23. Nov. 2007
The Editor
The Advertiser
Dear Editor,
As a scientist who for over 35 years has been agitating for South Australia to make a rational assessment of its water resources, I was privileged yesterday to be conducted over the brilliant Salisbury storm water utilisation system by its laterally thinking master-mind, Colin Pitman.
Before our Government exhales one more breath of hot air, wastes another cent of our money or diverts another hectare of land for inappropriate development, the members should collectively seek an appointment with Mr Pitman to have explained in lucid and graphic terms how Adelaide’s water problems can be solved in real time, and by means which will enlist community enthusiasm through peripheral benefits while saving us all a fortune.
Sincerely,
Peter Schwerdtfeger
Emeritus Professor of Meteorology
Flinders University
____________________________________________________________________
The Advertiser
Dear Editor,
As a scientist who for over 35 years has been agitating for South Australia to make a rational assessment of its water resources, I was privileged yesterday to be conducted over the brilliant Salisbury storm water utilisation system by its laterally thinking master-mind, Colin Pitman.
Before our Government exhales one more breath of hot air, wastes another cent of our money or diverts another hectare of land for inappropriate development, the members should collectively seek an appointment with Mr Pitman to have explained in lucid and graphic terms how Adelaide’s water problems can be solved in real time, and by means which will enlist community enthusiasm through peripheral benefits while saving us all a fortune.
Sincerely,
Peter Schwerdtfeger
Emeritus Professor of Meteorology
Flinders University
____________________________________________________________________
15. February 2008
The Editor
“The Advertiser”
Dear Sir,
The drive to dramatically increase South Australia’s population, (Advertiser, 15. Feb. p.5) reflects a basic instinct exhibited by all forms of life, but in the case of humanity, flies in the face of the mounting evidence all over the World that there are too many of us for the available essential resources, principally water and nutritious food. In our case, water is the problem requiring the most serious expert attention.
Our State is an example of singularly poor planning, in that by being so urban-centric, no appropriate thought has been lent to the stimulation of regional centres. No other Australian State suffers from this level of imbalance.
The key to the success of many smaller cities in successful Nations all over World has been the establishment of vibrant and culturally generous educational facilities. With a more enlightened population, the meagre lateral thinking resources of our Government will be augmented by a more diverse range of rational solutions to our State’s singular problems.
Sincerely
“The Advertiser”
Dear Sir,
The drive to dramatically increase South Australia’s population, (Advertiser, 15. Feb. p.5) reflects a basic instinct exhibited by all forms of life, but in the case of humanity, flies in the face of the mounting evidence all over the World that there are too many of us for the available essential resources, principally water and nutritious food. In our case, water is the problem requiring the most serious expert attention.
Our State is an example of singularly poor planning, in that by being so urban-centric, no appropriate thought has been lent to the stimulation of regional centres. No other Australian State suffers from this level of imbalance.
The key to the success of many smaller cities in successful Nations all over World has been the establishment of vibrant and culturally generous educational facilities. With a more enlightened population, the meagre lateral thinking resources of our Government will be augmented by a more diverse range of rational solutions to our State’s singular problems.
Sincerely
Peter Schwerdtfeger
Em. Professor of Meteorology
Flinders University
____________________________________________________________________
22. March, 2008
The Editor
"The Advertiser"
"The Advertiser"
Dear Sir,
I do not know whether to laugh or to cry on reading of proposals to solve water problems by towing giant water bags behind ships ("The Advertiser", March 22, p.2) when I remember the official derision which greeted the evaluation of the feasibility and benefits of, as well as difficulties in solving water supply problems by harvesting icebergs from Antarctica.
A mid-1970s study conducted for the Australian Academy of Science indicated that each year the southern polar continent sheds enough icebergs to slake the thirst of over 10 billion people.
Icebergs floating at sea constitute free salvage to enterprising users and apart from scientific knowledge, are the only Antarctic resource which international treaties allow to be taken.
Then as now, Antarctic ice, selected at appropriate locations and suitably protected, could be floated to Australia to provide a supply of the World’s purest unprocessed water, not only with low transportation costs but, once here, could contribute to reduced costs of energy generation.
Even when I pointed out in the "Iceberg Report" that Adelaide was in danger of running out of water by the year 2000, official disbelievers could hardly contain their mirth and steadfastly kept on doing absolutely nothing.
