CBC - Our World - California Dry torrent

This week we present a documentary by Kelly Crowe on how the U.S. state which
you might think has everything ... palm trees, beaches, pinot noir à is
grappling with a critical water shortage that should concern us all.

It seems inconceivable that we could live in a world where man has achieved so
much technologically, and yet we still can't solve a most fundamental problem -
depleted natural resources. And I'm not talking about oil as a worst case
scenario, I mean water.

The world water shortage sounds abstract, but it's already upon us, hastened
by climate change and waste. One in five people on this globe does not have
access to safe fresh water. The United Nations is predicting that the fight
over water may be the single biggest cause of war in Africa over the next
generation.

The poor in developing countries will suffer first. But we in the West can't be
smug. Look at the case of California; the US state that appears to many to have
it all, a wealthy part of the world where the consumer can buy just about
anything for a price. Well, as Kelly Crowe has discovered, that's not really
the case. The most basic of resources, water, is a scarcity and that's causing
panic among people who know how precarious the situation actually is.