A thoughtful assessment, to be sure. But there is one huge “elephant in the room” that your analysis ignores: the disruptive effects of the accelerating climate crisis on all our political institutions. What might happen, for example, when the two vast reservoirs that provide both water and hydropower to most of Arizona, Nevada, Utah, and Southern California (Lake Mead and Lake Powell) drop below the critical level necessary to power the huge hydro dams and distribute water to the region, due to declining ice pack from the Rockies? Pandemonium, that’s what!