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There's a new war in town. We're all familiar with the old 'oil wars' of our youth. The middle east, and how tempting it was with all its oil fields. But, things have changed; oil and fossil fuels in general are now, rightfully so, the new pariahs.

The resource that is getting our attention now is water. There's not enough fresh water to sustain our unsustainable lifestyles. Our extreme, reckless use of water is about to hit the fan. Watching California's drought advance has been a frightening harbinger of our future.

This water crisis is something that will require not only changes in government policies; it will require the participation of all of us. So what to do?

As we learn more about the water intensity of our food choices, it seems a no-brainer to start making some simple changes which can have a huge impact on our water supply.

The most water intensive food is meat and dairy; so some Californians have come up with a new campaign that makes it possible for you to have what you love, in this case meat, by trading off one water resource overuse for another.

Their brilliant idea is Skip Showers for Beef and their new spokesman is grammy winning and noted vegan Moby.  Think Progress/Climate brings us this message from Moby to explain how it works:

The California cattle industry is the fifth largest in the state’s agricultural sector, bringing in $3.3 billion in revenue in 2012. In a country that consumed 24.1 billion pounds of beef in 2014, ranchers in California sent 177 million pounds of beef to commercial slaughter just in the month of April. According to a UC Davis study cited by the National Cattlemen’s Beef Association, it takes about 441 gallons of water to produce a pound of beef. In a slightly higher estimate, the Water Footprint Network puts the amount of water needed to produce a pound of beef to closer to 1,845 gallons. By the beef industry’s estimates, California used more than 78 billion gallons of water to produce the beef slaughtered in April of 2014 — by the Water Footprint Network’s, it used over 326 billion gallons.
We’re not saying people should eat beef, we’re just saying people can eat beef, and here’s how…

California also grows a huge amount of alfalfa as food for cows — which, though highly nutritious, is also extremely water-hungry. As California’s highest acreage crop, alfalfa is also its thirstiest — just 160 acres uses 240 million gallons of water per year. Part of that alfalfa goes to California’s dairy industry, which is the largest in the country. But in some parts of California, as much as 50 percent of the alfalfa that is grown is shipped overseas to land-poor countries like China. Researchers have calculated that when all the water required to grow the exported alfalfa is taken into account, California ships one hundred billion gallons worth of water overseas.

my bold

So we can't go through life as reckless piranhas using up all the resources in our path. We have to make some choices. Does this work for you?

Originally posted to Climate Change SOS on Sat Jun 13, 2015 at 06:50 AM PDT.

Also republished by Meatless Advocates Meetup.

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  • * [new]  environment, specifically water (7+ / 0-)

    was one of the major reasons I went veg in 1988. Also the air pollution -- the stench of a beef packing plant 5 miles from my grandmother's farm turned me off the stuff.

    My heroes are the ones who survived doing it wrong, who made mistakes, but recovered from them. Bono

    by anotherdemocrat on Sat Jun 13, 2015 at 07:39:37 AM PDT

  • * [new]  Yes I am ... (4+ / 0-)
    Recommended by:
    nadeje, Lost and Found, Joieau, VL Baker

    Worried about water resources and drought refugees, even though I live near the Detroit River.

    Taking fewer showers, etc. Never water my lawn.

    Still switching my diet to less meat protein.

    Sharing this delicious recipe:

    Lentil Curry Soup
    AKA Coconut Red Lentil Dal

    (Makes 11 cups)

    3 cups red lentils (masoor dal)
    1 medium yellow or red onion, roughly chopped
    1 cup tomatoes, canned or fresh, finely chopped
    1/2 teaspoon cayenne pepper
    1 teaspoon ground cumin
    1 teaspoon ground coriander
    1/2 teaspoon ground turmeric
    1 tablespoon sea salt
    2 tablespoons vegetable oil
    2 teaspoons cumin seeds
    1 teaspoon black or yellow mustard seeds
    1/2 medium red or yellow onion, finely chopped
    15 to 20 fresh or frozen curry leaves (optional but worth seeking out)
    1 14-oz can coconut milk

    In a large saucepan, combine the lentils, coarsely chopped onion, tomatoes, cayenne, ground cumin, coriander, turmeric, and salt. Add 7 cups of water and bring to a simmer. Cook uncovered for about 30 minutes, or until the lentils begin to break down. In a frying pan, warm the vegetable oil over medium to high heat. Once the oil is hot, add the cumin seeds and the mustard seeds. Cover the pan and wait briefly until the mustard seeds begin to pop. Then add the finely chopped onion and the curry leaves and cook, stirring to prevent the leaves from burning, until lightly browned. Add the curry leaf mixture to the lentils along with the coconut milk. Cook for another 10 minutes or so, until the flavors have melded.

