American Sahara

environment

No secret here: The Southwest is thirsty, with 30 million people depending on an unstable Colorado River and fire as a constant danger. It’s going to get a lot worse in this part of the world where “arid” is a constant; the sort of semipermanent drought that global climate change promises will bring with it some major changes from Texas to Southern California. In the tradition of Mark Reisner’s Cadillac Desert, William deBuys writes about this beautiful—but unsustainably developed—region and what the coming years will mean, not just for the Southwest, but for its neighbors. Those terrible water fights of recent decades will get much, much worse. In an accessible style, A Great Aridness: Climate Change and the Future of the American Southwest provides a clear picture of what’s coming in the American Southwest.