada. Wikipedia has a nice summary of the complaints of these nations, which, in the humble opinion of yours truly, come off as just a wee bit on the paranoid schizophrenic side.

While I daresay most would recognize that the opportunity window for optimal efficacy of such a declaration was x’d out at least two hundred years ago, still it is critical that international law provide for the rights of the world’s relatively few remaining indigenous communities. Nowhere is the need for redress more apparent, for instance, than in Latin America, where ancient tribes have recently been engaged in the fight to preserve their ancestral lands from oil conglomerates. Indeed, a preponderance of the countries involved in drafting the proposal are situated in Central and South America.

A Drought Down Under

The BBC reports that the state premier of Queensland has warned citizens they will soon be drinking water containing recycled sewage as the widespread drought in Australia continues:

Premier Peter Beattie said he had scrapped a planned referendum on the issue, because there was no longer a choice.

He also warned that other states in Australia might eventually have to do the same as Queensland.

The country is currently suffering from a severe drought – the worst on record.

Last week Prime Minister John Howard declared water security to be the biggest challenge currently facing Australia, and he announced a A$10bn ($7bn) package to tackle the problem.

Mr Beattie said that falling water levels had left his state administration with no option but to introduce recycled water in south-eastern Queensland, starting from next year.

“We’re not getting rain; we’ve got no choice,” he told ABC radio.

“These are ugly decisions, but you either drink water or you die. There’s no choice. It’s liquid gold, it’s a matter of life and death,” he said.

The practice of drinking recycled water – which is already used in other countries such as the US, UK and Singapore, does not have widespread support in Australia.

Mr Howard supported Mr Beattie’s comments, telling a Sydney radio station: “I’ve advocated recycling for a long time… I am very strongly in favour of recycling, and Mr Beattie is right.”

But Mike Rann, the premier of South Australia, and Morris Iemma, the premier of New South Wales, rejected the Queensland plan – with Mr Rann ruling out using recycled sewage for anything but irrigation.

Malcolm Turnbull, the new environment and water resources minister, asked other states to be more open-minded on the issue.

“Don’t rule out desalination because it is expensive, or recycling because it sounds yucky, or building a dam,” Mr Turnbull told Australian media.

“Put everything on the table, assess all the economic, environmental and financial costs and then make a decision.”

Albeit possessed of a great deal of stunning ecological diversity, Australia is essentially a desert continent, with a large portion of available freshwater derived from the overtaxed Murray-Darling Basin. El Niño currents, caused by excessive warmth in the Pacific, are responsible for periodic droughts which have been a major source of angst for Aussie farmers for decades. Elevated temperatures tied to global warming have increased the severity of the El Niño phenomenon at the source as well as its effects on Australia’s climate.

According to CNN, Australia’s weather bureau said earlier this month that the country was suffering the effects of accelerated climate change. Expansive brushfires fueled by dessicated forests and shrubland appear to have persevered through a period of unseasonably heavy rains moving across the Outback. In all, about 4,600 square miles of forest have been destroyed by brushfires over the last few months.

The citizens of southeastern Australia, the country’s most heavily populated region, have been enduring the worst drought in at least a generation. Suicide rates among Australian farmers have soared in recent years, and PM John Howard recently decreed the water problem to be Australia’s most threatening national crisis. While conservation programs and infrastructural development in situ are key to addressing the threat, the drought in Australia should serve as a clarion call to both consumers and policymakers in the United States and in other nations whose contributions to the problem of global warming currently far outstrip those of the rest of the world’s economies.

The greatest pretender: Australia’s Superb Lyrebird

Ann at Reclaiming Space is eventually going to get on to me for copping off her blog so much, but this morning I really could not resist: this video is one of the most amazing things you’ll see today, I’d be willing to wager.

The Superb Lyrebird, or menura novaehollandiae, is a large Australian songbird so named because the plumage of the male, when fully displayed, resembles the shape of an ancient Greek harp or lyre. The male has a complex courtship ritual which includes vocal imitations of the sounds of the forest that are nothing short of stunning.

The species, thankfully, is not currently considered threatened. It has been featured on Australia’s 10-cent piece.