Los Angeles just got good, and now California, thirsty so thirsty, will be reduced to a desiccated mound of powder? Oh, the timing.

Of course, the state isn’t disappearing, but its way of life may be–the swimming pools and mountains of almonds. Governor Jerry Brown, trying to turn a negative into a positive, is attempting to lead California into a new era of conservation. But will even that be enough for our largest state and chief food supplier to retain its comfort and beauty? In a New York Times editorial, Timothy Egan, who studied the effects of weather on the land in his great 2005 Dustbowl book, The Worst Hard Time, wonders if the current drought is merely prelude and if H2O may ultimately create a new class system of haves and have-nots. An excerpt:

There is nothing normal about the fourth year of the great drought: According to climate scientists, it may be the worst arid spell in 1,200 years. For all the fields that will go fallow, all the forests that will catch fire, all the wells that will come up dry, the lasting impact of this drought for the ages will be remembered, in the most exported term of California start-ups, as a disrupter.

“We are embarked upon an experiment that no one has ever tried,” said Gov. Jerry Brown in early April, in ordering the first mandatory statewide water rationing for cities.

Surprising, perhaps even disappointing to those with schadenfreude for the nearly 39 million people living in year-round sunshine, California will survive. It’s not going to blow away. The economy, now on a robust rebound, is not going to collapse. There won’t be a Tom Joad load of S.U.V.s headed north. Rains, and snow to the high Sierra, will eventually return.

But California, from this drought onward, will be a state transformed. The Dust Bowl of the 1930s was human-caused, after the grasslands of the Great Plains were ripped up, and the land thrown to the wind. It never fully recovered. The California drought of today is mostly nature’s hand, diminishing an Eden created by man. The Golden State may recover, but it won’t be the same place.

Looking to the future, there is also the grim prospect that this dry spell is only the start of a “megadrought,” made worse by climate change. California has only about one year of water supply left in its reservoirs. What if the endless days without rain become endless years?