What the megadrought has uncovered at Lake Powell 

Unchecked population growth is the number one problem behind all of this. We can't destroy whole ecosystems just to grow rice and grain, so they grow it in the desert.

Who thought trying to grow rice in a desert was a good idea?

@@rvw3022 Exactly. 20 billion pounds of food daily required to feed the world population. What they didn't realize is the demand of growing in the desert did exactly destroy an entire ecosystem. It just took decades to show...

exactly.

YOU GOT IT. WHAT YOUR GOVERNMENT HAS DONE IS WHO IS TO BLAME. THEY WOULD LIKE TO BLAME EVERYONE BUT WHO IS AT FAULT.

💯👍

"Building city's in a desert has always been a stupid idea"

I was a kid in high school & I thought why does anyone want to live out in the desert?

It wasn't a desert when they started. That basin used to be one of the largest lakes in North America. At one point it drained and formed SF Bay, what was left behind was a lush landscape with an abundance of water beneath the soil and lakes all over the valley. When the basin was a lake, the climate was totally different, the surrounding hills received far more rain and would stay green all year. Now they are brown by April. The truth is the cotton farmers wanted more space, they drained the lakes, which made the climate dryer, and now they have pumped so much water out of the soil that there are sections where the land has sunk more than 80 feet. What was stupid was how they managed the land. I have a plethora of evidence that a tribe of Native Americans thrived for generations in the foothills near Bear Valley Springs. The areas I filmed that were a previous settlement only have running water for a few months out of the year. I could not figure out how they survived the dry months.... Back then the dry months were as rare as the wet months are now. If you think I'm talking out of my ass, there are a few videos floating around RU-vid discussing the history of the giant lake that used to be in the basin of California. I mean it looks like a giant dried up lake bed from every satellite image I've ever seen of the area. I also have a video on my channel, its the one that plays when you click on my channel. Towards the end of the lengthy intro, you can see the dried up riverbed where the Native Americans used to flourish along with clear cut evidence they were settled there for some time. (multiple grind stone holes, deeply dug into solid rock)

@@JustinBradleyPhotographer Minnesotans taught Californians how to grow wild rice and Californians took over the industry. Maybe Californians should switch from rice and cotton to crops which don't require as much water. Orchards besides almonds don't require as much water, I hear.

California is the pinnacle of absolute stupidity. The Central Valley is covered in almond trees and rice paddies… both these crops use exponentially more water than many other options… it’s absolutely the stupidest decision you could make when farming an arid valley. But that doesn’t stop them

i mean, come on!

They should try growing water lily instead v😂🤣 or some fisheries.

Doesn't make a lotta sense to grow rice there. Hell it's getting hard here these days. But cali?

Other than the fact that most of california is desert. I guess yeah. Fine. Already has a water shortage. Why not grow thousands of acres of a plant that requires tons of water. I don't know if you have ever seen any of cali other than tv. But hollywood cali only exists on a thin strip of the western shoreline. You literally won't notice leaving arizona and getting into california until you hit one of the two lower vallies or the coast line. Lot of scrubland.

@BLOCK ME IF YOU LOVE CANCEL CULTURE Montane deserts exist. Ever heard of Colorado, New Mexico, or Arizona? Just because there's trees doesn't mean it's not a desert-class environment. Talk all the smack you want, just be right🤣

For reals! I see so many comments i cant agree with, but this... this is good. Even as individuals we can be more responsible. Food waste in 1st world countries is astronomical. Production isnt the issue. Hell water waste is probably the biggest issue.

I don't buy into the climate change hysteria. Megadroughts like this one come and go, as part of a cyclic ~1,200 year repeating weather pattern inherent to the region affecting many parts of the world... with the worst megadroughts coming about every ~1,000 or so years and lasting about ~30 years. The last Megadrought like this one happened sometime around the year ~1000AD or so, during the so-called 'medieval warming period' we had an accompanying 'medieval megadrought' that was followed by wetter weather and eventually the 'little ice age' only a few centuries later. This process is now understood to be part of an ongoing global warming and cooling cycle that has been happening for eons. This would naturally happen regardless of human activity. This climate cycle is what is responsible for the historically warm weather that we're currently experiencing and is normal for our time, call it the 'millennial warming period'. Anyway, this is bad news for people living in the west right now, especially for those who invested big into agriculture and farming. The water will dry-up and the lights will go out and the people will relocate only a few years before the rain starts to come back and replenishes our lakes, rivers and dams. It's a tragedy that the reservoirs aren't large enough to give us another 8 years. And to make things worse, when the rain finally does come back sometime around ~2030, we'll likely see 'mega monsoons' and 1000-year floods that are due and in a few centuries temperatures will dip back down again. I suppose the good news is that things will return to 'normal' and we shouldn't have to worry about another megadrought as bad as this one until the year ~3,200.

