The best way to prepare for the future is to write it down as a narrative aka sci fi novel of the scenario envisioned.
We start in December 13th., 2018 and
the water authority of Las Vegas is preparing for life after the drying up of the Colorado River, that feeds 90% of its water demand. They are planning pumping stations to convey water from some yet unidentified, imagined water sources.
They look to China that solved Beijing's water supply with a long canal that brings water from the Himalaya mountains 3000 kilometers away. A similar solution for the American West, now without the Colorado river, would be a north-south canal from Alaska to replenish the Hoover Dam and inject life into the Colorado. They visualize the Chinese scale civil works required and the budget estimate, and it would find it feasible. There is an obstacle in the way called Canada. Canada has rejected all American offers of purchasing water, which they have in abundance, because of nationalism. In fact, the Canadians are reacting like the Egyptians when we suggested to sell us their unused excess Nile flow, that is, total rejection. In fact, the very question made their blood to boil as if the offer was an act of aggression.
We don't need Nile waters, although it would come handy to develop the Negev. But the 50 million Americans and 20 million Mexicans depending on the Colorado River, that in 2040 would not exist. America would then have a problem with Canada.
In my sci-fi scenario, America would subvert the Canadian state, and promote with the help of De Gaulle (from his grave) and contemporary France, the separation of Quebec as an independent francophone state. America needs only the right of way through the Pacific seaboard. The oil, he potash, the agricultural wealth generated by this area is now distributed in all Canada, fueling the resentment and desire of separation of the natives. Moreover, there is a deepening ethnic/racial gap between the increasingly Asiatic Vancouver and the mixed multitude of central Canada. The rise of China - if it happens - would exert economic and cultural stress in the Pacific seaboard and the Chinese may think it a good idea to promote a foothold on the continent.
Then, there would be three political entities north of the USA, each of them weaker than Canada was and more sensitive to American desires. If it is well played, Canada's water resources would then flow to California. The detailed working out this story would make the exciting content of the proposed sci-fi novel.
