This is a stark reminder that what we see as ordinary consumption is anything but. It makes the supermarket look very different too. We are deeply part of the system we keep exhausting.
Thank you again for sharing the brutal truth with us. The importation of water intensive vegetables is unnecessary and done for profit. If we grew them ourselves, much of the revenues required desperately by Kenya and many similar countries, would not be available to them. Thus we are on the horns of a dilemma.
May I offer a correction/clarification, since this confused me enough to send me digging. The 70% water-footprint figure you take from Hoekstra cannot refer only to fresh fruit and vegetables. As I understand the Water Footprint Network’s usage, it refers to the external share of a country’s water consumption footprint: freshwater consumed or polluted abroad in producing goods used at home.
That includes fruit and veg, but also livestock products, animal feed, cereals, nuts, oils, coffee, tea, cocoa, sugar, and cotton/textile fibre. Cotton alone appears to account for roughly 4–5% of the UK’s total water footprint, so clothing is part of the accounting, though not the main driver. I’m not diminishing your argument; I’m just not letting it sit as neatly as your anecdote suggests.
The larger subject is fascinating and frightening, and still barely present on the public radar in the West. I’d be very interested in your thoughts on a “philosophy of water” as we move into this new era of scarcity, ownership, diversion, and strife, though philosophy may feel, paradoxically, like a luxury when water the world over is being litigated, dammed, and sold.
Water is permanent only in motion. The moment we try to fix it (by border, property, or symbol) it escapes its container. That it may become one of the chief sources of conflict in this century seems grimly unjust to something so basic, necessary, and so easily mistaken for abundance.
This is a stark reminder that what we see as ordinary consumption is anything but. It makes the supermarket look very different too. We are deeply part of the system we keep exhausting.
Thank you again for sharing the brutal truth with us. The importation of water intensive vegetables is unnecessary and done for profit. If we grew them ourselves, much of the revenues required desperately by Kenya and many similar countries, would not be available to them. Thus we are on the horns of a dilemma.
There are no words for the folly of man kind
May I offer a correction/clarification, since this confused me enough to send me digging. The 70% water-footprint figure you take from Hoekstra cannot refer only to fresh fruit and vegetables. As I understand the Water Footprint Network’s usage, it refers to the external share of a country’s water consumption footprint: freshwater consumed or polluted abroad in producing goods used at home.
That includes fruit and veg, but also livestock products, animal feed, cereals, nuts, oils, coffee, tea, cocoa, sugar, and cotton/textile fibre. Cotton alone appears to account for roughly 4–5% of the UK’s total water footprint, so clothing is part of the accounting, though not the main driver. I’m not diminishing your argument; I’m just not letting it sit as neatly as your anecdote suggests.
The larger subject is fascinating and frightening, and still barely present on the public radar in the West. I’d be very interested in your thoughts on a “philosophy of water” as we move into this new era of scarcity, ownership, diversion, and strife, though philosophy may feel, paradoxically, like a luxury when water the world over is being litigated, dammed, and sold.
Water is permanent only in motion. The moment we try to fix it (by border, property, or symbol) it escapes its container. That it may become one of the chief sources of conflict in this century seems grimly unjust to something so basic, necessary, and so easily mistaken for abundance.
I came to the conclusion long ago that like any species that becomes far to numerous, we humans are now the world’s most dangerous vermin.
Really wonderful. My thanks