How We Survive: The $80 Million Acre

We're excited to share How We Survive with you! How We Survive is a podcast from Marketplace that explores solutions to the climate crisis. This season, host Amy Scott investigates how people are adapting to the water crisis in the American West. The Colorado River feeds us and powers our lives by irrigating millions of acres of farmland, supporting 30 Tribal Nations and providing drinking water to forty million people. Cities from Denver to Los Angeles couldn't exist without it.   With the ongoing megadrought, we're using more water than the river has to give and private investors have discovered a financial windfall in buying water rights. As Western states fundamentally rethink how water is divided up and used, others ask who is cashing in on climate change.  We're sharing episode 1 of the podcast's current season, The Worth of Water.   Buckeye, Arizona, is a small city with dreams of becoming "the next Phoenix." It's one of the fastest-growing cities in the country. In the past few decades, its population has ballooned more than twentyfold, and the city plans to add more than 100,000 new homes in coming years. The only catch? Growth requires water. And Buckeye doesn't have enough. So what's a small city with big dreams to do? Part of the answer lies in one scrubby acre of land way out in the desert that's owned by a group of investors. How We Survive is available wherever you get your podcasts: https://pod.link/1586892518