Living in a marginal (but stunning) landscape with obvious constraints has its drawbacks when too many people move there and the natural resources become depleted. In the American Southwest, those drawbacks are not really being felt by the hordes who live there now. Yet. But based on my own knowledge of the drought history of the Southwest (specifically the last one thousand years), I've always felt that a cruel reckoning was just around the corner. That reckoning may happen faster, according to a new study released today by Stockholm Environment Institute. Bryan Walsh at Time has a good overview:
The report found that the already dry states of the American Southwest"”Arizona, California, Nevada, New Mexico and Utah"”will face a major water shortfall over the next century just based on population and income growth alone. (The region has long been one of the fastest-growing in the U.S., in part because of ...
