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I've always found this a weird comparison. There is no more important use of water than providing food. I love tech and earn my living from it, but the importan

I've always found this a weird comparison. There is no more important use of water than providing food. I love tech and earn my living from it, but the importance of food cannot be overstated.

lbriner 4mo ago
pistachios is not the same thing as "food" it is just a small percentage of it. "Food" is important, pistachios not so much.
deleted 4mo ago
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TheSoftwareGuy 4mo ago
Its not a bad comparison because pistachios are a cash crop, not a staple crop. That is to say, pistachios aren't grown to keep people fed, they are grown for economic profit
ch4s3 4mo ago
I think the criticism here is that they're pumping that water in from the Colorado river based on a pricing schema that makes it artificially cheap t grow water intensive crops in a very arid region. If the pricing were modernized and rationalized those pistachios would be grown somewhere that has more rain fall. Moreover a lot of that water is transported with the pistachios out of the watershed so it creates 2nd order problems. You could also argue that Amazon data centers are crucial commercial infrastructure that used for a lot of logistics necessary to move food around.
simonw 4mo ago
There are a whole lot of foods that are incredibly wasteful if you truly care about water consumption. Saying "if it's edible then it doesn't matter how much water it uses, it's justified" isn't a good position to take.
pb7 4mo ago
You don't need pistachios. General compute is a few orders of magnitude more important to humanity's livelihood than pistachios.
stetrain 4mo ago
And some foods are a lot more water efficient than others to produce.
ApolloFortyNine 4mo ago
Almonds use more water for the same calories of nutrition compared to a grain, somewhere from 4-8x more depending on the source. Plus California was/is in a drought for years, that's why people bring up the almonds example.
Robdel12 4mo ago
You find growing an incredibly water heavy crop in a place that doesn’t have the water supply to do so a weird comparison? And it’s not even a food that’s needed, so you can’t stand on that either.
nh23423fefe 4mo ago
Hyperbolic people help me ignore their fake concerns.

I've always found this a weird comparison. There is no more important use of water than providing food. I love tech and earn my living from it, but the importance of food cannot be overstated.

lbriner 4mo ago

pistachios is not the same thing as "food" it is just a small percentage of it. "Food" is important, pistachios not so much.

deleted 4mo ago

[deleted]

TheSoftwareGuy 4mo ago

Its not a bad comparison because pistachios are a cash crop, not a staple crop. That is to say, pistachios aren't grown to keep people fed, they are grown for economic profit

ch4s3 4mo ago

I think the criticism here is that they're pumping that water in from the Colorado river based on a pricing schema that makes it artificially cheap t grow water intensive crops in a very arid region. If the pricing were modernized and rationalized those pistachios would be grown somewhere that has more rain fall. Moreover a lot of that water is transported with the pistachios out of the watershed so it creates 2nd order problems. You could also argue that Amazon data centers are crucial commercial infrastructure that used for a lot of logistics necessary to move food around.

simonw 4mo ago

There are a whole lot of foods that are incredibly wasteful if you truly care about water consumption. Saying "if it's edible then it doesn't matter how much water it uses, it's justified" isn't a good position to take.

pb7 4mo ago

You don't need pistachios. General compute is a few orders of magnitude more important to humanity's livelihood than pistachios.

stetrain 4mo ago

And some foods are a lot more water efficient than others to produce.

ApolloFortyNine 4mo ago

Almonds use more water for the same calories of nutrition compared to a grain, somewhere from 4-8x more depending on the source. Plus California was/is in a drought for years, that's why people bring up the almonds example.

Robdel12 4mo ago

You find growing an incredibly water heavy crop in a place that doesn’t have the water supply to do so a weird comparison? And it’s not even a food that’s needed, so you can’t stand on that either.

nh23423fefe 4mo ago

Hyperbolic people help me ignore their fake concerns.