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While Stanford flaunts its lush lawns and recently restored fountains, nearby communities suffer from dried up wells and arsenic-tainted groundwater. We cannot afford to forget about California’s ongoing drought or to dismiss it as a slight annoyance. In this time of severe and prolonged drought — California’s worst in 1200 years — it is the responsibility of privileged communities, like Stanford, to educate themselves and take action on this issue.

It is critical to recognize that the drought is not just a climate event — it is also inextricably linked to the conversations about racial and economic inequality so prevalent on campus.

Hillary Clinton says she has been following California’s water issues from “afar” and as president would be open to having the federal government involved in long term solutions to benefit cities and agriculture.

But the Democratic Party front-runner declined to specifically address the latest dust-up over water deliveries to the southern part of the state. “We have got to seriously address the California water situation because I know how difficult it has been,” Clinton said on NBC4’s News Conference program broadcast Sunday.

After years of drought, winter’s rain- and snowstorms generated close to a normal supply of water for California. As winter turned to spring, the Bureau of Reclamation announced allocations to farmers.

Rice growers and other farmers in the Sacramento Valley north of the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta were pleased to learn that they would receive 100 percent of their contracted water supplies. However, it was bad news for farmers south of the Delta, who were told they would get, at most, just 5 percent of the water they expected this year.

 

THE WORLD Bank has warned countries that one of climate change’s most significant impacts will be on a precious resource that many people, particularly in advanced nations, take for granted: water. The concerns go far beyond sea-level rise, which is perhaps the most predictable result of the planet’s increasing temperature, or an uptick in extreme weather. Countries must worry about whether their people will have enough fresh water to farm, produce electricity, bathe and drink.

Global warming will not change the amount of water in the world, but it will affect water’s distribution across countries, making some much worse off.