Editorial Review: The average American lifestyle is kept afloat by about 2,000 gallons of H2O a day.
The numbers are shocking.
Your Water Footprint reveals the true cost of our lifestyle. A "water footprint" is the amount of fresh water used to produce the goods and services we consume, including growing, harvesting, packaging, and shipping. From the foods we eat to the clothes we wear to the books we read and the music we listen to, all of it costs more than what we pay at the check-out. The 125 footprint facts in this book show the true cost of our lifestyle and what it is doing to Earth, including draining it dry.
The "Virtual Water Concept" shows the amount of water used in human activities. Presented in clever, understandable graphics, Your Water Footprint raises readers' awareness of how much water is used to make the things we use, consume and grow.
What we put on our dinner table has a very high cost. Nearly 95 percent of our water footprint is hidden in the food we eat.
A cotton t-shirt takes almost as much water as beef, a pair of jeans even more. In fact, all aspects of our daily lives require water in some way, shape or form. The saying that "nothing is free" applies more to water than anything else we consume, considering just three percent of the world's water is drinkable and that we are using more of it than ever before. Factor in climate change, population growth and pollution and we have an unsustainable situation. Many experts predict dire water shortages if we continue on our current path.
Your Water Footprint is riveting. Consumers of all ages will be stunned by what it reveals. It is an excellent reference and an exciting way to introduce the resource-consumption equation to students.
Reader Review: "Your Water Footprint" is an attempt to inform the public, in terms easy to understand, about the impending global water crisis and our part in it. It allows readers to get an idea of their "water footprint", which goes beyond the direct water usage that we're all familiar with, which is the amount of water we use from faucets, toilets, etc. or the amount on your water meter, if you have one. Total water footprint includes "virtual water" as well, which is the "total amount of fresh water required to produce an item or carry out an activity". It's how much fresh water we need -or want- to sustain our lifestyle. Stephen Leahy is a Canadian environmental journalist, and this book is written for a North American audience, so amounts are presented in both liters and gallons. Water is considered to be consumed when it is used and not returned to an accessible location for re-use.
Leahy begins with an example that provides of taste of what's to come. He takes us through the water footprint of a 17-ounce bottle of cola, from the agriculture to the manufacture of the bottle, the drink, and packing. We see why it takes as much as 350 similar bottles of water to produce one bottle of soda. He explains where fresh water comes from and what the sustainable yield of a body of fresh water, like a lake, might be. He makes the connection between water and energy consumption, as energy production is very water-intensive, making it the second-largest use of fresh water after agriculture. Then on to the meat of the book, which is organized into four chapters that consist primarily of infographics designed to make it easy to visualize how much water a given product or process uses. Underneath each is a text blurb, so you can read and/or look at the pictures.
"The Big Picture" helps the reader visualize the world's fresh water supplies, in lakes and aquifers, and its future, particularly in water-scarce nations. "At Home" shows what common residential activities and products cost in terms of water. "Food" breaks it down for common foods. "Manufacturing and Farming" focuses on the amount of water required for energy extraction, automobiles, and the pulp & paper industry. In his conclusion, Leahy points out that fresh water is "ridiculously underpriced", so global trade ignores the costs inherent in depleting water, especially in those countries that will soon be facing a shortage. He advocates "valuing and managing water appropriately", not only to save dwindling resources but to prevent civil unrest in some parts of the world. That is followed by a few pages of tips for conserving water.
By Leahy's own admission, there are different ways of calculating water footprint. Sources are listed in the back by page number, and you can find the full title, publisher, or web address for each source in the Resources list. Without looking up each source, it isn't possible to know how the numbers were calculated. The book claims that a 10-minute shower uses 40-50 gallons of water. But my shower is 2 gpm, and I've never seen a shower that spits out more than 3 gpm. Other facts may bear on the issue, as in the case of cloth versus disposable diapers. Cloth diapers take far less water to produce, but you must wash them. Water consumption to support meat versus vegetarian diets are based on a 3400-calorie diet, but who eats that? The book claims that the average American uses 100 gallons of direct water per day, but I can't imagine how.
