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> ... would be to cut out bovine meat. The somewhat ludicrous figure provided at that link - of 15,415 litres of water per kilogram of meat - is oft' cited by

by Jedd 7y ago

> ... would be to cut out bovine meat. The somewhat ludicrous figure provided at that link - of 15,415 litres of water per kilogram of meat - is oft' cited by vegetarians and vegans, but doesn't bear scrutiny. CAFOs are undeniably bad for everyone (the land, the animals, and the consumers) and while they doubtless skew the stats, those grossly artificial environments are clearly not locking up 15 tonnes of water per kilogram of meat. Something closer to natural - say pastured raised cattle - are using much more reasonable volumes of water, especially at low stocking rates. But the whole 'using water' claim is muddied. The water the animal drinks passes through it and into the ground. Irrigation of the pasture, if performed, can't be thought of as 'lost' water either, as some will go underground, some will be lost as transpiration / evaporation, and some will be stored in the plant to then be consumed by the animal (qv). > Why do lawns even factor into the equation when the reality is ... Because lawns are, for most people, for most of the time, pointless wastes of land, water, pesticides, and energy. There are myriad (good) reasons to surrender some lawn and instead grow some of your own food -- TFA just pointed out one of the less obvious ones.

vosper 7y ago
> But the whole 'using water' claim is muddied. The water the animal drinks passes through it and into the ground. Yes, it's not like the water is destroyed. It may be diverted from directly flowing into a river, sure, and perhaps goes straight back to the atmosphere rather than into the sea via evaporation, exhalation, and transpiration... but it's not gone.
- lostlogin 7y ago
  What the cow returns trashes streams as it’s high in nitrates. It’s incredibly damaging. New Zealand is a great example of this and the huge expansion of our dairy industry has done huge harm.
  - bluGill 7y ago
    Only when the cow is allowed to go in the stream. Have the cow go even a few meters away from the stream and it is great fertilizer for the grass the cow eats.
    - murph-almighty 7y ago
      Runoff still exists. That fertilizer (and honestly most commercial fertilizers) will still enter the stream and other water via rain.
    - lostlogin 7y ago
      Cows aren’t allowed in streams in NZ and this is mostly followed, with waterways fenced off. Our rivers are trashed.
- DrRobinson 7y ago
  I don't really see the point of this argument, isn't this true for basically _all_ water usage?
  - bluGill 7y ago
    Exactly. Water is used, but not lost. Except for cases where more is drawn from an aquifer than replaces it (a very real problem, but not one that quantity of water used in beef touches in a useful way), the water is just passed on down the line. Thus the whole argument doesn't make sense. It is a big number that vegetarians like though because they can make it sound bad while the more complex truth is too complex to understand (and doesn't support their bias as well).
    - jerf 7y ago
      I find understanding this sort of thing is much easier to look at from an energy perspective than a materials perspective. Water is "used" when entropy is dumped into it that makes it less suitable for usage. It takes energy to turn it back into useful pure water. Nature provides a lot of energy that turns it back into pure water, but it may not do it as quickly as we use it, or where we want it, or when we want it. And sometimes the problem is that it dumps fresh water on us far in excess of our desires. It's still not a perfect perspective, because the exact nature of what's in the water can be an issue (i.e., urine is "bad" for most uses, but may fertilize well, etc.). But it's at least closer to the truth than the mindset that water is poured into a cow and disappears from the universe entirely. If goodness and pureness was a one-time consumable item that way, the way some people seem to conceive of it, the ecosystem would have run out of it billions of years ago. It is a renewable resource.
  - sp332 7y ago
    Not really. If you put water on plants, most of it evaporates. Example: https://www.theguardian.com/sustainable-business/sustainable-fashion-blog/2014/oct/01/cotton-production-linked-to-images-of-the-dried-up-aral-sea-basin https://www.theguardian.com/sustainable-business/sustainable...
    - 7y ago
zo1 7y ago
>"But the whole 'using water' claim is muddied." I agree, most of our water is technically "reused". However, one minor caveat is that if it goes down the drain then it most likely gets mixed-in with sewage and thus needs to be treated before being released. Which can definitely be some sort of resource burden. Edit: Formatting.
gdubs 7y ago
It takes a lot of crops to feed animals, and those crops depend on enormous amounts of irrigation. The vast majority of agriculture exists for animal feed. I don’t know the exact source of that number, but I’d guess it included the water involved in growing those feed crops, not just what a cow drinks.
- Jedd 7y ago
  What number? CAFOs are objectively horrendous things. Feeding grain to ruminants is also horrendous. Using lots of fresh water, pesticides, herbicides, and fossil fuels to grow grain on high quality land -- rather than allowing grazing animals to graze on marginal lands -- is a highly dubious practice. Nothing about that cycle is good for any of us, any of the animals involved, or the soil or water resource management.

