Public sentiment surrounding the global drought crisis is predominantly one of concern and frustration, driven by the belief that climate change and human negligence are primary contributors to the issue. Many comments reflect a strong call for urgent action, self-awareness regarding water usage, and accountability from governments and corporations. Despite some positive responses advocating for individual initiatives and education, the overwhelming tone is marked by anxiety over the inadequate responses to a worsening global crisis.

Governments

Corporations

Environmental Organizations

Individuals




The following submission statement was provided by /u/Amazing-Marzipan3191:

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**Submission statement:**

A major 2025 study just published in *Nature* confirms that **global drought severity is accelerating**, and that heat-driven atmospheric demand, not just declining rainfall, is a dominant factor. The last five years saw the largest area under drought on record, with **2022 experiencing 30% of global land in moderate to extreme drought**, double the long-term average.

This is significant for collapse-aware readers because it points to a **nonlinear intensification of drought**, even in areas that still receive “normal” rainfall. It’s not just that dry places are getting drier, the atmosphere itself is getting thirstier. That means **faster crop loss, water stress, food inflation, and supply chain instability,** all without needing a complete rainfall collapse.

This kind of climate-driven disruption is a classic precursor to systemic breakdown. As Jared Diamond and others have shown, **drought accelerates civil unrest, migration, state failure, and mass mortality** when compounded with fragile institutions or poor resource management. We’re seeing the early stages of that globally.

---

 Please reply to OP's comment here: https://old.reddit.com/r/collapse/comments/1l3j5je/warming_accelerates_global_drought_severity/mw1aaik/

StatementBot

**Submission statement:**

A major 2025 study just published in *Nature* confirms that **global drought severity is accelerating**, and that heat-driven atmospheric demand, not just declining rainfall, is a dominant factor. The last five years saw the largest area under drought on record, with **2022 experiencing 30% of global land in moderate to extreme drought**, double the long-term average.

This is significant for collapse-aware readers because it points to a **nonlinear intensification of drought**, even in areas that still receive “normal” rainfall. It’s not just that dry places are getting drier, the atmosphere itself is getting thirstier. That means **faster crop loss, water stress, food inflation, and supply chain instability,** all without needing a complete rainfall collapse.

This kind of climate-driven disruption is a classic precursor to systemic breakdown. As Jared Diamond and others have shown, **drought accelerates civil unrest, migration, state failure, and mass mortality** when compounded with fragile institutions or poor resource management. We’re seeing the early stages of that globally.

Amazing-Marzipan3191

Yet you still have MAGAt types on here talking about how CO2 is "plant food" and harvests will just keep getting better and better.

The odds are that we hit +3°C by 2050.
The projection is for a 50% decline in the global population at +3°C.

Drought and famine are coming.

Can our civilization survive a 50% "die back" over the next 30 years?

Or,

Do massive famines accelerate and exacerbate the trend towards Collapse?

Either way, the rest of your life isn't going to be what you imagined.

TuneGlum7903

fitbootyqueenfan2017

FitPost9068

Warmer air absorbs more water wapor before becoming saturated. And it's not a linear relationship. It's not a new discovery that this would happen.

What is important about this study is how much does this affect droughts in the real world.
I also find some fascination in the system's complexity. It sounds almost paradoxical that a warmer world has more rainfall but also more drought.

CorvidCorbeau

Far_Out_6and_2

SetTheWorldAfire

Mrs_Tacky

ChromaticStrike

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Bro, you’re posting this in a subreddit where everyone already gets it-try dropping that kind of info on a mainstream channel and see what happens. What you’re doing here? It’s noise, IMO. You know why? Because the main weapon used against people who can grasp this kind of truth is burying them in conflicting information-and fear.

It’s all about intellect, man. Emotional sensitivity too-that’s exactly where psychosis hits hardest. They’re driving us insane, skillfully and precisely.

So yeah, Rothschilds rule the world, cryptoreptiloids are running brutal experiments on Redditors, and you? You’re out here trying to tune into the global ether with some weed or something stronger… and that’s when it hits you: your odds are pathetic.

So what do you fight back with-against that kind of evil and disregard?

