Comment by Faelon
1 month ago
We have a tremendous opportunity to use our food choices to push towards a more water-abundant world. 70% of all freshwater withdrawals go to agriculture, and 80% of agricultural land on Earth is used to feed animals. Animal-based foods are ENORMOUSLY less water efficient than plant foods, accounting for equivalent nutrition. 3oz of cheese is like leaving your shower on full blast for 30 minutes. Nearly half (46%) of all water diverted from the Colorado River is used to feed cows and the food they eat. We could cut down dramatically by eating plants directly. https://ourworldindata.org/water-use-stress https://ourworldindata.org/environmental-impact-milks https://www.npr.org/2024/09/09/nx-s1-5002090/colorado-river-...
It's too broad of a brush to say 'agriculture.' Clearly, some withdrawals have a greater impact than others. Withdrawing from aquifers in arid areas has a greater long-term impact than water from rivers in wet areas.
Wisconsin produces lots of cheese. Are they using water faster than it's being replaced?
Ocean seafood I have to imagine uses near-zero fresh water.
You would think so, but this is actually completely wrong. Prawns and fish use the most freshwater per calorie of any food https://ourworldindata.org/water-use-stress. My point about cows reinforces the point on inequality of impact- the Colorado River is vulnerable and arid, yet we waste this water on cows.
Well, not all fish and shrimp are produced in fresh water, many are produced in salt water (aka, the ocean).
But, It's also likely that most of these farmed fresh water foods are in areas with highly renewable freshwater resources (SE Asia, US South), rather than arid locations.
The map titled "Freshwater withdrawals as a share of internal resources, 2022" shows that SE Asia withdraws a fraction of their renewable freshwater every year.
> Colorado River is vulnerable and arid, yet we waste this water on cows.
Define 'waste.' Producing cows creates food. Rain-grown corn from the mid west is fed to the cows. What should we do with the water from the Colorado River otherwise?
You're not wrong, but I have no faith it will come to pass. Most humans want to eat meat, and will likely continue to do so until forced to stop. Continuing to spread the message is still helpful however, change comes in all forms.
What I'd like to see, is more agricultural reform, both on water management, and export taxes. We have a lot of agricultural production based on legacy design that doesn't account for current water supply issues, and much of the end product is shipped and sold overseas for profit.
Depleting a critical local resource to profit a few is the type of issue that feels like it has a chance to gain public support for legislative change, once the situation is dire enough. I think we're still the frog boiling stage, but at some point it'll be too hot for the masses to ignore.
This is a self-fulfilling prophecy. You, me, and everybody else can stop consuming animal products right now, at this minute. Water use is only a small part of the argument- these animals emit tons of carbon, and more than anything else, they use just as much land as there are forests remaining on the planet. I wish we could focus on visualizing the amount of habitat destruction wrought by animal agriculture. 80% of all agricultural land is for animals and the food they eat.
"Marginal" land for agriculture used to be America's Serengeti and now it's a vast, dead monoculture. And let's not forget- these animals feel, and they have a perspective with which they relate to and understand the world, just like we do. If we have a choice, we should choose to not consume products of cruelty which destroy our planet. It's easy.
There is more than enough water available for everyone in the world. Israel gets 80% of its water from desalinated ocean water. They even have extra water to pump back into natural sources like the sea of Galilee and aquifers.
Western countries have more than enough resources to replicate Israel's approach. Water shortages are a choice, a failure of our bureaucracies.
Pretending that eating less cheese is going to somehow fix our dumb politicians' mismanagement and shortsightedness just seems silly. Water is extremely abundant on this planet, there is no reason why every person shouldn't be able to blast their shower for as long as they want and eat as much cheese as they like.
It would be currently impossible for desalination to meet the immense water demands of the midwest. Water is not the only variable we should consider, either. That land used to constitute an immense, rich ecosystem, and now it consumes water, emits more carbon than the entire transportation sector, and kills billions of animals in the most cruel ways imaginable. Cheese is cruel and wasteful and we kid ourselves if we put our vanity above the needs of our planet and its nonhuman inhabitants
>It would be currently impossible for desalination to meet the immense water demands of the midwest.
Any evidence for this?
First principles reasoning about the problem shows this to be eminently doable.
How much ocean water is available in the world? Virtually unlimited compared to human need.
How much energy can we produce to power desal plants? Well we can easily calculate the amount of fissile material we can produce. We have enough available material to power for all of humanity's energy needs (carbon free) just from nuclear alone for many hundreds of years.
There is nothing stopping us, with our vast wealth from desalinating ocean water. Israel has already demonstrated it's feasible on a large scale and can provide water for millions.
Also your choice of the midwest as an example is baffling. That is the one part of the US that will never have a real water shortage. The great lakes, tons of rainfall, and plentiful groundwater (the water table is like a few feet down isn't it?) mean that talking about the midwest makes absolutely no sense.
Places like California, Nevada, Arizona are the places that have real water problems. Yet they also happen to be right next to the ocean. California has so much vast wealth they could easily build enough desal capacity to provide water for the western states. It could be pumped to neighboring states via pipelines in the same way that oil is currently piped.
It is a problem but in large part due to incentives. Farms in Michigan that need no irrigation and produce nearly free alfalfa are being shut down or sold to monoculturing corporations. While places with water problems and year round irrigation are growing tons of alfalfa now.