Talking from a farmer’s POV.
I’m aware of at least four different proxy studies showing that climate variability and droughts in the past that dwarf anything we have seen since written records became a thing in Australia. That prompts me to conclude that droughts are a natural phenomenon, and attempting to control the world’s weather is a far more doubtful proposition than preparing for future droughts.
No.... three years of La Niña does not “guarantee“ four to seven years of El Niño. It is more correct to say that recovery from La Niña often results in an over-correction in the next 2-3 years.
On the positive side, I’ve grown pretty decent crops during El Niño years. Otger parts ofvthe country have been hit worse, but the country rarely even gets close to starvation, and much of what does get imported are either luxury-foods, or feed for livestock. If there was a long-term decrease in rainfall, then farmers would adjust. After all, we grow crops in areas with 1/2 of my 650mm , and run livestock in areas with 1/3 of it. Adjusting your practices, inputs and expectations is a lot easier over a decade, than it is from one year to the next.
How bad could water get?
For what it is worth, there are aboriginal oral histories of droughts so severe that there was only one water source on the Upper Hawkesbury, and the Murrumbidgee drying up to the point that tribespeople were forced to walk overland to the Murray. A lot died. One of the studies mentioned above seems to have detected periods of vastly reduced flow from the Qld coastal rivers lasting up to 30 years. Our coastal cities might be in strife without cheap power to run the desalination plants.
But we have options, and we won’t all die of thirst.
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