You say screw it. Clean the damn toilet. Make your own life better.

echtevirus

TheForce122

"We won't be able to solve climate change without adapting and changing the way we produce food and what we eat." - Hannah Ritchie, time 12:21

cindyx7102

Fun historical fact that I didn't see mentioned in the video: the water of the Colorado River Basin was appropriated to the surrounding region based on a set of VERY wet years that were considered abnormal even at the time. Basically, more water was allotted for use than what is normally available. You can guess why this might be a problem.   

Combine the effects of climate change with a stubborn refusal to slow down development...well, the west is in for a very rough future unless we can find a solution. 

(Another fun fact: the Trump administration has frozen a federal project dedicated to finding solutions to this very problem).

AlphaGoldblum

and this year its only gonna get worse because someone wasted water

sZeroes

Just store the excess water from the east and move it to the area with the excess dryness.

That will be one million dollars please.

sixtyonesymbols

I wonder when they'll come for PBS. It'll happen, I'm just not sure when.


Edit: they fucking fired Elmo

FgtBruceCockstar2008

Let me guess: While annual droughts are problematic, and inefficient use of rivers is wasteful, the aquifers many people rely on to fill in the gaps and have no controls as to use or sustainability are nearly dry and will take hundreds or thousands of years to replenish?

SophiaKittyKat

The Colorado River Basin has had its entirety of its flow diverted to farms and cities for the last 26 years. It flowed to the ocean twice. That’s 12 million acre-feet of water each year.

California, on an average year, has an outflow to the ocean of about 40 million acre-feet, about half of which is diverted to farms and cities. Alfalfa, the primary crop to feed livestock, consumes over 4 million acre-feet per year, most of which ends up getting shipped to Japan, Saudi Arabia, and the UAE.

California actually does a remarkably good job at water management, but as winters get warmer and drier, less of that water falls as snowpack, which gets much harder to capture, as the state reservoirs only hold about 15 million acre-feet.

Stiggalicious

This is one of the reasons we aren't convinced that Trump's talk of annexation is a joke, here in Canada. It's not practical to pipe water that far south from here, but he's too stupid to listen when people tell him things like that.

lastSKPirate

And now we arrive at the real, underlying reason Trump wants Canada as the 51st state: it's the world's fourth* largest fresh water reservoir.

reflythis

I love this channel, very informative and compelling.

AuxiliaryPatchy

To fight climate change, you need there to NOT BE NAZIS in the white house and oligarchs in charge of everything around you.

1leggeddog

Good thing Trump emptied the reservoirs in California the other day, for no reason.

your_fathers_beard

Thank God the Great Lake States and Canada signed the water compact back in the 2000s.

The desert states will not be siphoning and depleting Great Lakes water.

Not now. Not ever.

megacide84

That's actually such a cool fact about the atmosphere being able to hold more water when it gets warmer. This is why we get dew too; when the temperature drops after dusk, the air can't hold as much water in suspension, and so the water in the air literally starts to just fall out after a certain point.

OW_FUCK

Great time to dismantle FEMA and fire climate scientists

irisfailsafe

[deleted]

Kills_Alone

This came out 2 hours ago and blew my mind, so I wanted to share.

James_Fortis

Using groundwater for industrial tier agriculture is one of those things it's stupid to be surprised we still were doing, but still...

MumrikDK

cool footage but couldn't get to the fucking point

SeasonGeneral777

Sr_DingDong

Just move the water from the wetter area to the dryer area DUH. I’ll be awaiting my Nobel peace prize 🧠

GyattLuvr69

California and the central valley have had issues with water for decades. The demand has always exceeded the supply. We've pumped ground water faster than it can be replenished, and many places, particularly the San Joaquin Valley, are experiencing subsidence and sinkholes as a result.

BaseofMxk

That's okay. They have Trump in charge. He'll solve it by taxing fish not to consume it so much, threaten mexicans not to make beer and order canadians to piss more since he thinks map is vertical and water goes from up to down.

MeanEYE

the first thing that has to go are monculture lawns

veeas

I've seen lots of Maiya's videos - always informative and easy to understand.

Jay-Dee-British

So all we need to do is pump the water from the melting polar ice down to the western US.  Get two birds stoned!  /s

konzy27

It's a really minor point, but she's mispronouncing Tulare.

liarandathief

katsukare

For at least half a decade I have drunkenly rambled to my friends about the water wars. Sure do hope I am proven wrong.

Iracus

Look into something called Primary Water.

