Sure, the country might be in the midst of multiple crises, but at least the “Obama-Biden war on water pressure” has come to an end.
Sure, the country might be in the midst of multiple crises, but at least the “Obama-Biden war on water pressure” has come to an end.
I hate low flow showers too, but know what I hate more? Droughts and water utilities’ excessive use fees.
These regulations weren’t added because some bored bureaucrat wanted to dick around with the norms. They were added to address a problem.
As a Californian, Trumpy Dumpty flushed 5+ billion gallons of water down a river; water we manage closely preparing for drought season. That’s a problem for us.
How are you creating more water/storage for this reversal Whitehouse morons?
You should really be complaining about things like water heavy crops not having more limitations. 80% of controlled water used in CA is agriculture. Of that, 20% alone is used to grow tree nuts, like almonds, and 2/3 of those nuts are exported internationally. So just nuts are using almost as much water as all non-agricultural use in the State, and shipped overseas. Almonds alone use more than 14% of all agricultural water in the State. Maybe the State needs to start actually look at limiting crops like that, since that would be much more effective than shifting the burden to individuals.
But it’s more profitable to convince the masses that they need to do something personally, and buy new “efficient” or “environmentally-friendly” products to do so, rather than dealing with the actual problem.
That would help a lot. Heck, I’d love to have an overabundance of cactus fruit at 10/$1 and there is someone off 5 who seems to be growing that. Makes me smile.
But that doesnt help me much as we don’t use our water from those reservoirs; a lot of my friends do.
But if you can do the same work with half the water, there is a savings.
You do touch on one thing I haven’t seen mentioned, and it’s the profitability of forcing upgrades. Man, oh man is that an epic ripoff! “Here’s 10 tips to make your home more energy efficient and save $300 off your bill in 2025!” Followed by a list of 10’s of thousands of dollars in upgrades: double pane windows, heat pump water heaters, mini split systems, induction cooktop, solar, don’t forget electrical panel upgrades. I like tech and all, but damn, you’re the utility, the less we consume, the more they charge. Makes me want to go off-grid.
The meat and dairy industry use vastly more water and also contribute to climate change through greenhouse gas emissions, while almond trees help to reduce CO2. Maybe focus on that instead of buying into the animal ag propaganda.
I never discounted the meat and dairy industries. They’re an issue as well. However…
Fucking almonds use 14% of the water in the State and 2/3 of that is exported. That’s a ridiculous use of water for a single shitty crop no matter how you cut it.
Almonds could be removed from most people’s diets entirely with very little change on their part, hell most probably wouldn’t even notice, and recovering nearly 10% of CA’s water usage alone would do more than swapping showerheads. People would definitely notice the result of beef and milk availability dropping by a similar amount. You need to start with the things people won’t have to make active changes for.
Dairy is a big issue, like you mentioned… And milk alternatives are much better than dairy when it comes to water usage. But even then, out of those alternatives, nut based options like almond milk use a lot more water in the process than something like oat milk or soy milk. If people are already reducing their dairy usage with alternatives, there should be a larger focus on the ones with larger impact.
Also, everyone always talks trees and CO2, they’re a fraction of the global cycle, algae converts 40x as much CO2 as trees do. And it does so much faster, with a higher growth rate. But everyone is always so focused on the trees they ignore easily available alternatives.
Wow, I didn’t wake up this morning thinking I’d be recruited onto team “Fuck Almonds,” but here we are.
what makes you think that?
Empirical data.
but this is from poore-nemecek 2018. it’s not good science.
do you have something else to support this claim?
imstill reading your 2012 water footprint paper, btw
Is this better science for you?
since this study relies on poore-nemecek 2018, at least in part, I’m suspicious. they also admit they didn’t gather the data themselves, and although they never mention LCAs directly, my guess is there is a similar mishandling of source data. but I’ll read it today or tomorrow
I’m curious what source you have to discredit the poore-nemecek study. The only thing I could find was farmer’s against agriculture misinformation, which seemed biased at best and also did not cite their claims well.
The LCA studies that they cite specifically give guidance that it cannot be combined with other LCA studies. some of the studies they cite are meta studies that actually acknowledge this, but the poore-nemecek paper doesn’t even bother to acknowledge it.
Also the math for material output of a cow vs an almond tree is pretty fucking different. For the almond tree it’s basically just the almonds, I guess you probably do something with the wood but I don’t know if it’s all that useful. Where as a cow damned near every part of it is usable hide can be turned into leather, every bit of meat can be eaten, their bones can be used for a whole host of things, and their shit makes for decent fertilizer, also milk. Fact of the matter is the cow is far more useful for its materials.
I’m not sure this is true
It is.
“Meat and dairy products have especially large water footprints due to the amount of water-intensive feed required to raise the animals”
That’s the neat part. They won’t.