Water and dishwashers - an occasional interest of AginSpin

Here's a reply sent recently to ABC Radio National following my annoyance at hearing something from Michael Duffy on Counterpoint. You may know that Michael Duffy is the conservative answer to Phillip Adams. He's not bad, but the temptation for everyone on the right these days seems to be to assume, rather than argue, the superiority of their arguments, and denigrate the opposition. Too easy. Too many weak arguments and too much name calling. (MD even hosted a session on fox hunting in Australia which showed just how much the right is in reaction mode. What possible reason to do a segment on fox hunting, other than in response to moves to ban it). As if they have a right to be! After all, they run the English-speaking Western world, and a good chunk of the rest. They should be thinking more of their policies being successful, than to imagine they are the underdogs. In this vein, I heard another radio show the other day where the Centre for Independent Studies (CIS) presenter was painting the CIS as this little, poorly funded group of independent thinkers up against the might of the a university system which was totally controlled by the post-Marxist radicals. This was clearly his line. He was attacking the person. The arguments of his counterpart, from one of those despised departments of sociology, was reasoned and thoughtful, and, I thought, justified. To me, it seemed that one was engaged in a thinking process, and the other was involved in propaganda. Is this a sign of the coming end of conservative domination? Hope so...

Date - 21/06/2005 9:52
Subject - Dish washers & water use
Remark - I heard your query about dishwashers and your denigration of north shore environmentalists. (This was a pretty poor dig, and I think unworthy of you and your show). My understanding is that dishwashers are as efficient in water use as dish washing by hand, providing dish washers are fully loaded when used. I have dish washed by hand for many a year, and only fairly recently took to using a dish washer. I must say, it's not a bad invention As for effective use of water in Australia, there seems to be a move to identify cities (showers, toilets, dish washers, car washing, etc) as the culprit. I had confirmed recently by a local in the water industry that we would have few problems with water in Australia if it were sensibly used, e.g. no rice on the Hay Plains, and similar. And this is further confirmed by a CSIRO report to a Parliamentary Committee which I remember reading (sadly, I've lost the reference). Also a recent article in the SMH stated that 21,000 litres of water are used to produce 1kg of rice. I find this figure a bit hard to come to grips with, but if true, I think there's little argument for this industry, at least in the dry areas of Aust.

BTW, keep up your show. I am an not of your political persuasion, but I value discussion on both sides, and I remain committed to testing my beliefs, understandings and assumptions. But please avoid the cheap quips. It seems to me that, despite tirades against PC, the Right is so comfortable these days they don't even see their own cockiness and name calling of others. We must all remain honest to testing our own beliefs and understandings, and I trust you are committed as am I. Eric

Postscript. Sure enough, it's been admitted there was a mistake by the CSIRO in its report regarding the amount of water used in producing 1kg of rice in Australia. The CSIRO and industry has agreed that the figure should be 1,500-2,000 litres of water used to produce 1kg of rice. I reckon that must be a phyrric victory. We now have industry agreeing with researchers on a level of water use which is lower, but still crippling. Now, remind me, what does a kg of rice sell for?

Media release for the correction -
http://www.csiro.au/index.asp?type=mediaRelease&id=WaterUsageFigures&style=mediaRelease

The original report -
http://www.cse.csiro.au/research/balancingact/