    This recipe is even delicious without the coconut.

    Moar recipes, please? ;o)

  • * [new]  Gross , (0+ / 0-)

    a meat eater that doesn't bathe .
    I'm not in favor of people going troll .

    "please love deeply...openly and genuinely." A. M. H.

    by indycam on Sat Jun 13, 2015 at 08:25:49 AM PDT

  • * [new]  7.2B people, 2.5 earths, which one doesn't exist? (1+ / 0-)
    Recommended by:
    dskoe

    This is the indisputable, unavoidable fact that left unaddressed, will make the others academic.

    "Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities." - Voltaire

    by Greyhound on Sat Jun 13, 2015 at 09:20:26 AM PDT

  • * [new]  Hi The Pope's speech tomorrow is looking (2+ / 0-)
    Recommended by:
    Wee Mama, VL Baker

    to be even more wide ranging than first thought

    http://www.theguardian.com/...

    "There is no such thing as the voiceless, only the deliberately silenced or the preferably unheard" ~Arundhati Roy

    by LaFeminista on Sat Jun 13, 2015 at 09:31:45 AM PDT

  • * [new]  Nah, Grass-fed beef - near zero-net water (1+ / 0-)
    Recommended by:
    dskoe

    consumption. But everything else you have in your diary is correct. Animal agriculture in the conventional system is a disaster for CA. The exporting of any crop from a water starved state is atrocious.

    As for water and grass-fed beef production, the cows drink locally sourced water, piss most of it back on the pasture where it stimulates all sorts of good biology in the soils and plants.

    Animals on pasture represent a near-perfect 'cycle of life' dynamic.

    Eat less beef, but when you do, eat locally produced, animal welfare assured, 'grazed to assure healthy pastures' grass-fed beef.

    We are a predator species. It is the niche within the grand scheme of nature in which we evolved to fit. Embrace it, but embrace it wisely.

    It is both the growing of mono-crops, and the usurpation of animal meat production by big, profit-driven corporations, and their feedlot methods that take the animals off the lands where they belong, that have thrown the entire cycle out of whack.

    If you insist on denying your natural place in the cycle of life by being vegetarian/vegan, at least get your food from local organic farmers that rotate crops to assure diversity in their fields and use natural fertilizers and means of pest control.

    This way your diet isn't sterilizing the soils, adding chemicals to the water tables, and releasing tons of soil carbon into the air.


    “Never argue with stupid people, they will drag you down to their level and then beat you with experience.”― Mark Twain

    by Pescadero Bill on Sat Jun 13, 2015 at 09:48:02 AM PDT

    • * [new]  If we are indeed 'evolved' to be predators, (2+ / 0-)
      Recommended by:
      ovals49, VL Baker

      it should be noted that the target of our predation is primarily our own kind. And when we hunt and kill other humans, it is generally NOT for meat. Apart from native cultures in the far north of the planet where edible roots, herbaceous plants, fruits, nuts and grains don't grow, most humans have always consumed more plant-based foods than meat.

      Humans are not carnivores. We are omnivores, with diets that traditionally include far less meat than is consumed today in the notoriously bad-for-you 'Modern Western Diet' [MWD]. Which, everywhere you look at populations who have embraced it over traditional diets, is killing people.

      So I'll disagree with you that humans 'evolved' to fit a carnivorous predator niche. We evolved to be nature's Most Successful Adaptationalists - we can take advantage of pretty much any niche in the web of land-life on planet earth, and can engineer habitats, tools and entire cooperative systems to promote our exploitation of nature to serve our needs. Given that a majority of humans in all generations are known to eat very little to no meat at all, self-justifying one's own attachment to dead animal tissues by claiming meat is what humans 'evolved' to eat is a cop-out.

      There is a reason the MWD is notable for laying waste to the health and longevity of humans in every culture that has adopted it, in a short amount of time (single generation). That the systems developed to provide a MWD to the ~1 in 7 humans who demand/can afford it also lays disproportional waste to the environment is obvious.


