water, water everywhere...
Trick title. Water isn’t made. Like carbon it’s neither destroyed or created, it just changes form and flows via the planetary water cycle. The water you drink today may have been consumed by dinasaurs. Take it for granted if you want, but water issues are emerging as one of the most critical humans will face.
Here are a couple interesting items out today on water as it relates to food…
The first is from Earth Policy Institute. If you think cities are the main problem, consider this…
…, average irrigation water productivity is now roughly 1 kilogram of grain per ton of water used. Since it takes 1,000 tons of water to produce 1 ton of grain, it is not surprising that 70 percent of world water use is devoted to irrigation.
They are touting new low-tech drip systems for very small scale ag production in places like China and India. Read the whole thing here.
The second item is from Dot Earth. It’s something I never thought about — water lost through discarded food. How much could that be?
The amounts of waste are staggering. In the United States, nearly one-third of the food that is produced each year, worth about $48 billion, is discarded. The water it took to grow and process that wasted food amounts to about 10 trillion gallons, according to the analysis. Many European countries have similar losses, proportional to their size.
Guess that doesn’t include the ice left in the cup I throw away after draining the soda.