In view of such historically and irrefuteably demonstrated planning incompetence, I am resolved to continue depending on my water tanks and remain independent of State reticulation schemes and supply constraints, just as my family and I have for the last 36 years.
Sincerely,
Peter Schwerdtfeger.
Emeritus Professor of Meteorology
Flinders University.
____________________________________________________________________
17. June, 2008
The Editor
“The Advertiser”
Dear Sir,
It may be trumpeted that the number of South Australia’s universities is growing, but it should be remembered that the very name “university” implies some universality in the search for knowledge.
Institutions concentrating on narrowly defined areas of endeavour have their parallels in specialised trade schools and business colleges. Admirable as these may be in establishing and certifying essential levels of competence in the community; on their own such relatively confined learning environments cannot claim to nurture innovative thinkers and potential decision makers who can “see the forest as well as the trees”.
Universities should not be regarded as places for the fulfillment of short-term aims but rather as durable institutions charged with the continuing development of civilisation in the finest and broadest sense. Without the checks and balances afforded by multi-disciplinary debate, society is in danger of moving uncritically in directions which may lead to nasty surprises.
Peter Schwerdtfeger
Em. Professor of Meteorology
Flinders University
“The Advertiser”
Dear Sir,
It may be trumpeted that the number of South Australia’s universities is growing, but it should be remembered that the very name “university” implies some universality in the search for knowledge.
Institutions concentrating on narrowly defined areas of endeavour have their parallels in specialised trade schools and business colleges. Admirable as these may be in establishing and certifying essential levels of competence in the community; on their own such relatively confined learning environments cannot claim to nurture innovative thinkers and potential decision makers who can “see the forest as well as the trees”.
Universities should not be regarded as places for the fulfillment of short-term aims but rather as durable institutions charged with the continuing development of civilisation in the finest and broadest sense. Without the checks and balances afforded by multi-disciplinary debate, society is in danger of moving uncritically in directions which may lead to nasty surprises.
Peter Schwerdtfeger
Em. Professor of Meteorology
Flinders University
___________________________________________________________________
27. July, 2008
The Editor
" The Advertiser"
Dear Sir,
Is there any hope for Adelaide, because the endless kilometres of dying citrus trees lining the Murray, indicate that the rest of SA has been forgotten.
Salisbury Council’s engineer Colin Pitman has shown how to waterproof Adelaide, but how about the Government emulating this success before potentially valuable areas like the Cheltenham Racecourse are lost forever through insane plans to boost Adelaide's and thus SA’s population even more.
SA Water’s Neros are fiddling with a mis-managed and illogical water-billing system while Adelaide’s reservoirs hover at 50% capacity. Even if they were full, the big city would be safe for only 11 months.
So would someone in power please wake-up and bang some heads together. Short of an unprecendented cloud-burst in the Australian Alps, nothing will raise river levels to sustain the pumps on the banks of the Murray before Adelaide really starts to run out of water later this year.
Sincerely,
Peter Schwerdtfeger
Emeritus Professor of Meteorology
Flinders University
Is there any hope for Adelaide, because the endless kilometres of dying citrus trees lining the Murray, indicate that the rest of SA has been forgotten.
Salisbury Council’s engineer Colin Pitman has shown how to waterproof Adelaide, but how about the Government emulating this success before potentially valuable areas like the Cheltenham Racecourse are lost forever through insane plans to boost Adelaide's and thus SA’s population even more.
SA Water’s Neros are fiddling with a mis-managed and illogical water-billing system while Adelaide’s reservoirs hover at 50% capacity. Even if they were full, the big city would be safe for only 11 months.
So would someone in power please wake-up and bang some heads together. Short of an unprecendented cloud-burst in the Australian Alps, nothing will raise river levels to sustain the pumps on the banks of the Murray before Adelaide really starts to run out of water later this year.
Sincerely,
Peter Schwerdtfeger
Emeritus Professor of Meteorology
Flinders University
___________________________________________________________________
11. August, 2008
The Editor
"The Advertiser"
"The Advertiser"
Dear Sir,
If there were a prize for the most thoughtful letter to your columns in recent weeks, Bruce Dinham (11. Aug) would win it hands down.
His is a timely warning that voracious resources exploiters are turning our country into a quarry to be left as a dump.
