A couple of months ago I read that Lake Mead was basically drying up with water levels at a record low. It is a reservoir and a recreation area. It’s near the border between Nevada and Arizona in the west of the United States. Today, there is a story circulating about Great Salt Lake which is also drying up and there are others. The pictures are horrific. The authorities and citizens must be very concerned.
Great Salt Lake has sunk to a historic low for the second time in less than a year during what is described as a mega-drought. The Executive Director of Utah’s Department of Natural Resources said that “Urgent action is needed to help protect and preserve this critical resource. It’s clear the lake is in trouble. We recognise more action and resources are needed, and we are actively working with the many stakeholders”. Do what you might but the underlying cause is beyond your control: global warming. It is way bigger than the things that you can change.
Note: This is an embedded video from another website. Sometimes they are deleted at source or the video is turned into a link which would stop it working here. I have no control over this.
The drying up of the lake is threatening millions of migrating birds. And it is threatening local residents because the expanding dry lake bed could send arsenic-laced dust into the air that millions of locals breathe. The lake also supports an economy worth an estimated $1.3 billion in terms of brine shrimp, mineral extraction and recreation activities.
The trend needs to be reversed urgently but for many years water has been diverted from the lake to supply crops and homes in this fast-growing American state. It is one of the driest in the US. That’s another problem: a rapid human population increase in the US. They need more water and there is less.
Last February, researchers said that the American West has experienced, over the past two decades, the worst drought in at least 1,200 years. And most or at least many scientists believe that these extreme conditions are a result of global warming, a human-created problem which is not being dealt with urgently enough for various reasons one of which is political inertia and the other is Covid and economic issues which appear to take a priority.
Water levels are also frighteningly low at reservoirs in California. Residents have been ordered to preserve water whenever possible. California is entering another wild fire season. The last time they were wildfires the temperatures were extraordinarily high with huge devastation. The average summer temperatures in California have risen almost 2°C since the start of the 20th century.
To the best of my knowledge, Las Vegas is fed water from California and the hotels in Las Vegas are telling customers to be careful with water. It looks like water is the most precious commodity in the American West. It’s going to be more valuable than gold and it probably already is but they don’t realise it. If global warming is progressing then this is not a temporary development and it will get worse which is why I suggest that they are heading towards a catastrophe.
P.S. Italy is in the same predicament. The Po River in the north is drying up in a prolonged drought. It is very worrying for the authorities and residents.
Note: This is an embedded video from another website. Sometimes they are deleted at source or the video is turned into a link which would stop it working here. I have no control over this.
Some more on global warming.
