And yet cities in the Southwest are still growing. The delusional thinking about the future is off the charts.
Megadrought forces end to sugarcane farming in parched Texas borderland | The Guardian
In February, the cooperative announced that it would close its 50-year-old sugarcane processing mill, the last remaining in the state, by the end of this spring. It didn’t even make it to the end of the season, with most workers employed until 29 April. Ongoing megadrought meant there wasn’t enough water to irrigate co-op members’ 34,000 acres of sugarcane, and that effectively puts an end to sugarcane farming in the south Texas borderlands.
…Increasingly dry farms find themselves vying with other farms, cities, industries and mining operations for dwindling resources. In 2022, drought decimated Texas cotton and forced California growers to idle half their rice fields. Water disputes are also on the rise as decreased flows in the Colorado River and other vital waterways pit state against state, states against native nations and farmers against municipalities.