“São Paulo. Cape Town. Now Santiago and Los Angeles.
Cities around the world are being forced to live with less water, as global warming melts glaciers, diminishes snowpacks and exacerbates decades of water mismanagement. Not just less water for now. Maybe less water forever.” Read the entire article: Sengupta, Somini (2022, April 29). Climate Forward. New York Times.
Real climate change with severe consequences is happening today–all over the world including in the United States:
The western United States (including parts of the Great Plains) is going through an historic period of drought–a level of extended drought that the region has not seen in potentially hundreds of years.
“All told, nearly 85% of the West is suffering through drought conditions right now, according to the US Drought Monitor. Almost half the region is now in an extreme or exceptional drought, following years of dry, hot conditions aggravated by climate change.” (MIT Technology Review)
Drought/lack of water impacts everything from agriculture to business to city and rural life, the West is prone to damaging and deadly wildfires and drought starts the fire season earlier and makes it last longer burning more land, causing more damage, taking more lives.
The West is growing in population right now, but is that sustainable? Will parts of the American West become uninhabitable in the decades to come? Are there solutions, are there ways to mitigate continuing drought conditions? Or, will the West lurch from one disaster to another?
See also —
Water, drought, and the western United States (from Science Bibliographies Online)
Freshwater, drought, and climate change (from Science Bibliographies Online)
Chennai, India is running out of water
Questions? Please let me know (engelk@grinnell.edu).
