A river ran through it

The Murray is the lifeblood of Australia's farming country, a legendary river that thundered 1,500 miles from the Snowy Mountains to the Indian Ocean. Now, it's choking to death in the worst drought for a thousand years, sparking water rationing and suicides on devastated farms. But is the 'big dry' a national emergency, or a warning that the earth is running out of water? Claire Scobie reports

Australian farmers always know someone else who is doing it tougher. They pride themselves on their resilience. They take pleasure in living in 'a sunburnt country of droughts and flooding rains'. Conservative and deeply sceptical, many dismiss global warming as hogwash. But with unprecedented water scarcity and the Murray, the country's greatest river system, on the verge of collapse, warning bells are ringing around the globe.

Financially, the drought is pinching as far away as the UK, hiking up the cost of bread in British supermarkets as wheat prices reach a 10-year high. Symbolically, it cuts much deeper. Commentators are looking on, nervously, wondering if what is becoming the norm in Sydney could be the future for Sydenham.
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