This

You are so right.

Then I suppose you think no one should live here in California, because we need water to survive. However, I live in Northern California where rain is more abundant. Still, weather geoengineering technology is well known & currently in practice - those people controlling the weather need to be accountable for what they are doing & stop trying to cover up what is really going on.

Because we have nothing more important to talk about and because we humans never learn.

EXACTLY ! THE DEMOGRAPHIC BOMB ! AFRICA IS STARVING AS FORSEEN ! PLANET EARTH CANT DO MORE !

@@P2Feener305 More of an arrogant american thinking thing.

Geologists were send out to collect data before Hoover Dam was built. It was determined that the river would not be able to reliably fulfill the projected future demands of the Colorado river compact. The projected population and agriculture growth in the southwest desert region were deemed a recipe for disaster whereas mega droughts were historically common to the region. Given that the dam would supply the water for all the states involved in the CRC it was recommended by the geologists that the dam not be build due to the certainty of this very situation happening. The head of the bureau of reclamation took that recommendation under advisement and OK'd the project anyway. In later years the glen canyon dam was build despite all of the certainties of the original research.

That hurts with the knowledge you've learned in the 70's. I never knew that and it's a shame to hear this info. If 50 years doesn't help people thinking, then how will the US government wants to evolve and develop in own country. Really cracks me up 🤷‍♂️

pretty hard to feel bad for that guy.

Kinda like building a major city (New Orleans) 5ft. below sea level, right next to the sea!

About like raising polar bears in the Bahamas.

@@jcraigshelton well said!

@@jcraigshelton there’s just not enough snow for them we keep shipping it in but it melts, it’s the government’s fault and climate change.

It's both

trump : climate change is a hoax. 😀😆😅

It's climate change according to people with educations.

The annual question is: On what day does California go back to flames? Seems for 12+ years CA is covered by forest fire smoke for 6 months/year.

@@Random-rt5ec very soon

That is hilarious. And Newsom has yet to declare at drought emergency.

🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥

@@bayaholic Not entirely true. We received a notice in the mail a couple weeks ago with info stating that effective June 1st '22 water rationing will be mandated state wide. What's crazy is that the past several years the new housing has been booming all knowing about the water stich.

“Even the water is leaving California”. Best comment of the week, right there, LMAO! Well done, Sir!

Lol 🤣

Agreed, why would anyone think it's a good idea to grow rice in a desert.

Prickly pears! Or certain types of legumes. Maybe there shouldn’t be farms in the desert.

There are many things you can grow in the desert because there are things that need a lot of heat it just doesn't seem like rice is a good idea because it needs so much water

or grow it in south carolina? That's where we used to plant it before all the northerners moved them all out to the dry arid west coast.

you do know rice is only grown in water to prevent weeds & pests right so it doesn't NEED to grow in water

and they worry about oil! while they exploit the water. HYPOCRITES that think what they want is more important than the rest of the world!

we need to be in constant disaster mode so we're willing to eat bugs and drive electric cars

This is apocalyptic! Can't imagine what it will be like with the California wild fires every year!?

There was a guy that properly mapped the southwest and designed a water allocation system that was sustainable and the experts/developers/government completely ignored it.

It's both.

Both, but one compounds the other. I've seen several interesting videos recently which explore how lakes have dried up due to various circumstances, such as diverting rivers for canals and over using the remaining water for farming. The result is no more water left to evaporate and become rain for the area. What used to be the 9th largest lake in the world is now a city and home to the largest cotton producer in the country. Luckily we're very conservative about the Great Lakes or this could become a thing in the Midwest as well.

Silly, but it looks like there’s a hell of a lot more water now than before 1935… wouldn’t you say, pole-iker?

@@nigel900 that tends to happen in areas you put dams. The problem is so much water has been diverted for other uses that the dam is the only reason there's really any water there at all, and it keeps dropping.

You can say that to any crop... California is the United States' garden according to the plant community 😬

because California is the most suitable to grow rice.

