This video breakdown of federal data shows Lake Mead falling faster than even recent forecasts predicted. The lake is on track to drop low enough to knock out most of Hoover Dam’s turbines within a couple of years: a cascading failure that would cripple power generation across the Southwest while the water managers of seven southwestern states bicker over who cuts back first.
The deadline is real; the water doesn’t exist to continue as we were; and the people in charge are still negotiating like there’s time.
In addition, if the water turbines go dry for any significant period, restarting them will be complicated and expensive. Even an existential-style threat is apparently to get the kind of humans who become bosses today to work together.
No one wants to be the person telling residents that their lives are unsustainable as they are. Everyone in AZ and NV knows the golf courses are killing the environment, but many of them feel entitled to golf. Telling fairly rich to rich Americans that they can’t do just what they want to is usually a disaster, and no official wants to be the trigger. So everyone will get to suffer even more. Really is about time to eat the rich.