>Severe droughts across stretching from California to Europe and China—are snarling supply chains and driving up the prices of food and energy.

>Parts of China are experiencing their longest sustained heat wave since record-keeping began in 1961.

>The drought affecting Spain, Portugal, France, and Italy is on track to be the worst in five hundred years

>In the American West, a drought that began two decades ago now appears to be the worst in 1,200 years, according to a study led by the University of California, Los Angeles.

>The United Nations says the number of droughts worldwide has risen 29% since 2000 because of land degradation and climate change.

>In the U.S., agricultural forecasters expect farmers to lose more than 40% of the cotton crop, while in Europe the Spanish olive-oil harvest is expected to fall by as much as a third amid hot and dry conditions.

>In Europe, rivers such as the Rhine and Italy’s Po that serve as arteries for trade are running at historic lows, forcing manufacturers to cut shipments.

>Heat has forced France to lower production at several nuclear reactors because the river water that cools them is too warm. And Germany, Europe’s biggest consumer of Russian gas, plans to burn more coal instead of gas to generate electricity, but low levels on the Rhine are holding back shipments.

>In the U.S., smaller snowpacks in the Sierra Nevada mountains of California have sharply reduced water supplies in the region, home to the country’s largest agriculture industry.

>The Colorado River has fallen so much that the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation on Aug. 16 declared a second consecutive annual shortage, triggering a second straight year of mandatory water cuts to Arizona, Nevada, and Mexico.

“Our only option at this point is enhanced water efficiency,” Klaus Reichardt

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