@ユジン its not an American Issue since America is a continent that has a lot of countries and most of the countries do not have an issue with low water, this is an issue in the United States

@@topnotch97 its not suitable if it has no water of its own, so I guess you are completely wrong

@@westsidesjvalley Come on man, Rice is Rice, there is no Asian Rice or United States Rice, be a little more serious, and did you know that there is a lot of mountains that could give California plenty of water if they would just build the Dams but they don't want to do so, they just let all that water go to the ocean instead of just keeping it for their use

I know I've been watching these stories about the water crisis and they never once really address the amount of people moving into these areas and how population has changed from the late 60s to now including golf courses swimming pools etc

All those illegal are sucking up all the water. That’s where the over population is from.

@@cleigh113 I myself was wondering the same You're quite right !

They'll say a region is overpopulated but refuse to address the overpopulation of our species. We're gonna hit a collapse scenario where billions die.

LOL! A 22 year drought is a mega drought. California's drought history includes a 120 year and a 200 year droughts.

@@glidercoach this is the beginnings of a megadrought...that will probably last at least a century. hold on to your hats.

@@jfelipino Could be. Property values will plummet and people will move to where there is fresh water. It's happened before.

The last time water levels were so low was before the dam was built and the reservoir filled. So yes, it is unprecedented

@@TheLazySleeperLives The ranger said at 2:21 “It’s completely unprecedented. This lake hasn’t been at this level since 1967.”

There weren't as many people then.

@@ed9492 he’s saying even without people Cali had droughts haha

It isn’t the first time for dramatic drought in the Lake Powell area either. A 24 year drought in the Mesa Verde area caused the Navajo ppl to move on. I don’t remember when that took place. But it was long before the industrial revolution.

Population is the problem but we love lying to ourselves

@@12bucklemyshoes101 But all the underground water has been used also

It's all about the money. I live near Kentucky lake. It is legal to dump your sewage on the main channel of the lake. Down stream of the lake after passing many chemical plants (Calvert city). The water is pumped out of the river for drinking water. Cancer runs high in the area... I wonder why!

Why? What damage are you imagining is happening by using boats? It's no different from the boats and ships that travel the Great Lakes or the Mississippi River.

Philadelphia gets its water from the Delaware River.

Aquaduct from oregon to California?👀

@@TheWaynester101 Southern Oregon is in a drought too and don't have enough for their crops.

Careful, they will want to steal that water next to pipe to the desert rice fields.

Love Parkdale Oregon

Tom, use your brain my friend, don't grow rice in a desert environment, choose another crop that is not water intensive as rice, or choose a crop where you can use drip irrigation!

@@rogermartinez78 use your brain my friend and get out of the city some more rice isn't grown in the desert it's grown in Northern California in the Central Valley just a couple miles from the Sacramento River in fact and rice has been grown there for over a hundred plus years long before he started putting golf courses in Palm Springs at swimming pools in Southern California

My friend the next 100 hundred years is not going to be like the last, either way neither one of us will live long enough to see it, so let's all get our heads out of our butts and get to work on handing off a half decent environment to the next generation!

Nowadays they like to blame anything on the Climate Change Bs, but they forgot to tell People that Earth always goes through such Phases, but as it was mentioned already, they dont say the Real Cause for those Problems.

I thought that water was rising not sinking? Even if it is sinking at some point there has to be a balance between the oceans and the rivers. And if people are using water and water is receding. Then were is the backing of water. If you have a clogged toilet. And you flush it multiple times it backs up more. The toilet is the ocean the water represents the lakes and rivers. At this point shouldn't they be rising? If climate change is real. Then everything scientists say is a lie. Because I don't see waters rising.

Overpopulation. Tired of experts refusing to acknowledge the problem.

@@rvw3022 We are not near global carrying capacity. We are not overpopulated

@@rvw3022 It's always been the elephant in the room.

Maybe stop building high density housing…

How many square miles of land are devoted to overwatered lawns.

Or lawns period

....and then farm the land in rice, please!

It can EASILY supply the 40 million people. If we only did that we’d be at over 90% capacity at both Mead and Powell. What we can’t sustain is the wasteful growing of water hungry plants like pistachios, almonds and rice. In the desert no less! And then how much of that do we export? This has absolutely nothing to do with “climate change” and everything to do with bad policy, bad practice and wasteful habits. Also another note: 70-80% of the water we personally use in our homes goes towards watering grass and other landscaping. We have to cut that out, as it is completely unnecessary.

