Tracing Deep Participation in North America

Remember that elephant sitting in our global living room? And remember that necessary but faulty link between our capacity to protect and conserve the ecological functions of our planet and substantially reduce poverty at the same time? Water scarcity is a critical and growing facet of both of these problems. In Africa, one-third of the continent’s people now live in countries that are officially determined to be water scarce. But water scarcity is not limited to just the materially poor regions of the world. Several years ago in North America, California was unable to garner sufficient support for its renewal of a subregional Colorado River water contract. Warring factions within the state could not agree on water division within the state because proportional allocations among states had already been substantially reduced. Each side continues to fear the debilitating effects of less water, even though agreements, for now, have been reached. However, as of 2014, the drought affecting the Colorado River Basin and its seven contiguous states is now in its 13th year and substantial deficits continue to rise, particularly for California and Arizona.