One of my favorite stretches of road on a cross-country drive is the 23-mile stretch between Scipio and Salina on Route 50 in Utah. The road follows one side of a wide valley bordered by a mountain with a bit of snow on the far side. A long lake covers much of the valley floor, and cattle graze on the grass along the lakeside. It is just gorgeous.
Except this year the lake had no water. The West is in the grip of a multi-year "megadrought." Lake Mead is way down, growers, environmentalists, and urban water users are fighting each other, and wildfires are now a common occurrence.
Scientists think global warming accounts for about half of the severity of the current drought.
See Henry Fountain, "The West Has Lacked Rain So Long It's a Megadrought," New York Times (18 June 2021), p. A15.
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