While my brain has been boiling at 39 degrees for weeks now, I can’t keep my mind of the climate change that’s happening right before our eyes. NASA recently released satellite images that illustrate this change perfectly.
The photos show the “bathtub ring” around Lake Mead taken in 2000, 2021 and 2022. Over the course of just two decades, you can see the rich lake turning into dry crevasses, reducing the America’s largest water reservoir to only 27% of its capacity!
Managing editor of the Nasa Earth Observatory, Michael Carlowicz, called these images “a stark illustration of climate change and a long-term drought that may be the worst in the US west in 12 centuries.” Indeed, it’s incredible and very concerning that a lake of this size can be so significantly reduced in only 22 years. As The Guardian explains, Lake Mead is just one part of the Colorado River Basin, which is in danger of draught altogether. It “provides water to roughly 40 million people, 5m acres of agricultural land, and plants, fish, animals and birds that call the riparian ecosystems home,” this source notes. And according to Lower Colorado water supply report, this entire system is now at only 35% capacity, while over a third of the American west is now classified in extreme drought
I generally don’t complain about the weather, as it’s something I can’t control. But I think we can all agree that record-breaking heatwave isn’t something to easily disregard. You’d be surprised by how many people believe that climate change isn’t real and that it’s all just a big conspiracy. But then again, some people believe that the Earth is flat, so I guess nothing should surprise us anymore. And in case this scorching heat outside still doesn’t remind them that climate change is very real… well, maybe these photos will do the trick.
[via The Guardian]
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