> If the point isn't to talk about climate change there isn't much to this article.

Sure there is. The article talks about non-climate-change human impacts, like the use of upstream water for irrigation. There's discussion to be had around that.

There are a lot of interesting things to discuss in the Murray-Darling basin, the water market and associated system of dams and waterways is one of Australia's subtle-but-serious national achievements.

However the article is a puff piece and is at best alluding vaguely to those more interesting issues. It is only inspiring discussion of them as people are trying to find lenses to interpret it that aren't climate related. It'd be lovely if HN suddenly decided to take a deep interest in irrigation systems but I'll wait for a few more articles on the subject to hit the front page before I start believing it. The comment threads look more like we are playing a game of finding links that aren't climate related.

There's an equally useful conversation around unsustainable use of resources - for instance overuse of water which would seem to be particularly precious in a region known for frequent droughts. Climate warming may worsen those, or they may happen more frequently, yet there's a whole world of potential human stupidity and short-sightedness to consider before that rates a single mention.