"Your Water Footprint" is visually appealing and simple for adults and children to understand, but I would have liked more behind-the-scenes comparisons. The author compares, say, different foods or synthetic versus natural materials. I would have liked graphics comparing the water use of different types of irrigation, which seem to bear on the water footprint of agricultural products. I would also have liked graphics comparing water consumption of solar, nuclear, coal power, biofuel, oil from a well, oil from fracking, and oil from tar sands. The author does provide graphics for biofuel and oil from tar sands, and he discusses other energy sources in his introduction. But side-by-side graphics for all of them would have been helpful. As much of the water used in raising cattle comes from growing their feed, an analysis of grass-fed versus corn-fed cattle would also be welcome.
The fact is that a lot of water is wasted, and no one is going to conserve water until he has to pay for it. I pay nearly three times what I use in water, because my apartment is not submetered. Others are getting a lot of free water at my expense. When water was cheap, it was included in rents. But prices are rising, and I expect water bills to eventually rival energy bills. Yet new residential buildings are going up with no submetering for water. LEED standards for "green" building design make no requirement for water submetering in multi-family buildings and give only 1 point for reducing indoor water use by 40% from the baseline, which is normally done by installing restrictive appliances rather than allowing tenants to manage their own consumption and pay for it. At some point, people will no longer feel inclined to pay for their neighbor's water (over)consumption.
"The Big Picture" helps the reader visualize the world's fresh water supplies, in lakes and aquifers, and its future, particularly in water-scarce nations. "At Home" shows what common residential activities and products cost in terms of water. "Food" breaks it down for common foods. "Manufacturing and Farming" focuses on the amount of water required for energy extraction, automobiles, and the pulp & paper industry. In his conclusion, Leahy points out that fresh water is "ridiculously underpriced", so global trade ignores the costs inherent in depleting water, especially in those countries that will soon be facing a shortage. He advocates "valuing and managing water appropriately", not only to save dwindling resources but to prevent civil unrest in some parts of the world. That is followed by a few pages of tips for conserving water.
By Leahy's own admission, there are different ways of calculating water footprint. Sources are listed in the back by page number, and you can find the full title, publisher, or web address for each source in the Resources list. Without looking up each source, it isn't possible to know how the numbers were calculated. The book claims that a 10-minute shower uses 40-50 gallons of water. But my shower is 2 gpm, and I've never seen a shower that spits out more than 3 gpm. Other facts may bear on the issue, as in the case of cloth versus disposable diapers. Cloth diapers take far less water to produce, but you must wash them. Water consumption to support meat versus vegetarian diets are based on a 3400-calorie diet, but who eats that? The book claims that the average American uses 100 gallons of direct water per day, but I can't imagine how.
"Your Water Footprint" is visually appealing and simple for adults and children to understand, but I would have liked more behind-the-scenes comparisons. The author compares, say, different foods or synthetic versus natural materials. I would have liked graphics comparing the water use of different types of irrigation, which seem to bear on the water footprint of agricultural products. I would also have liked graphics comparing water consumption of solar, nuclear, coal power, biofuel, oil from a well, oil from fracking, and oil from tar sands. The author does provide graphics for biofuel and oil from tar sands, and he discusses other energy sources in his introduction. But side-by-side graphics for all of them would have been helpful. As much of the water used in raising cattle comes from growing their feed, an analysis of grass-fed versus corn-fed cattle would also be welcome.
The fact is that a lot of water is wasted, and no one is going to conserve water until he has to pay for it. I pay nearly three times what I use in water, because my apartment is not submetered. Others are getting a lot of free water at my expense. When water was cheap, it was included in rents. But prices are rising, and I expect water bills to eventually rival energy bills. Yet new residential buildings are going up with no submetering for water. LEED standards for "green" building design make no requirement for water submetering in multi-family buildings and give only 1 point for reducing indoor water use by 40% from the baseline, which is normally done by installing restrictive appliances rather than allowing tenants to manage their own consumption and pay for it. At some point, people will no longer feel inclined to pay for their neighbor's water (over)consumption.
Why I Chose This Book: I Chose this book because water is debatably the biggest aspect of the natural resource crisis, so I am excited to learn more about it.
Product Info:
- Paperback: 244 pages
- Publisher: Firefly Books (October 17, 2014)
- Language: English
- ISBN-10: 1770852956
- ISBN-13: 978-1770852952
No comments:
Post a Comment