Art For Climate Change: Illustrating Scary Climate Facts - California Drought

I was talking about illustrating what the real effects of #climatechange would look like. In my last blog entry (see it here), I created a digital painting that showed widespread flooding caused by melting arctic ice. This image shows the opposite - a drought.

While future flooding may be difficult to imagine, the effects of drought and unchecked water use can be seen right now in California, where once deep reservoirs like Lake Folsom and Lake Oroville stand empty. Scientists predict that a similar fate awaits Lake Mead, the reservoir behind the famous Hoover Dam. Water levels at the dam are at the lowest they've ever been, and while recent rains bring some relief, it isn't enough. At the current rate, Lake Mead will be empty by 2021.

Hoover Dam, Upstream Face, 2050

You probably recognize the familiar Hoover Dam and its castle-like intake towers, but something seems odd here, doesn't it? The intake towers aren't even in the water, and they seem to be sitting up on some kind of cliff. And why does it look like the water isn't touching the dam?

The answer to the confusion is simple - the place you are standing was once the bottom of Lake Mead. Grass and sage have begun to reclaim the muddy lake bed where the shallow remains of the Colorado River slowly disappears into the parched earth in what's know as a dead pool. Without water, the dam can't generate power, and the water table here is so depleted that the river may never recover. What was once a great testament to human engineering lies in ruin, useless and abandoned, its intake towers a home for Joshua trees.

The residents of three states would be affected by the loss of Lake Mead, resulting in an unprecedented water shortage stretching from California to Nevada and New Mexico. The loss of the the lake  would also affect everyone who depends on the Hoover Dam for their electricity. A loss of water at the dam could leave hundreds of thousands literally in the dark. Gone too will be millions of dollars in tourist revenue from visitors to the dam and its associated park.

In my next entry, I intend to explore something that's very current in the news - the rise of massive super-storms and the destruction they bring.

#climatechange #actonclimate #climatescience #climate #digitalart #digitalpainting