I'm going to use the Titanic metaphor.
The crew on the Titanic had been warned and warned
and warned of danger but the crew ignored those warnings.

Uptil now, experts have been warning and warning
and warning North Americans on both sides of the border of the coming
water crisis, even disaster.
Most North Americans, out of smugness, have ignored that peril.

Up here in Canada, there are semi-arid regions in British Columbia
that will soon experience too many people, too little water.

But I've heard that in places like California the water crisis is
literally and figuratively at the door.
The Central Valley in California I'm told is a water-shortage disaster
in the making both for irrigation [soon to be prohibitive] and for community
needs [soon to be absent or lacking], unless emergency measures are carried
out fast and ruthlessly.

QUESTION: Which is/was more important over the span of human civilization? WATER or OIL?

The answer is obvious; humans need water to survive.

Some engineer will post here that the solutions are simple: desalination
and more aqueducts and more water diversion will solve the problem.

That's not true!
All those so-called solutions require a majority of local citizens to approve
them; and with environmental activists and lawyers hindering the plans of engineers and politicians (even stopping engineering plans cold) and spoiled ignorant and smug NIMBY taxpayers refusing to foot the bill even when environmentalists and lawyers are dealt with.

So what's left if politicians and or engineers are kept from doing much of zanything to stop the approaching crisis?

Answer: Disaster.

I can foresee in five-ten years California, Arizona, NM, Texas and even American and Canadian prairie towns and even cities being abandoned and evacuated of a large part or their entire populations; leaving abandoned neighborhoods, ghost-towns and ghost-cities scattered across North America left to nature.
It happened in other civilizations: Babylon, Persia, Rome.

That's why I'm glad that the Canadian space-tourist, Guy Laliberte will
publicize the issue from space in the coming days.
Over to the Space forum.