Talking about the weather, you may say, is a waste of time. If it isn’t one thing, it’s another. If you don’t like it, wait 10 minutes, etc. etc.

In farming country, though, it’s life or death. Whole sections of this province depend on water draining the mountains for irrigating crops. Meanwhile, the glaciers that have provided reliable water flow across dry prairie landscapes for generations are simply disappearing. No amount of pretending is going to change that, and debates about the cause are largely a waste of time. It is happening, and we’re going to have to change our expectations.

One possible change is inter-basin water transfers. It’s been suggested. It makes people up north who have the lakes nervous; down south, it must look very tempting.

Even further south, in the barren parts of the U.S. west it must be even more tempting. Look at all that water up there in Canada, they might think. What do they need it for?

It’s probably going to come to that, or some version of it, sooner or later. We’d better be ready when it does.