You are now in California and the U.S. category.

When 50,000 acre-feet of water went gushing out of the Sacramento River last month, it fast became a test of California’s ability to protect its environmental policies from an increasingly hostile Trump administration. The episode proved humbling. Heeding the calls of big agriculture interests and area congressional Republicans, the administration pumped federally controlled water to Central Valley farms despite protest from the state that the move imperiled the endangered delta smelt. All California could do was temporarily shut its own pumps, which came at the expense of the state’s mostly urban water customers.

The global dam industry claims hydropower can build climate resilience, and harmlessly wean us from fossil fuels. But as events in the past 12 months have shown, nothing could be further from the truth. A press release, issued on October 31, read: “Itaipu is a UN Climate Change Partner at the COP23 Climate Conference.” For those who don’t know, the Latin American firm was behind Itaipu Dam, one of the largest megadams in Latin America.

It’s often said you can’t make something out of nothing. Cody Friesen may have come as close to succeeding as anyone. To show me his technological sleight of hand, Friesen invites me to a hillside house in Berkeley, California on a sunny afternoon. There, in a shaded courtyard, we each sample a cup of water that flows from a drinking fountain. The water is cool and delicious – and it was made out of thin air. Literally.