It is important to realise that these resources are not only mineral but also crops grown quite disproportionately to our country’s needs. In doing so, no cognizance is shown of vanishing water resources and ever increasing footprints of carbon dioxide as well as an assortment of pollutants.
Sincerely,
Professor Peter Schwerdtfeger
Em. Professor of Meteorology
Flinders University
____________________________________________________________________
20. September, 2008
The Editor
The Advertiser
Dear Sir,
In the light of so much irrigational misery prevailing in our State, not to mention the continuing general water supply uncertainties coupled with no obvious physical actions for a solution, surely the construction of SA Water’s “Taj Mahal” in Victoria Square is an absolute obsenity.
Sincerely,
Professor Peter Schwerdtfeger
Em. Professor of Meteorology
Flinders UniversityThe Advertiser
Dear Sir,
In the light of so much irrigational misery prevailing in our State, not to mention the continuing general water supply uncertainties coupled with no obvious physical actions for a solution, surely the construction of SA Water’s “Taj Mahal” in Victoria Square is an absolute obsenity.
Sincerely,
Professor Peter Schwerdtfeger
Em. Professor of Meteorology
____________________________________________________________________
22nd. September 2008
(Emailed mesage to Senator Nick Xenophon
Senate of Australia)
Dear Senator Xenophon,
In recent years, ever since my attention was drawn to his excellent submission to the House of representatives in 1999:
http://www.aph.gov.au/house/committee/primind/waterinq/sub113b.pdf
I have been in regular electronic contact with Mr. Aron Gingis.
While I stress that I have not met him face to face, it is clear that he is bursting with intellectual energy and well informed on matters concerning water in Australia. His consulting partner, Professor Daniel Rosenfeld of the Hebrew University in Jerusalem has won global acclaim for his related publications and achievements. I have appended a brief description of their relevant “science” below.
In view of the fact that the situation of the Murray-Darling Rivers is dire straits, I believe that there is nothing to lose and everything to gain by listening to Aron Gingis, who has submitted a well documented proposal to the Senate Committee hearing in Melbourne on 26 September 2008, when the fate of the Coorong and Lower Murray Lakes will be discussed.
Following my second exploratory foray into the upper Darling and Murray regions in 6 months, I am convinced that the Federal Government needs to receive the strongest possible signals on the seriousness of the situation.
At earlier meetings, for reasons beyond my ken, Aron Gingis and Prof. Rosenfeld were effectively given the “bum’s rush” by some powerful members of what l have so far considered authoritative Australian research bodies. Why, I do not know, unless personal reputations are at stake. Nevertheless, the dice of aridity has rolled so far that I believe that Aron Gingis should now be listened to seriously and that if he and Prof. Rosenfeld have a solution to rectify the Murray’s sad situation, they will be regarded as saviours. If their advice proves to be in vain, then the Senate Committee will have lost only an hour or less, “small beer” I am sure you will agree when weighed up with all the other hypocritical and self-interested nonsense you have to put up with.
Sincerely,
In recent years, ever since my attention was drawn to his excellent submission to the House of representatives in 1999:
http://www.aph.gov.au/house/committee/primind/waterinq/sub113b.pdf
I have been in regular electronic contact with Mr. Aron Gingis.
While I stress that I have not met him face to face, it is clear that he is bursting with intellectual energy and well informed on matters concerning water in Australia. His consulting partner, Professor Daniel Rosenfeld of the Hebrew University in Jerusalem has won global acclaim for his related publications and achievements. I have appended a brief description of their relevant “science” below.
In view of the fact that the situation of the Murray-Darling Rivers is dire straits, I believe that there is nothing to lose and everything to gain by listening to Aron Gingis, who has submitted a well documented proposal to the Senate Committee hearing in Melbourne on 26 September 2008, when the fate of the Coorong and Lower Murray Lakes will be discussed.
Following my second exploratory foray into the upper Darling and Murray regions in 6 months, I am convinced that the Federal Government needs to receive the strongest possible signals on the seriousness of the situation.
At earlier meetings, for reasons beyond my ken, Aron Gingis and Prof. Rosenfeld were effectively given the “bum’s rush” by some powerful members of what l have so far considered authoritative Australian research bodies. Why, I do not know, unless personal reputations are at stake. Nevertheless, the dice of aridity has rolled so far that I believe that Aron Gingis should now be listened to seriously and that if he and Prof. Rosenfeld have a solution to rectify the Murray’s sad situation, they will be regarded as saviours. If their advice proves to be in vain, then the Senate Committee will have lost only an hour or less, “small beer” I am sure you will agree when weighed up with all the other hypocritical and self-interested nonsense you have to put up with.
