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As gets mentioned basically every time this comes up, Nestle's total water consumption in California last year was approximately equal to the amount of water us
by Lazare 11y ago
As gets mentioned basically every time this comes up, Nestle's total water consumption in California last year was approximately equal to the amount of water used by two golf courses. California has around 1200, with over 100 in desert regions.
Of course, as the California Golf Course Superintendents Association is quick to point out, parks and golf courses combined use up only 1% of potable water in California. They like to point the fingers at almond growers, which consume about a gallon per nut. Almond growers note that an ounce of lentils takes 71 gallons, and an ounce of beef 106 gallons. Farmers in general blame housing. And so on.
Vanity fair did a somewhat amusing chart about the blame game: http://www.vanityfair.com/culture/2015/04/california-drought-shaming-diagrammed http://www.vanityfair.com/culture/2015/04/california-drought...
(Note: Take all the numbers with a grain of salt; they're self-serving press releases, if not outright lies. Even so, it's pretty clear Nestle's not to blame for California's water problems; whether their usage is the 0.008% of total California water use the company claims or, hell, ten times that, it's not a big deal.)
- idlewords 11y agoTaking these numbers with a grain of salt is only going to exacerbate the situation.
- Lazare 11y agoWondered if anyone would make that joke. ;)
- lsh123 11y agoThe funny part here is that the real problem is the complicated and non-free-market based rules of the games when it comes to water consumption. Cleaning up the rules and making them fair is the responsibility of the government and I think Sacramento completely to blame here. Of course, the current situation gives the California government the ability to trade political support for water rights. But this is not something anyone talks about.
- mcguire 11y ago"Farmers in general blame housing." Farmers in general are talking out of the wrong end of their trousers. http://water.usgs.gov/edu/wuir.html http://water.usgs.gov/edu/wuir.html
- snowwrestler 11y agoWater use is a local issue. It's small comfort to plants and animals where Nestle is pumping, that golf courses hundreds of miles away are using more water. If Nestle overtaxes the resource and harms the local ecology, the harm there is done regardless of how small that particular watershed is in relation to the entire state of California.
- afarrell 11y agoIf nestle's water consumption is producing bottled water, and you assume people don't dump bottled water down the drain that often, then all of that consumption is going into human bodies, isn't it?
- ptaipale 11y agoYes, but I suppose then some of the water is exported out of California and consumed by wrong people. (Overall, bottled water is a kind of waste, but not really the worst you can find.)