There's money in the dunny

What is the stuff linking Christmas Island and Nauru in the political issue, boat people, that might turn today's election? It's shit. Bird shit, to be precise. Both these tiny islands – one conveniently located off Java as a jumping point to Australia, the other in the mid-Pacific as a dumping ground to delay them making it – developed the infrastructure to support detention camps during the exploitation of their guano deposits.... As a University of Technology Sydney expert, Stuart White, says, this is heading us towards a new resource crisis in possibly less than 25 years. We already worry about petroleum hitting a point of decline as demand grows ("peak oil") and shrinking watersheds as glaciers melt and monsoons go awry. Now we face a crisis in shit, or at least its artificial replacements. [read full story]