re: Trapped water dilemma. Is this the reason it doesn't rain anymore.

What about the water trapped in plants? Leaves may recycle, but tree trunks store water out of the hydrologic cycle. Maybe if we cut down enough trees?

Only partly kidding. We're not growing the big cottonwoods along western rivers any more. The cottonwoods that would be alive but rotten on the inside that were spacious enough for early explorers to live in even though their standard of living was pretty low, it beat being rained and snowed on.