2026-04-11
45 分钟The Economist.
There's something about deserts.
We paint dreams, hopes and sometimes nightmares onto their emptiness.
And today we're going to experience all three.
Over the years, many different people have tried to tame this desert in California.
They 've seen a land of opportunity and taken it through various incarnations,
from destitution to, for a time, becoming America's Riviera.
Even Frank Sinatra made an appearance.
Yet in any story where fortunes have been made, some people have been left to struggle.
And that's ultimately been true of the desert itself.
Now, though, there's a new dawn.
Half a trillion dollars' worth of lithium is trapped beneath the state's largest lake.
If it can be extracted, this apparently empty place offers a pathway to American self-sufficiency,
away from relying on China for this crucial mineral.
But things are never quite as they seem in the Salton Sea.
I'm Rosie Bloor, and today on The Weekend Intelligence,
David Weinberg takes us on a journey to ask a question as old as time.
Who does the promised land really belong to?
Thank you for my call, Lord.
Will you come before you as a group of people of faith?