Anti government conspiracies could cause problems with Western drought
[A] new cause of conflict threatens [water systems] already straining to respond to the region’s worst drought cycle in 1,200 years. Instead of adjusting water consumption to the reality of a changing climate, officials are having to respond to the fallout of false claims that cuts in water use are part of an elaborate government plan to starve and depopulate the earth. Some of the talk of a violent standoff last summer in Oregon’s Klamath River Basin was laced with the language of this anti-government conspiracy theory.