Sincerely,
Peter Schwerdtfeger
APPENDIX:
Our findings are based on new scientific and technological methodology
recently developed by Professor Danny Rosenfeld and which has been
endorsed and adopted by the National Aeronautics and Space
Administration (NASA) and the National Space Development Agency of
Japan (NASDA) to measure the microphysical structures of clouds
through satellite observations. The satellite observations and
measurements on board of the National Aeronautics and Space
Administration (NASA) and the National Space Development Agency of
Japan (NASDA), Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission (TRMM), showed that
warm and cold rain-forming processes in the Maritime Convective (MC)
clouds and the Continental Convective (CC) clouds are sensitive to air
pollution. The sources of air pollution affecting rainfall and snowfall
precipitation are urban and industrial air pollution, desert dust, smoke
from burning vegetation, forest and grass fires.
Our findings are based on new scientific and technological methodology
recently developed by Professor Danny Rosenfeld and which has been
endorsed and adopted by the National Aeronautics and Space
Administration (NASA) and the National Space Development Agency of
Japan (NASDA) to measure the microphysical structures of clouds
through satellite observations. The satellite observations and
measurements on board of the National Aeronautics and Space
Administration (NASA) and the National Space Development Agency of
Japan (NASDA), Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission (TRMM), showed that
warm and cold rain-forming processes in the Maritime Convective (MC)
clouds and the Continental Convective (CC) clouds are sensitive to air
pollution. The sources of air pollution affecting rainfall and snowfall
precipitation are urban and industrial air pollution, desert dust, smoke
from burning vegetation, forest and grass fires.
____________________________________________________________________
8th October, 2008
The Editor
The Advertiser
Dear Sir/Madam,
The fact that the Adelaide Hills Council is even considering a further extension to the Mount Lofty House complex illustrates the serious failure of the State’s planning procedures.
This proposed development of 20 apartments, theatre and administration offices would be built in the centre of SA’s highest rainfall zone. In a state which is perilously close to running out of water, how can this possibly be contemplated?
The more that we allow the Hills above Adelaide to be waterproofed, the more deprived the natural aquifers become, the more serious the seasonal stress upon what is left of the creeks and the greater the requirement for chemical purification of Adelaide’s water supply.
All that Colonel Light envisaged and stood up for so resolutely on behalf of his posterity may soon have been in vain.
Sincerely,
Professor Peter Schwerdtfeger
(Em. Professor of Meteorology
Flinders University Adelaide)
The Advertiser
Dear Sir/Madam,
The fact that the Adelaide Hills Council is even considering a further extension to the Mount Lofty House complex illustrates the serious failure of the State’s planning procedures.
This proposed development of 20 apartments, theatre and administration offices would be built in the centre of SA’s highest rainfall zone. In a state which is perilously close to running out of water, how can this possibly be contemplated?
The more that we allow the Hills above Adelaide to be waterproofed, the more deprived the natural aquifers become, the more serious the seasonal stress upon what is left of the creeks and the greater the requirement for chemical purification of Adelaide’s water supply.
All that Colonel Light envisaged and stood up for so resolutely on behalf of his posterity may soon have been in vain.
Sincerely,
Professor Peter Schwerdtfeger
(Em. Professor of Meteorology
Flinders University Adelaide)
_____________________________________________________________________________
24th. October, 2008
The Editor
"The Australian"
Dear Sir
From my perspective, on a relatively isolated farm on our island continent, it seems that democracy is beginning to fall apart. The evidence for this gloomy assessment lies in many problem areas but is particularly conspicuous in the serious issues of water and climate.
During the last two decades, when Australia began to dabble in global free-trade, large, faceless investment companies have progressively exerted their muscle to the extent that even our National Government is powerless. Worship of the “God of Economic Growth at all Costs” has so interlocked the fortunes of rich and poor, the minority and the majority, that responsible Government no longer seems to be capable of making minor corrective adjustments without triggering a landslide of unforeseen and unwanted changes. Most of these changes augment the flow of wealth from the mindless poor to the faceless rich.
Fresh water in Australia is being legally “stolen” upstream but permitted because of the jobs of “little people”. In the process, the riverine environments and downstream communities are being irreversibly destroyed.