@@guitarfreak2105 I'm not a big consumer of nuts or rice, however they do provide a significant number of jobs that would be lost. If we upped the capacity of water storage significantly we could capitalize on high-rainfall years and survive through drier years. A few years ago I researched historic rainfall data and saw there was a historic trend of drought years sandwiched between occasional high rain years. However California water infrastructure is woefully inadequate as it diverts 80-90%of the water directly to the ocean instead of collecting it. If you changed that to let's just say 50% wouldn't you be able to have enough water for the people, farms, and lawns while still being able to maintain healthy lake levels? That combined with desalination should provide more than enough water for all of the above.

Look at Las Vegas.

I’ve heard about this and noticed my city and surrounding cities dumping water.. do you know where I can find more info on this

FINALLY, someone speaks the truth.

There are other issues like making sure that the fish population doesn't collapse and have knock-on effects on the ecosystem, yes. Losing species of fish critical to the ecosystem will impact birds (which eat the fish), bugs (which are eaten by the birds), trees/plants (pollinated by the bugs), and then larger animals. Once again, focusing on the limited rage-inducing headlines of "California wastes water to protect ecosystem" is misleading at best, something designed to make you angry. But if you look into it at all, you learn that it's a complex issue and not as black-and-white as conservative outlets claim. And it's also related to the saltwater issue I mentioned - in fact, arguably the saltwater issue is a more important reason than just protecting the fish. But certain outlets which push certain points of view will selectively choose what to tell you, and getting the GOP mad about fish is an easier sell than "man-made climate change is drying up our rivers and salting the earth". The real issue in California is almonds and pistachios, which should not be grown in a desert.

Yes it’s for a threatened species of fresh water smelt!

@@Jay2646 birds can fly away somewhere else and be fine. I do agree with "The real issue in California is almonds and pistachios, which should not be grown in a desert."

The west coast does not get the hurricanes like the east coast due to the cold water flow from the North Pole down the coast. I wonder with climate change, will the water warm up and stop becoming a barrier to ocean storms allowing rain to come in from the Pacific Ocean?

@@eckankar7756 Interesting that you bring that up. I watched a RU-vid video and I wish I could find it now. But they said the cycle of mini ice ages comes from just that. Water getting warmer doesn't cycle allowing a mini ice age. Then as the Earth cools, water starts cycling again and the Earth warms. They obviously explained it better.

" not enough water" ... or ... " too many people in dry areas " we can't change how much water is available - but we do have means to reduce the number of humans living in dry areas .

we should just not allow that much water out of lake powel and fill it up, Lake Mead was build with thousands of people dying and getting left under the cement, there is no Need for Lake Mead, there are towns underneath the water like St. Thomas that was completely submerged by the lake that was created, Lake Powell in the other hand did not take over any towns just a canyon

so much this.

Just stop growing rice, almonds, lawns, and golf courses in a desert. None of those things are meant to be there.

Stop giving out building permits there's many little towns peppered through Colorado and Utah that will no longer give out building permits for this reason

WRONG! They are related in the fact water release for the fish from all reservoirs in the west has been dramatically increased to unsustainable amounts and the results are/will be blamed on climate change and the drought.

Yeah, we would spend it on silly things like baby food and housing for the poor.

@@annabellelee4535 Not to mention frivolous things like water distribution and the opioid crisis. I mean like just stop taking drugs and get some bottled water, duh.

@@Darrylizer1 Absolutely!

it didnt actually go to ukraine. but im not gonna get into that lol

Ah, ignorance is bliss.

Honestly that sounds less like a drought and more like people expecting too much rain.

It's almost like calling a swamp a 200 year mega flood

@@ashlyn8693 The climate is cyclical and dynamic. It can be wet for decades and centuries, then drought for decades and centuries. To expect a regular amount of rain every year for... forever, is totally unreasonable. In 100,000 years, we'll likely have another ice age.

because theyve had cheap water for decades, now things are channgng

do they grow rice in oregon or washington? it rains every single day

Yolo county supplies most of the rice we all eat.

Your aunt, neighbors ... are THE PROBLEM !

east? you know the other west coast states like oregon and washington get more water than the rest of the whole USA? lol. shouldve just moved up a state

government has to help, not a desalination plant

@@vitalic_drms how will the government help? What is the government going to do to make it rain? The government is useless. A desalination plant would take water from the ocean ( where see levels are on the rise) and fill the lakes that have sunk to record lows. We know there is a problem but when someone comes up with a solution there is always some one or some group standing in the way. If you don’t like the solution learn to live with the problem.