by Jedd 7y ago

vosper 7y ago

> But the whole 'using water' claim is muddied. The water the animal drinks passes through it and into the ground. Yes, it's not like the water is destroyed. It may be diverted from directly flowing into a river, sure, and perhaps goes straight back to the atmosphere rather than into the sea via evaporation, exhalation, and transpiration... but it's not gone.

lostlogin 7y ago
What the cow returns trashes streams as it’s high in nitrates. It’s incredibly damaging. New Zealand is a great example of this and the huge expansion of our dairy industry has done huge harm.
- bluGill 7y ago
  Only when the cow is allowed to go in the stream. Have the cow go even a few meters away from the stream and it is great fertilizer for the grass the cow eats.
  - murph-almighty 7y ago
    Runoff still exists. That fertilizer (and honestly most commercial fertilizers) will still enter the stream and other water via rain.
  - lostlogin 7y ago
    Cows aren’t allowed in streams in NZ and this is mostly followed, with waterways fenced off. Our rivers are trashed.
DrRobinson 7y ago
I don't really see the point of this argument, isn't this true for basically _all_ water usage?
- bluGill 7y ago
  Exactly. Water is used, but not lost. Except for cases where more is drawn from an aquifer than replaces it (a very real problem, but not one that quantity of water used in beef touches in a useful way), the water is just passed on down the line. Thus the whole argument doesn't make sense. It is a big number that vegetarians like though because they can make it sound bad while the more complex truth is too complex to understand (and doesn't support their bias as well).
  - jerf 7y ago
    I find understanding this sort of thing is much easier to look at from an energy perspective than a materials perspective. Water is "used" when entropy is dumped into it that makes it less suitable for usage. It takes energy to turn it back into useful pure water. Nature provides a lot of energy that turns it back into pure water, but it may not do it as quickly as we use it, or where we want it, or when we want it. And sometimes the problem is that it dumps fresh water on us far in excess of our desires. It's still not a perfect perspective, because the exact nature of what's in the water can be an issue (i.e., urine is "bad" for most uses, but may fertilize well, etc.). But it's at least closer to the truth than the mindset that water is poured into a cow and disappears from the universe entirely. If goodness and pureness was a one-time consumable item that way, the way some people seem to conceive of it, the ecosystem would have run out of it billions of years ago. It is a renewable resource.
- sp332 7y ago
  Not really. If you put water on plants, most of it evaporates. Example: https://www.theguardian.com/sustainable-business/sustainable-fashion-blog/2014/oct/01/cotton-production-linked-to-images-of-the-dried-up-aral-sea-basin https://www.theguardian.com/sustainable-business/sustainable...
  - 7y ago

zo1 7y ago

>"But the whole 'using water' claim is muddied." I agree, most of our water is technically "reused". However, one minor caveat is that if it goes down the drain then it most likely gets mixed-in with sewage and thus needs to be treated before being released. Which can definitely be some sort of resource burden. Edit: Formatting.

gdubs 7y ago

It takes a lot of crops to feed animals, and those crops depend on enormous amounts of irrigation. The vast majority of agriculture exists for animal feed. I don’t know the exact source of that number, but I’d guess it included the water involved in growing those feed crops, not just what a cow drinks.

Jedd 7y ago
What number? CAFOs are objectively horrendous things. Feeding grain to ruminants is also horrendous. Using lots of fresh water, pesticides, herbicides, and fossil fuels to grow grain on high quality land -- rather than allowing grazing animals to graze on marginal lands -- is a highly dubious practice. Nothing about that cycle is good for any of us, any of the animals involved, or the soil or water resource management.