Carbon dioxide is proclaimed as being the main trigger of unwanted global warming, yet coal is being dug out of the ground at a faster rate than ever before! The cure, Australians are told by their Government, will be a complex taxation scheme, but no embargo on coal mining.
Who is calling the shots?
Professor Peter Schwerdtfeger
Em. Professor of Meteorology
From my perspective, on a relatively isolated farm on our island continent, it seems that democracy is beginning to fall apart. The evidence for this gloomy assessment lies in many problem areas but is particularly conspicuous in the serious issues of water and climate.
During the last two decades, when Australia began to dabble in global free-trade, large, faceless investment companies have progressively exerted their muscle to the extent that even our National Government is powerless. Worship of the “God of Economic Growth at all Costs” has so interlocked the fortunes of rich and poor, the minority and the majority, that responsible Government no longer seems to be capable of making minor corrective adjustments without triggering a landslide of unforeseen and unwanted changes. Most of these changes augment the flow of wealth from the mindless poor to the faceless rich.
Fresh water in Australia is being legally “stolen” upstream but permitted because of the jobs of “little people”. In the process, the riverine environments and downstream communities are being irreversibly destroyed.
Carbon dioxide is proclaimed as being the main trigger of unwanted global warming, yet coal is being dug out of the ground at a faster rate than ever before! The cure, Australians are told by their Government, will be a complex taxation scheme, but no embargo on coal mining.
Who is calling the shots?
Professor Peter Schwerdtfeger
Em. Professor of Meteorology
Flinders University
____________________________________________________________________
17th January, 2009
The Editor
“The Australian”
Dear Sir,
On the 16th January, I was privileged to spend several hours in flying over Lake Alexandrina and the Coorong with and for an international television production team.
Because my scientific interest in this terminal area of Australia’s once mightiest river, the Murray began with research projects on Lake Albert in the 1970s and continued with a detailed investigation of water losses in Lake Alexandrina as well as over-flights throughout the 1990s, I was shaken by what I saw. The once continuous sheet of water had not only shrunk dramatically but left substatial pockets of water cut off from the main body to a fate of festering salinity.
The earlier studies which I carried out with Flinders University graduate students were financed by the now defunct S.A. Engineering and Water Supply Department and embodied in detailed reports. I wonder whether these can even be located now in the EWSD’s reincarnation as SA Water. Inadequate as the statistics and understanding of the water flow and diversions from the Murray-Darling basin are, they do suffice to reveal that over 80% of that system’s water has blithely been allocated by thoughtless burocracies, both State and national, influenced by political power and economic greed. Advances in the trading practices of such allocations during the last decade have ensured that all of this water is now used.
Only when it has become too late, have some Australians begun to think in terms of sustainability. Most conventional economically driven thinking is based on concepts of expandable frontiers in both space and time. For Australia’s first two centuries, seemingly unlimited space and resources encouraged expansion and economic theories nurtured financial practices which encouraged us to borrow from future generations. Now that the frontiers of regional enterprises have begun to overlap, we have learnt that there are no more resources waiting for exploitation over the horizon. With the potential for expansion lost it has become clear that future generations will not really be able to fall back on population growth to maintain a familiar economy. For a Governments of any political shade to pretend that it can solve this problem only reveals hypocracy or ignorance. Untangling the intricate interdependent web of investment, employment, government revenue streams and environmental restoration is a daunting task with no one on the horizon having a magic bullet. No wonder that the younger generations are becoming increasingly restless, even rebellious.
The frightening but unsurprising inability of our leaders to deal with the environmental challenge is exemplified by claiming carbon dioxide’s growing contibution to the “Greenhouse Effect” to be the culprit in causing undesirable climate change. It offers a wonderful diversion and ignores the fact that there is no phenomenon on Earth driven by a single factor. Climate change there may be, but at least equally important and as yet ignored contributing factors are well documented consequences of massive land clearance and also air-pollution. An obfuscating “greenhouse taxation scheme” will only add confusion. If carbon-dioxide is bad, then every effort should be made for carbon to be left in the ground and not burnt.
Of course there are those who will respond by claiming that advancing technologies such as desalinisation and packing people into denser urban zones will save civilisation. Well I for one, having witnessed the steady collapse in the reliability of water and power supplies have no confidence in such a system which will be driven by economics rather than ethics. Centuries of history show that the remotest and most isolated peasants have a better chance of survival in adversity than their downtrodden urbanised cousins. Recent events show that economics is no more reliable than some engineering.
