How big is your water footprint?
Posted 24 April 2008
http://tinyurl.com/5n892y
At the World Economic Forum in January, the UN secretary general, Ban
Ki-moon, warned that water and food shortages would be the crises of
2008. There is already a global water shortage, and droughts caused by
climate change, combined with an ever-increasing population, will only
make this precious resource scarcer. By going vegan, each of us can
take a simple step to greatly reducing our impact on the planet and
its resources.
Water footprint (as carbon footprint) is a phrase used to describe the
real volume of water used to create a product. The meat and dairy
industries have two of the largest water footprints in food
production. Animal farming is incredibly wasteful in its use of water
(as well as land and energy) and uses much more water than plant-based
agriculture. Even the most water-intensive plant-based crop uses far
less water then the most water efficient form of animal agriculture.
It takes between 2,000 and 4,000 litres for a cow to produce one
single litre of milk and a staggering 100,000 litres to produce one
kilogram of beef, compared to 1,000 litres for a kilo of wheat.
Overall, animal farming uses much more land, energy and water than
plant-based agriculture because we are growing crops (half of the
global food harvest) to feed to farmed animals. If crops were simply
fed directly to people, less would be needed and the use of precious
resources dramatically reduced. Western diets, which depend largely on
meat and dairy, are putting great pressures on the Earth’s water
resources. A typical meat eating, milk drinking westerner consumes as
much as a hundred times their own weight in water every day. Switching
to an animal-free diet is the simplest way to reduce our impact on the
planet and conserve water. You will also be helping to save thousands
of animals and boosting your health at the same time.
Send for a FREE guide to going vegan
http://www.animalaid.org.uk/h/n/ACTIVE/action/ALL/1128//
Eating meat: Wrecking the planet and creating a global food shortage
http://www.animalaid.org.uk/images/pdf/factfiles/wreck.pdf
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