02 June 2013

Fun Water Calculator Tool from National Geographic

This is a fun tool that can give a quick average idea of how much water things we consume consume. Yes, consume said twice. So in this I was thinking about my recent consumption changes. I started drinking tea and wine again, instead of coffee and beer, and have cut out beef completely. While I was overseas I ate more goat, sheep, and fish than beef or chicken.

Using the calculator I found to my horror - that wine uses 1,008 gallons of water for one gallon of wine (where beer is only 869 gallons for one gallon of beer) realistically though, wine uses 63.4 gallons for one glass compared with 19.8 gallons for a glass of beer.  Wine is close to the same as leather as far as consumption numbers go. Aside from the wine blunder, which can be rectified by just drinking water with dinner, switching to tea reduces my water footprint, as well as cutting out beef.

Here is the sad thing to report...chocolate uses 3,170 gallons for every pound produced! Wow. Beef is the only thing that comes close at 1,799 gallons for one pound.

Only thing lacking in this calculator is inclusion of other consumer goods like jeans, iPads, sneakers. I've seen those numbers before, and they are staggering.

Check it out and enjoy! There are other great links on this page to fresh water information, including blogs, film, profiles of water professionals, photos...

Also take the water and sanitation quiz for eye opening facts on water...
http://environment.nationalgeographic.com/environment/freshwater/drinking-water-and-sanitation-quiz/

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