Comments by "Tony Wilson" (@tonywilson4713) on "Where in the World: Adair and Winds, pt. 2" video.

Another Australian here. I think he's 1/2 right about the WA Wheat belt, in that its vulnerable to changes in the weather. But I think you have a better handle of the soil issue than he does. I'm from Victoria but lived in Perth for 7 years. My mother's family is from Western Victoria and are farmers. That's also a soy and wheat region and its also vulnerable to the weather. Its also got marginal soils but don't think they are the same as WA. Its odd he didn't mention the salinity issues we have. I know Peter has also commented that we don't have any Potash. I know that's wrong. I lived in Perth working on mining projects and one proposal I came across circa 2008 was a Potash mine being proposed in the NT by a Perth Company, who's office was next door to ours in the same industrial complex. I know that Queensland also has some deposits and several off those are now operating again because of world prices. Most of the time I think Peter is very good, especially on the geopolitical and demographics side but there's times he hasn't quite got his specifics right on the details. I tend to notice things he says on engineering because I am an engineer.
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@ticarot Here's what I already knew about Australia and Canada BEFORE I knew Peter even existed. Sorry if this is longish. Here in Australia we have had people warning us for years about our birth rate was falling. Its been hidden by a huge immigration program, which actually causes a lot of friction. Some people, like the bankers, are all for it because it provides a lot of business for them. The 450,000 immigrants each year need houses and that means home loans and home loans mean profit. They don't care if those loans are for investors or owner occupiers. More people to a banker means more profit. What the bankers don't care squat about is where the electricity, gas or water comes from. And they care even less about the waste water systems needed. All those things are somebody else's problem. In the last 20years Australia has gone from 20 to 26 million that's more than a 25% increase and yet we haven't built any new BIG bulk delivery power stations or major dams or major waste water treatment plants. We have a elephant sized infrastructure issue that nobody wants to discuss. I was in Canada 2017-18 on a waste water treatment plant project. At the same time Australia went from 20 to 25 million Canada went from 25 to 35 million. Canada is fine on energy but they have a major issue on waste water. Those extra 10 million flush toilets. That's exacerbated by their snow melt each year. It tends to overflow their waste water pond systems into the rivers. . Its the opposite to Australia. We don't have enough water (normally) and and when all the snow melts every year Canada has too much. So I am coming at these issues from an engineering perspective because its going to be engineers who have to design and build all this stuff. peter is coming at this from a demographic perspective. Yes, Peter has shortcomings on engineering, BUT IF I DON'T LISTEN to people like him I will miss parts of the conversation that are important. This is where so many engineers have failed to get the message across. They try and put everything in an engineering context and that's pretty boring to a lot of people. I ended up spending a lot of my COVID downtime listening to people like Peter and Mark Blyth who talks to a lot people about there area's of study. The world is a very complex place and if we are to solve these issues we have to be willing to listen to stuff from outside our area of expertise.
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