The lucky ones are already dead.

That’s a shame…the gov’t should be helping communities like yours build de-sal plants…

@@glennmorrell4907 the people shot it down. Something about micro organisms that would be negatively affected.

Nuclear power plants require large amounts of fresh water to run.

@@CatsMeowPaw You need water for every power system, natural gas does require less water(if we don't count the up to 5 million gallons of water needed for fracking in wells), but nuclear produces 1.5 to 2 times then natural gas plants and last 40 years longer then a natural gas well. Plus this should be a stop gap, currently the us only spend 1.85 billion dollars on nuclear research, if we increase that and actually have plans in place we could start researching thorium reactors which produces less waste, less radioactive material that is much shorter live. We can increase budget for molten salt reactor, which aims to replace water with a salt mixture liquid that can be in a close loop. The biggest achievement is if we can get fusion reactor, they produce almost double the power as a fission reactor which we use today.

California rice is basically the best in quality; even the Japanese pay top dollar to put CA rice into premium sushi.

What food items can be grown in the abundance needed to feed our overpopulated country?

@@annabellelee4535 Certain types of grasses, like buckwheat and alfalfa. Cactus is edible. There are types of wheat. Then there are standard resistant crops: beans, broccoli, chard, corn, cowpeas, cucumbers, eggplant, melon, okra, peppers, squash, and tomatoes.

@@annabellelee4535 We aren't overpopulated, but we are living in the wrong areas. Many live in desert or dry plains. What areas you say? Southern California, Nevada, Arizona, New Mexico, eastern Colorado, and west Texas. Metropolitan areas too big: Atlanta

@@gbriank1 There isn't enough resources to serve everyone in the US. We don't have enough water, we don't have enough farmland, we don't have enough homes which is why we have tens of millions hungry Americans, and we have two million homeless Americans at the very least. We are overpopulated. We just don't have the resources and our standard of living is plummeting as our cost of living is skyrocketing.

@@gbriank1 We need food to feed nearly half a billion people, we need high yield produce, and yours are just not high yield enough to feed the people in the US. We also have to plant our crops in the proper soil, and proper climate and proper fertilizer. Farming is very very scientific and always has been.

You can just say you're ignorant and move on you know

They do. The deserts of the west supplies most of America's fresh veggies and grains because of the 3 growing seasons and without it, the US cannot feed it's population.

@@westsidesjvalley ok - then why not "grow rice" in the ... rain forest area of the olympic penninsula of washisington state - it gets ( the same temps of Sacramanto valley in Ca ) & 50 inches of water a year - the exact amount of rainfall for "asian rice".

@@westsidesjvalley ok - how about the frersh water marsh of the ( southern area ) of the san frnacisco bay / near San Jose ?

The US has restricted export of food because of the looming shortages coming. Things are going to get even worse in the US due to the mismanagement of water. Food is more important than lush cities.

Some people choose to be in hell

Not so loud Cal will steal your water

Seattle sucks so…

Just need to build a straw long enough from AZ to WA😄

That takes oil Which we don't have either genius

@@pepeshadilay well start drilling or fracking for some.

@@badbattleaxe5832 fracking requires water which we don't have

@@badbattleaxe5832 fracking requires water which we don't have

@@pepeshadilay well then we come full circle. Water from the ocean, desalinated it use energy from a nuclear reactor to power the desalinating plant and presto you have water. Your governor needs to talk to Elon if you have a dilemma and need it resolved He's the guy to do it.

people will flee back to their own countries when there is no water.

Biden needs all the illegal votes he can get in 2024

@@aj329912 I guess all the white people in the United States should just go back to Europe where they came from and problem solved

If people spend some time to actually research why that lake is going down they would realize that they're trying to save another lake by diverting the water

California is mostly a freaking desert, arid IS it's natural condition.

Then Colorado has run dry and not flowed to the Baja Sea for a very long time. Just fizzles out in the desert.

Lake Havasu is the "balancing" reservoir. When the water gets low, other reservoirs are drained so Havasu can be full. It's not a sign of a healthy water supply. The Colorado doesn't make it to the ocean, it is fully consumed by the US and Mexico.

The Colorado would still flow through Page and hardly anyone lives there in comparison to the flow.

@@LarsDennert 7500 residents plus 4 million tourists per year plus the Navajo Nation