Who Speaks for the Water?

In the film adaptation of The Lorax, by Dr. Seuss, the unscrupulous Aloysius O’Hare sells oxygen. The audience is shocked and dismayed by this wanton comodification of a fundamental natural resource. But the comodification of another life-sustaining resource is no fiction in the American West. This week on Sea Change Radio, we get a bit of a history lesson about water rights in the West from Varsha Venkatasubramanian, a graduate student and a contributor to The Editorial Board. We learn about the beginnings of Los Angeles and the critical role that water played in that city’s birth, why water rights differ east and west of the Mississippi, and how climate change is making water scarcer and scarcer for millions of Westerners.