When is a river no longer a river?

> This is the story of a water crisis without precedent in American history.

For those unfamiliar - technically, you can argue that is true. But if you look at the longer-term history of the southwestern part of North America - old tree rings, archeologists excavating Native American sites, etc. - there were many multi-decade megadroughts before 1600AD.

My point - if you care about real-world solutions to this area's water problems, the whole Global Warming culture war needs to be kept out of the room. If Santa Claus magically fixed everything related to global warming tomorrow - that would not change the fact that SW North America is a place where you cannot rely on water, long-term.