Looking back… two years ago
Exactly two years ago, 5th of March, 2020, when the coronavirus (as it was then called) “pandemic” was just getting up to speed, I wrote a post called “Things to do in Sydney When it Rains“. (Click on title to read that one.) The following day I went on a self guided tour of the Rocks when the Queen Mary ocean liner was in dock. Ah, remember cruise ships? Within a few days the great toilet roll panic took hold. Take a look back at some of those posts. I also wrote a fair bit about the coming lock-downs etc… I think I can say with some confidence that I saw through the bullshit very early in the game.
That rainy period came not long after we arrived in Australia. Just before that, everything in the country was on fire. Well, if that is, you believed the media reports in the northern hemisphere.
Fast forward to today. It has rained almost non-stop for over two weeks. The news media has recently taken a distinct turn however…
Floods…
Right now you could be forgiven for thinking that the “pandemic” is long gone. For a few days running there was almost nothing about covid in the newspapers that I have flipped through. For a couple of days earlier in the week – Nothing! Not a thing.
For the second year running floods are a big concern. It has rained a lot here for two whole weeks or more. More than I remember in the previous two months of March. Seriously! And often when it has rained it has been torrential. Quite a few people have died as a result of flooding. There is talk of increasing dam walls but that is not a real answer. It’s a typical knee-jerk reaction.
Then of course there’s a new story for the media to play with. Unfortunately it is only sad news. It’s war! And could of course it will probably get much worse before it gets better. Such things tend to.
The Bradfield Scheme
The flooding news made me think of a scheme I only heard about some months back. It is called the Bradfield scheme and was first mooted in 1938 just before the outbreak of the 2nd World War. (Irony anyone?.) The idea was abandoned in 1947 – just after World War 2, at a time when all kinds of other infrastructure and rebuilding programmes were being started all over the world. Again, kind of interesting eh?
The scheme was basically to divert water from flood prone areas of Queensland and northern New South Wales, to drought ridden areas of inland Queensland and South Australia. The (seemingly) obvious benefits are two-fold. The risk of flooding (the likes of which we are now seeing) is greatly reduced or even eliminated in one area, while another region is almost made drought-proof.
Recently however, the scheme (or some modified versions thereof) have started to gain momentum again especially in Queensland. From what little I have looked into it I would say that it looks like it should be done – but I need to study it a lot more. I have been planning to do a specific post on the Bradfield scheme for a while now. So, now that I have brought it up, that will need writing in the very near future… For now, in a nutshell: It basically puts the excess rainfall into drought areas, rather than people’s houses on the flood-prone areas.
In other News…
There only seem to be two other main news items. Really! One is about corruption in large construction projects. Nothing new there, so let’s not dwell… And of course that war. Right now the floods and the war are about level pegging for media airtime and page space. But that will all change of course as the flood waters recede…
The sudden and convenient disappearance (media-wise) of that bloody covid virus just happened to coincide with Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Amazing that eh?
Borders that have been closed for two years are suddenly wide open. On one side, to tanks and armoured vehicles. On the other, to fleeing migrants/refugees – another human crisis in the making…
Still the biggest laugh for me in all of this (and you do have to laugh) is the sudden and deliberate vanishing virus act. Like a magician waving his magic wand. Covid is a bit like that Kaiser Soze character in the great movie The Usual Suspects. (One of my top ten of all time by the way – probably.) And just like that. It’s gone!
The Covid miracle. Hmm…
It really is like a bloody miracle isn’t it? There are still reports of case numbers and even deaths blamed on covid if you delve in to the state twitter feeds. Technically at least it is still there. But clearly it is not a sexy enough subject for the media… Don’t you think it’s a little odd how abruptly the media has dropped the virus?
But don’t be surprised, if that war ends suddenly, to see the media become covid fanatics once again. I’d like to say “you can’t make this stuff up”. But they do. Don’t they ?