People visit the pink water section near Stansbury Island at the Great Salt Lake in Salt Lake City, Utah on September 9, 2024. In forty years, the Great Salt Lake has lost two-thirds of its surface area, a victim of an agricultural sector and a mining industry that consumes too much water, and of global warming which reduces the flow of the rivers that feed it, reaching a historic low in 2022. Only certain items can survive in salty water, incuding organisms here containing oink or purple proteins that capture light, converting it into energy and giving the water its pink colour. (Photo by Frederic J. BROWN / AFP)