It is tough NOW. So how are we coping

GreenandThrifty

ooh hadn't heard of the getting prepared thread ( only started reading mse this week!) off to look if i can find it!

Hawthorn

Oh I'm happy! My asda shop just came, and I got my eggs free because one was broken :T
He said to the trainee that was with him, that if an item is damaged, it's their fault and they must refund the customer and leave the item if it is wanted.

I asked him to damage the rest of the shop too, but he was having none of it :rotfl:

Almo

Hi Charis :hello:

It's not that the government have said that Vic will become uninhabitable at all. There is a growing unease about the resources (water, mainly although electricity supplies too) we are using given the trends that are emerging water wise. The lack of rainfall caused, in part, the bushfires and of course a lot of the water reserves we do have were used to put out the fires - that kind of downward spiral is worrying.

I don't want to frighten you or your SIL and I am totally uneducated in all of this so please don't worry. For OH and I, we read stories about the drought - there are children here (well, in the outback, not in Melbourne) who are old enough to be walking and have never seen rain. Places which were once viable farms haven't had rain for years. This, coupled with the expansion planned for Melbourne, makes us wonder where the water will come from. Without water, of course, we cannot grow food.

As well as the water, the trend of increasingly high summer temps is scary. 46.4 degrees last Sat. It is truly difficult to maintain a normal life in those temps when they're irregular, let alone if they become regular in the future.

Please please please realise that I'm typing this based on what I've seen, a little that I've read in the newspapers and my own thought processes. The state and federal governments may well have plans that I don't know of (how dare they not consult me ) which change everything. My view is that if these don't exist, ultimately, then yes, parts of Australia will no longer be viable. How long that will be is something about which I have no idea.

Oh dear, I feel very guilty for worrying you now.

Primrose

It constantly amazes and disappoints me that mankind, who have developed the technology to put men onto the moon haven't yet developed the vast water desalination projects to use the waters from our vast oceans (whose levels seem to be rising rapidly because of climate change) and get the water piped to drought stricken areas of Africa and elsewhere. If they can move oil and gas thousands of miles by pipeline, why not water as well? It is just as essential for our survival as the other two. Perhaps we need to be putting more trainee engineers through university instead of students for media & arts studies ?? (But that's another rant of mine)

Charis

Almo wrote: »

Please please please realise that I'm typing this based on what I've seen, a little that I've read in the newspapers and my own thought processes. The state and federal governments may well have plans that I don't know of (how dare they not consult me ) which change everything.

Hi Almo :hello:

My SIL works for local govt, so she may hear on the grapevine what is being planned. However after our own govt. made such a mess of the economy here, I have the impression that governments make plans using imaginary money -- not very reassuring. After all, we are a country in danger of bankruptcy but still planning to host the Olympic Games in 2012.

Maybe this kind of drought comes in brief cycles every 2 or 3 hundred years in Australia. Fewer people would have been around last time to notice and if they did they may not have written it down. The aboriginals seem to have had to learn how to cope with all sorts of conditions. Hope you get lots of rain soon, but not as much as we had in 2007. Too much can be as bad as too little.

Yategirl

Charis wrote: »

After all, we are a country in danger of bankruptcy but still planning to host the Olympic Games in 2012.

I have to say.... this is annoying me a great deal.... they took land that was being used as allotments, they have made all these plans etc... which as far as I could see.. we didn't really need (kind of "it would be nice but not a necessity") and even now.. we are struggling, thousands have lost or are in danger of losing jobs and money is still being spent on something that should be stopped! :mad: MSE'ers really need to take over goverment!!!!!!




Just heard that DH still has a job... for now.. I don't know how long for etc yet... but hopefully long enough to allow us to job hunt and get ourselves better prepared (frightening to discover we were not as prepared as we thought we were).

!!{hugs}} to everyone else going through all these worries atm

Almo

Charis wrote: »

Hope you get lots of rain soon, but not as much as we had in 2007. Too much can be as bad as too little.

Off to bed in a minute but just wanted to reply to this - you are so right. The UK has suffered too in recent years with flooding and deaths from both this and the cold and each and every death is sad, regardless of the overall total. I don't know if I've explained that very well but basically, the individual death of one person here in the bushfires is no worse than the death of, for example, the little boy who fell through the ice, just because more people overall have died in Australia's weather crisis.

I'm not actually Australian but of course living here, the fires are what's foremost in my mind at the moment. I'm very conscious that the UK has an enormous number of problems at the moment, as shown by some of the posters on this thread. I don't want to sound like I'm coming onto a UK forum and saying we have it worse than you (which I know isn't what you're saying Charis, I'm talking generally) - we don't.

I hope I've explained myself properly - there's another thread on here at the moment where the interpretation of the written word is causing some problems, so I hope no one misinterprets anything I've said in the last few days

BB1984

I'm not sure how easy it is just to "stop" the Olympics happening...!

Also, bear in mind that the Olympics is also creating thousands of jobs. As an engineer I can tell you that there are many people within the suffering construction industry who are very thankful for the Olympics and all it's associated construction work...!

BB

Reverbe

Charis wrote: »

A friend told me today that Tschibo have pulled out of the UK and gone back to (Germany?) They used to have half an aisle in our little Somerfields and she went in to get her mum some Tschibo coffee but one of the staff told her they no longer stock anything of that brand.

I didnt know they sold in stores that were not their own. All I know of them is that our local Tschibo shop was open yesterday. Personally I don't like their coffee . Had one free with a muffin when they opened in Ealing a few years ago and the coffee was vile and I wanted to ask for another muffin to take away the taste!!

Gigervamp

GreenandThrifty wrote: »

ooh hadn't heard of the getting prepared thread ( only started reading mse this week!) off to look if i can find it!

Here's the link:
http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/showthread.html?t=1377795