SalamanderOk4402

My wife and I live in Utah, and we love it. But we'll be heading back to the Midwest within the next 5 years for two reasons.

1. My wife wants to be near her family.

2. The water situation here. If it gets bad, say goodbye to all your home values. Whole regions will be cratered. I want to get out before that happens. I also remember how vicious Americans were about masks during COVID. It will be ten times worse when it comes to water conservation or rationing. And EVERYONE has guns out here...

MountainMan17

I once read a book in the early 2000s that claimed there would be a world-wide water crisis in 50 or so years. Half way there.

FeelTheWrath79

The work on refilling aquifers by using the flood waters is pretty incredible. 

Granted there’s a long way to go but the better our understanding of soil types and the more efficient we can become at capturing/redirecting flood water, the better off we’ll be.

redyellowblue5031

Reminder that Canada has more freshwater lakes than the rest of the world *combined*. 

Wonder if that has anything to do with "Rah rah 51st state we're idiots rah rah we have no human value rah rah"

US water crisis it seems from the video, not "our".

FalconX88

The water crisis wouldn't be a crisis if water cost as much as oil. We'd just run a pipeline to california. Water just isn't worth spending a lot of money on apparently.

Cartossin

I stopped this as soon as she said "Tulare lake was once the largest freshwater lake west of the Mississippi" I stopped this.

Tulare's disappearance was the result of human flood control. Its return was due to some of these flood control measures failing.  In 1983 we had more rain.

[Average Precipitation in California by Year](https://www.extremeweatherwatch.com/states/california/average-precipitation-by-year)

The largest lake in California was lake Cocoran, which is a rabbit hole to read up on.  Essentially the entire central valley was one huge lake that used to drain out the Salinas River.  After one large earthquake, it weakened the area near the Carquinez Strait and allowed the lake to drain out there.

[Was the California Central Valley once a lake? - Geographic Pedia](https://www.ncesc.com/geographic-pedia/was-the-california-central-valley-once-a-lake/)

I'm typing this from California, as we're getting nailed by an atmospheric river right now.  It is very wet.

toqer

If you want a well researched, thought out, and explained book on the water issue in America read Cadillac Desert by Marc Reisner.

Adubya76

DocJawbone

Jaggoff81

Huh, I thought it was even worse than the video says. Fucking liar.

jwd1066

Good luck to everyone's children. Mine will be chillin in the void

tinydickslanger69

The problem with these videos is that the EPA [literally says the opposite is happening](https://www.epa.gov/climate-indicators/climate-change-indicators-heavy-precipitation#:~:text=Climate%20change%20can%20affect%20the%20intensity%20and,precipitation%E2%80%94for%20example%2C%20heavier%20rain%20and%20snow%20storms.):

&gt;Climate change can affect the intensity and frequency of precipitation. Warmer oceans increase the amount of water that evaporates into the air. When more moisture-laden air moves over land or converges into a storm system, it can produce more intense precipitation—for example, heavier rain and snow storms.1 The potential impacts of heavy precipitation include crop damage, soil erosion, and an increase in flood risk due to heavy rains

MileHigh_FlyGuy

&gt;Drought is one of the most common and complex natural hazards affecting the environment, economies and populations globally1,2,3,4. However, there are significant uncertainties in global drought trends4,5,6, and a limited understanding of the extent to which a key driver, atmospheric evaporative demand (AED), impacts the recent evolution of the magnitude, frequency, duration and areal extent of droughts. Here, by developing an ensemble of high-resolution global drought datasets for 1901–2022, we find an increasing trend in drought severity worldwide. Our findings suggest that AED has increased drought severity by an average of 40% globally. Not only are typically dry regions becoming drier but also wet areas are experiencing drying trends. During the past 5 years (2018–2022), the areas in drought have expanded by 74% on average compared with 1981–2017, with AED contributing to 58% of this increase. The year 2022 was record-breaking, with 30% of the global land area affected by moderate and extreme droughts, 42% of which was attributed to increased AED. Our findings indicate that AED has an increasingly important role in driving severe droughts and that this tendency will likely continue under future warming scenarios.

dumnezero

A recent UN-backed report reveals that severe droughts are causing widespread wildlife deaths and pushing millions towards starvation globally, exacerbated by climate change.

Global Drought Crisis

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