GOOD delivers yet another strikingly clean infographic on how to reduce your water footprint by changing your diet and lifestyle. The chart is composed of both direct water usage (how much water you use) and virtual water usage (how much water was used to make the thing you’re using).
Apparently, it takes a whole lot of water to raise a cow big enough to provide you with at least one pound of beef. I wonder if this water usage is divided by the total amount of beef that a cow can be used for, or if this one pound of beef represents an entire cow. In any case, that burger is looking really evil next to that bowl of salad once the water usage is measured up.
Leaking water pipes in the urban distribution infrastructure are a serious issue. Just one leak in our community cost $100,000 in lost water. People are quick to make light of this chart, but as the cost of water continues to rise and availability continues to recede, more people are going to think twice about how they use their water and where it comes from.
http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/2009/04/murray-darling/draper-text
People in Adelaide, Australia are learning water conservation the hard way, as well as the dairy farmer who has no water for his cattle and the farmer who has ploughed down his orange trees for lack of water. And yes, it takes multitudes more water to produce beef than it does the equivalent amount of vegetable protein.