Water: Last Week Tonight with John Oliver (HBO)

I live in Salt Lake City. Thank you for pointing out the absurd prayer request by our governor. All I have heard from family, friends, and coworkers is how brave he was to make that appeal. He's a fool and it's stupid to pray away a drought. But this is Utah and stupid is our way of life.

Coming from a country which recently went through a 7 year drought, I can wholeheartedly say that the only way to survive is smart planning and very severe water restrictions. Watching a first world nation fail at such basic survival measures gives me second hand embarrassment.

What I find astounding and morally reprehensible is how the rightful Indigenous American ownership of water is never mentioned, ever, by literally ANYONE.

As a Colorado resident, the changes I’ve observed during my lifetime scare me for anyone alive in the next 50-100 years. The steady increase in wildfires across the West are devastating to wildlife and human settlements. The wildfire that broke out east of Boulder and into Broomfield displaced hundreds on families. Two years ago when nearly the entire Front Range was aflame turned the sky orange for weeks. Ash rained down daily. We are becoming the dystopian, apocalyptic novels and movies we consume in mass.

A few years ago I rented a house in Phoenix, AZ- all the homes in the neighborhood had large lawns with grass. In the summer, we were watering the lawn a good 30 min/day to keep it from burning. The HOA sent angry letters if we had burned spots on the lawn, which happened even with the watering schedule because it’s the desert! It was so stupid and such a colossal waste of water. I was so happy to move and not be a part of it anymore.

My dad is a groundwater microbiologist and my family has lived in Colorado for generations. My dad said that when he was a kid it never got too hot even in the summer. Flash forwards thirty years and my parent's house IN TOWN almost burned down twice in the span of three months. Our neighbors lost everything including pets to the fires and my parents are seeing their house and moving to a less burnable area. Last year we didn't get our first snow until January (the day after the devastating fire). And as a child through adulthood I went to summer camp in the Rockies and worked as a counselor, only to evacuate the camp three years in a row due to fires. Colorado is in trouble. And as far as states go it's probably one of the luckier ones for water. We are all in trouble.

The fact a leader of a state can go on TV and ask the entire state to pray a problem away so he doesn't have to do his job is terrifying.

Once again, Brian Cox delivers an authentic performance, capturing the spirit and intent of the character he portrays.
Bravo, sir!

My family’s well in AZ went dry in 1996 and I grew up like those folks did. Showered at friend’s or in the school locker rooms when we could, did laundry at laundromats, flushed toilets with buckets of already used water. House never felt clean and it was a constant source of stress. When i moved to the city and could flush my toilet with the handle instead of a bucket I literally cried.

Greywater systems need to be the standard EVERYWHERE. Every shower is enough water to flush your toilet several times over, and in most cases can easily be used for a small laws or gardens if you use the proper soaps.

Great segment. I'm a desert girl, so I know there's individual responsibility part to this. I have always advocated cities and businesses needed to cut their water usage first. There's no need for business parks to have fields of grass or huge water structures. But you did miss how corporations are mishandling their water. There's also the issue in the courts of corporations buying land around the Colorado just for the river rights and then claiming those water rights go for a neighborhood hundreds of miles away.

"All faiths....or one of the many wrong ones!" As a Utah resident, this was an amazingly accurate and insightful set of comments by Oliver.

You know, I'm gonna just thank John Oliver and HBO for putting his main content for free on YT. I'm an HBOMax subscriber so they already have my money. They are putting out important info for free.

I feel like the existence of a surf lagoon in the middle of the desert may be the single largest middle finger mankind has ever given to nature. Which sounds cool until you remember Nature doesn't have a sense of humor about that sort of thing.

I live in Monterrey, Mexico and the four dams that surround the city are in a crucial state. The state government started initiated water cuts in residential areas, and we only have water from 4am-10am. The craiglist guy isn’t a far reality, unfortunately. Everyone has began installing water tanks in their homes, and we have began to see a decrease in usage. I’m really glad that I’m beginning to see more reports on this because you don’t start appreciating water until you start collecting water in a tank for your daily shower :(

When I was younger living in southern California even as a little girl I felt the dire situation we were in. I remember I would constantly say "why are they building new homes? Where will they get water for their showers? How does this make any sense?" I used to NEVER pour out the last bit of icky water that had been sitting in my cup and collecting dust. I would give it to a plant or animal.

For anyone interested in water, water conservation, and how the American west became a sprawling metropolitan area in a desert, Marc Reisner's "Cadillac Desert" is a must read

Living in an RV with no running water and now being homeless and staying in a campsite I can really see how terrible the situation is. Just getting water for my cat Is difficult.

Lived in Vegas as a kid. Every museum and science field trip stressed the importance of water conservation and how dire the situation was for the future of the city and the southwest as a whole. Decades later, its in the exact place everyone said it would be. Its almost at the point where the Hoover Dam won't be able to provide any power. I am hoping these cities that keep approving golf courses and mega resorts in the desert become the biggest ghost towns in history.

I live in Western Australia and here there is a groundwater replenishment scheme that I don't think many people know about. Purified wastewater is pumped underground and will get back to aquifers in about 30 years. We also have desalination plants off the coast because rainfall is increasingly not enough to supply the city of Perth