Every four days, another Australian farmer commits suicide

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Australia’s water crisis has gone from terrible to dire. The country’s drought, the worst ever on record, has caused one Australian farmer to commit suicide every four days, according to research findings announced by a national health body in October 2006. Last week, Australian Prime Minister John Howard declared water security to be Australia’s biggest challenge, and unveiled a controversial $10 (AUD) billion plan to increase the country’s water efficiency. Howard, who has been criticized in the past for refusing the sign the Kyoto Protocol, now considers himself a “climate change realist,” acknowledging that climate change is affecting the nation’s water supply.

Now, Queensland Premier Peter Beattie has announced that his state will be the first to use recycled water for drinking—a measure he predicts will soon be needed in the rest of the country. The concept of drinking purified recycled water (also known as “gray water”) doesn’t exactly appeal to everyone in Australia, as the stigma of seeing it as “effluent” water remains prevalent for the moment. But sophisticated technology in use in Israel, Singapore, the United States and parts of Europe has already proved treated waste water to be a viable solution. Given their country’s enormous and growing water problems, purified recycled water should ultimately be an easy pill for Australians to swallow—and it just might give depressed farmers another reason to live.