Rainfall & Barrier Reef - Our Great Southern Land

Two reports caught my eye recently.
The first - Decline of the Great Barrier Reef - "The 27–year decline of coral cover on the
Great Barrier Reef and its causes" in http://www.scienceinpublic.com.au/wp-content/uploads/Full-PNAS-paper-for-publication.pdf . This outlines the factors leading to the decline in corals in our major tourist attraction.

The second, 3 October 2012 publication of  "Rainfall reductions over Southern Hemisphere semi-arid regions: the role of subtropical dry zone expansion"  by Wenju Cai, Tim Cowan & Marcus Thatcher in Scientific Reports 2, Article number 702.

Our dam water storage capacity is now 80% (up from 20% a couple of years ago) following a couple of years of above average rain. So I wonder how many people, farmers included will give this last study more than a cursory look. This illustrates the difference between how the general public and scientists do their thinking. A good scientist has their biases and weakness as anyone, but they do have access to equipment that enables quantitative research and do not necessarily reject data that doesn't fit their hypotheses or seems counter intuitive.
So in spite of the last few good, wet years they postulate the Australian sub-tropic zone is moving southwards and that the rain used by farmers to grow winter wheat may be less reliable.

Meanwhile ABC TV screened a visually stunning series "Great Southern Land" where presenter Professor Stephen Simpson toured the country using unique data visualisations and a variety of kite like flying machines! These visualisations give a great view of the flow of information, data, transport and products into our cities. The complexity, interconnectedness and volumes are astounding and we are only a little country. If you haven't seen this series I would highly recommend it!

No wonder we are having such effects on the Barrier Reef and climate. Do we have a hope of changing this to something that will allow us to live here as long as the Aboriginal people's?