MILWAUKEE – Many parts of the world are suffering through desperate droughts. Areas of California have enacted severe water restrictions, while wildfires rage through parched regions of the West and communities throughout the Southwest worry about how to get water for their growing populations.
Those scenarios are expected to get only worse with climate change.
Now travel north, to the Great Lakes, the world’s largest natural fresh water reservoir. They contain 20 percent of the world’s surface fresh water and 84 percent of North America’s.
The light bulb has gone on for a few people in the old Rust Belt. Great Lakes optimists are talking of a new, water-driven moniker for the region’s future: the Blue Belt.