      An imagined spark of light at the end of the tunnel just might be a glimmer of hope. -RT

      by Joieau on Sat Jun 13, 2015 at 11:24:59 AM PDT

      [ Parent ]

      • * [new]  A ridiculous premise. (0+ / 0-)

        Before agriculture it was virtually impossible for humans to live on a plant based diet alone. EVERY Culture included meat in their diets.

        You appear to be living in the humans-as-vegetarian fantasy world and you're just making things up or missing/avoiding the true cause of many ailments associated with the industrialize approach to food production you refer to as the MWD just to fit your narrative.

        Archaeological findings suggest that for tens of thousands of years humans never developed tools related to plant cultivation. Almost all tools early humans created were for killing and carving up animals.

        Even the earliest artwork suggests humans depicted their hunting prowess and the animals they hunted. None such for where they gathered their fruits, nuts, and certainly not grains.

        Hell, sedentary agriculture is only around 12,000 years old. And half of that adaptation into the sedentary agricultural life involved keeping herds of animals for meat and dairy.

        As for the MWD, I'll agree it's awful, but it's awful because of the methods and processes and artificial, toxic additives we subject our food to as part of the faster/cheaper industrial approach.

        And as for laying waste to the environment, you can hardly find a more sterile environment than that of the plowed, mono cropped field. Millions of acres the world over saturated every year with fungicides, pesticides, and herbicides. All of it contributing to massive environmental damage like algae blooms, top soil erosion, and farm labor abuses.

        Try and say the same of a holistically managed pasture system and you will come up seriously wanting. Feedlot systems are another matter and are again associated with the industrial approach to meat production. That is not what I'm advocating for.

        Now I know it's hard for some modern sensitive humans to wrap their heads around the idea that we have to kill to survive, but the fact of life here on planet earth is that everything is food for everything else. There will always be dead animal tissue and that dead animal tissue will always be consumed by something. So why is it so bad that a human eats a cow? Or termites consume a log? Or a bird consumes a snake? Or a lion a young impala?

        So the question becomes, why do you want to take yourself out of that dynamic and instead try to exploit nature to serve your needs instead of accepting your place in nature?

        Bottom line from my POV, what I'm getting at is a concept of sustainable land use and food production. That includes and is dependent on having animals as part of the overall process that involves rotational grazing, rotational planting and rotational periods of land rest.

        I don't particularly like killing animals, but I believe we have to study, learn from, accept our place in, and ultimately mimic nature and the natural environmental patterns that evolved in the various regions of the world, and that includes herds of animals on the land that we can kill to use as food. That's why I think a big part of our role is that of predator herd 'managers'.

        Most areas of the world involved herds of animals eating, pooping and then moving along both in search of food and away from predators. And that's what we should be striving to mimic to assure sustainable ecosystems. Animal herds as ecosystem service providers.

        Ultimately though, on a personal note, I think the planet under any food production regime meant to produce around 18,000,000,000 (that's 18 billion) meals per day, every day of every year (that's just over two meals per human), is unsustainable by any method in the long run.

        Every thing threatening and doing damage to the world today is the result of human population pressures. Most humans are self-centered and have no desire to actually sacrifice for the common good. That's a dynamic we are realistically forced to work with. That's why I think it's imperative in order to fulfill human consumptive desires, we have to produce meat in sustainable fashion.


        “Never argue with stupid people, they will drag you down to their level and then beat you with experience.”― Mark Twain

        by Pescadero Bill on Sun Jun 14, 2015 at 09:06:57 AM PDT

        [ Parent ]

  • * [new]  A related Climate Change SOS diary on water... (1+ / 0-)
    Recommended by:
    Pescadero Bill

    Is one I posted today about the drought that has been affecting Iran for years now. It links to a Times article about a famous bridge in Tehran where the river has gone missing of late.

    There's a video in which the Times correspondent goes in search of the missing water and finds things are getting seriously bad, with serious denial. People are pumping ground water without regard for conservation; the population keeps growing - and the rains do not come. In the video, the possibility is raised that Iran is sleepwalking towards a crisis where one day there simply will not be enough water, and a number of provinces will have to be evacuated.

    "No special skill, no standard attitude, no technology, and no organization - no matter how valuable - can safely replace thought itself."

    by xaxnar on Sat Jun 13, 2015 at 03:39:39 PM PDT

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