Just in case you were thinking of emigrating Down Under, here’s a salutary thought…

Within less than the span of a lifetime, Sydney could resemble a desert town like Alice Springs, or even the apocalyptic landscape from Cormac McCarthy’s new novel, The Road.

Scorched by temperatures five degrees higher than today, lacking drinking water and yet battered by rising seas and ravaged by bush fires of the ferocity that last month blackened huge areas of Victoria and Tasmania, one of the world’s most spectacular cities could be virtually uninhabitable.

So suggests a scientific report on climate change commissioned by the New South Wales government.

The report, which forecasts a 40 per cent drop in rainfall by 2070, presses hard on the heels of the shock announcement by Queensland’s Premier that from next December state residents stand to drink recycled sewerage…

At last — an argument for drinking Fosters.