If there were a possibility of increasing Australians’ survival chances it would be by increasing the Nation’s intellectual capacity. But even that is being exported and the younger generations either discouraged with punitive levels of debt or enticed by pointless idiotically simplified study programmes offered by cash-strapped educational institutions. Clearly Australia’s looming problems are so inter-disciplinary that our best students need every encouragement to both sharpen and broaden their knowledge and understanding, skills they will not acquire while eking out their economic survival at menial noctural jobs and barely able to dream of continuing their studies in the following morning in a state of mental exhaustion.
Sincerely,
Professor Peter Schwerdtfeger
Em. Professor of Meteorology
Flinders University
“The Australian”
Dear Sir,
On the 16th January, I was privileged to spend several hours in flying over Lake Alexandrina and the Coorong with and for an international television production team.
Because my scientific interest in this terminal area of Australia’s once mightiest river, the Murray began with research projects on Lake Albert in the 1970s and continued with a detailed investigation of water losses in Lake Alexandrina as well as over-flights throughout the 1990s, I was shaken by what I saw. The once continuous sheet of water had not only shrunk dramatically but left substatial pockets of water cut off from the main body to a fate of festering salinity.
The earlier studies which I carried out with Flinders University graduate students were financed by the now defunct S.A. Engineering and Water Supply Department and embodied in detailed reports. I wonder whether these can even be located now in the EWSD’s reincarnation as SA Water. Inadequate as the statistics and understanding of the water flow and diversions from the Murray-Darling basin are, they do suffice to reveal that over 80% of that system’s water has blithely been allocated by thoughtless burocracies, both State and national, influenced by political power and economic greed. Advances in the trading practices of such allocations during the last decade have ensured that all of this water is now used.
Only when it has become too late, have some Australians begun to think in terms of sustainability. Most conventional economically driven thinking is based on concepts of expandable frontiers in both space and time. For Australia’s first two centuries, seemingly unlimited space and resources encouraged expansion and economic theories nurtured financial practices which encouraged us to borrow from future generations. Now that the frontiers of regional enterprises have begun to overlap, we have learnt that there are no more resources waiting for exploitation over the horizon. With the potential for expansion lost it has become clear that future generations will not really be able to fall back on population growth to maintain a familiar economy. For a Governments of any political shade to pretend that it can solve this problem only reveals hypocracy or ignorance. Untangling the intricate interdependent web of investment, employment, government revenue streams and environmental restoration is a daunting task with no one on the horizon having a magic bullet. No wonder that the younger generations are becoming increasingly restless, even rebellious.
The frightening but unsurprising inability of our leaders to deal with the environmental challenge is exemplified by claiming carbon dioxide’s growing contibution to the “Greenhouse Effect” to be the culprit in causing undesirable climate change. It offers a wonderful diversion and ignores the fact that there is no phenomenon on Earth driven by a single factor. Climate change there may be, but at least equally important and as yet ignored contributing factors are well documented consequences of massive land clearance and also air-pollution. An obfuscating “greenhouse taxation scheme” will only add confusion. If carbon-dioxide is bad, then every effort should be made for carbon to be left in the ground and not burnt.
Of course there are those who will respond by claiming that advancing technologies such as desalinisation and packing people into denser urban zones will save civilisation. Well I for one, having witnessed the steady collapse in the reliability of water and power supplies have no confidence in such a system which will be driven by economics rather than ethics. Centuries of history show that the remotest and most isolated peasants have a better chance of survival in adversity than their downtrodden urbanised cousins. Recent events show that economics is no more reliable than some engineering.
If there were a possibility of increasing Australians’ survival chances it would be by increasing the Nation’s intellectual capacity. But even that is being exported and the younger generations either discouraged with punitive levels of debt or enticed by pointless idiotically simplified study programmes offered by cash-strapped educational institutions. Clearly Australia’s looming problems are so inter-disciplinary that our best students need every encouragement to both sharpen and broaden their knowledge and understanding, skills they will not acquire while eking out their economic survival at menial noctural jobs and barely able to dream of continuing their studies in the following morning in a state of mental exhaustion.
Sincerely,
Professor Peter Schwerdtfeger
Em. Professor of Meteorology
Flinders University
