Thursday, March 22, 2012

Not a drop to drink

Thanks for the great comments on Monday's post! I think sometimes people see those of us who advocate for nature as thinking we need to do away with all things tech. Although there may be people like that out there, I'm not one of them. Technology has lots of great things to offer, and it's not going away (nor should it).

I'm simply advocating for incorporating some "nature time" into daily life--half an hour or so to recuperate from a crazy day and find some sense of balance.

And in other news ...

Did you know today is World Water Day?

source

Water day? Why do we need a water day? Personally, I think it's so I can share some mind-blowing facts with you (all but the last are from waterfootprint.org):
  • it takes 109 liters of water to make one glass of wine
  • 15,400 liters of water are needed to produce one kg (just under half a pound) of beef
  • chicken is better at 4300 liters for one kg of meat
  • the average water footprint for one kg of bread is 1608 liters
  • it takes 5060 liters of water to make one kg of cheese
  • a 100-gram chocolate bar requires 1700 liters of water to make
  • 560 liters of water go into growing 1 kg of oranges
  • 1 kg dry pasta takes nearly 1850 liters of water to make
  • one pair of Levi's jeans uses over 3,000 liters of water over its lifetime (from growing the cotton to laundering) (source)
And that doesn't take into account the cooking process, washing up after preparing food, or any other direct use of water involved in food prep. Hmm, makes drought look downright scary, doesn't it? (That's why I write novels about it, mwa-ha-ha-ha-ha!)

I'm actually writing (on the non-fiction side) a profile about the founder of the Water Footprint Network, so World Water Day was timely. There are some amazing graphics (and more mind-blowing facts) on the WFN website--go check them out!


If you had to guess, what part of your day uses the most water?

6 comments:

  1. Great article to point out how much water we use. I especially love the quote taken from the Rhyme of the Ancient Mariner.

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  2. If I had to guess what part of my day uses the most water I would have said my shower. But, after reading how much it takes to produce one glass of wine, and I like a couple glasses in the evenings - well you get the idea :)

    ......dhole

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  3. Those statistics are fascinating, and scary. Didn't know I was using that much water!

    ---Damyanti, Co-host A to Z Challenge April 2012

    Twitter: @AprilA2Z
    #atozchallenge

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