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u/MonteCrysto31 Feb 01 '23
Interesting to note that the water they are allowed to use doesn't actually exist
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u/socosaurus Feb 02 '23
And the data they used to decide how much water they should "own" was derived after the 30 wettest years of its documented history
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Feb 02 '23
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/TyRan_510 Feb 02 '23
The solution is to not grow the most water-hungry crops imaginable in a goddamn desert. It is incredible how much water is necessary to grow almonds
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u/Clancythecat- Feb 02 '23
Honestly, I think we should just stop producing almonds all together
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u/shadowdash66 Feb 02 '23
This would be the way. There's no need for it. There's better alternatives if what you need is say, a milk alternative.
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u/I_see_dumb_poeple Feb 02 '23
Almonds aren't even that good. Dry, flavorless, hard, waxy.
Cashews, on the other hand... I go nuts over.
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u/Lexicon444 Feb 02 '23
Arizona and Nevada residents have entered the chat
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u/No-Bans Feb 02 '23
Nevada only receives 300,000 acre-ft of water a year from the Colorado river and returns nearly eighty percent of that back to lake mead.
Arizona receives a fairly large amount from the Co River. 70-odd percent of water use in Arizona is, sadly, agricultural use. Arizona has the most junior water rights to the Colorado river compact of 1922, and as such is one of the first to suffer restrictions from times of shortages.
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u/shadowdash66 Feb 02 '23 edited Feb 03 '23
To add to this Nevada, they specifically banned green lawns because green lawns are just a huge waste of water each year for something that just "looks pretty". They came about from the 50s and 60s propaganda.
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u/Lexicon444 Feb 02 '23
Yeah. I lived there after they rolled the ban out. Existing lawns could stay but new lawns weren’t permitted. However if you had an existing lawn the state government offered some kind of payment (IDK exactly whether it was an actual payment or some kind of deduction on your taxes because I was a kid) if you replaced your lawn with a legal alternative. The alternatives were typically Astro turf or desert landscaping. And yes. They monitor people’s yards using stuff like Google Earth.
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u/MarkDoner Feb 02 '23
What asshats decided to build huge cities in the desert, and fill those cities with lawns and barely used backyard swimming pools?
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u/No-Bans Feb 02 '23
Residential use of water in Arizona is a drop in the bucket. Agricultural use of water in Arizona accounts for more than seventy percent of the states water use
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u/shadowdash66 Feb 02 '23
This. Most goes to alfalfa farmers who will just use the water because it's "use it or lose it".
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u/DigitalTraveler42 Feb 01 '23
Yes let's blame California and not the state governors who allowed the deal to go through...
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u/TheOneTrueBananaMan Feb 01 '23
I blame everyone living in a desert where no major cities should exist. In addition to the agriculture done in places that are arid.
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u/DigitalTraveler42 Feb 01 '23 edited Feb 01 '23
And that's a fair point, however most "desert" communities don't start on deserts, deserts grow, and they usually grow from bad farming and water practices as well as bad conservation and environmental practices. The middle East and the Midwest dust bowl both once had forests and savannahs, until we came along.
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u/Deep_Ad6301 Feb 02 '23
Its true! California is a desert now, but the coastal climate is naturally mediterranean, like Greece.
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u/Strict_Lavishness371 Feb 02 '23
So…where should big cities exist then? Do we destroy all of the forests and build cities there instead?
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u/TheOneTrueBananaMan Feb 02 '23
No clue, but when the southwest runs out of drinking water it's going to be a very important question. I guess let's hope desalination becomes cheap
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u/Strict_Lavishness371 Feb 02 '23
So you place blame on people just living where they live, and also cannot offer any better solution to the problem? Even a theoretical one? Why are you “blaming” anyone for living in a desert when there is literally nothing anyone can do about it?
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u/TheOneTrueBananaMan Feb 02 '23
I did say I hope desalination becomes cheap does that count as theoretical?
Do I blame the people who live in the city they were born in, no. But it does lie somewhere and it's not an issue in the states or cities I have lived in.
Ultimately the water tables and rivers don't care about blame.
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u/Strict_Lavishness371 Feb 02 '23
You havent seen the problem because some places have abundant water sources and smaller populations and arent the largest agricultural producer in the country. California has a higher population than the entirety of canada and the state is not that large. If the southwest started to go dry im sure they would just outsource it from somewhere else in the states. Theres no shortage of water to be used, its just not convenient to use external sources.
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u/TheOneTrueBananaMan Feb 02 '23
California is only the largest agriculture producer because it uses all the water from the Colorado River (I'm sure the states downstream are thrilled) It also used a bunch of land that was not farmable without heavy irrigation. Tell me again how much water in California goes to almonds? Also, I wonder how much water is used per cow in California versus the Midwest. Most estimates include the rainfall on the field, That's probably not much of a consideration in a lot of places in California.
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u/Nukedogger86 Feb 02 '23
I heard two theories to save them... one was a pipeline from Lake Superior, which is already losing water pretty quickly. The other is a pipeline from the Mississippi River... don't know how well that'd work either. Desalination is probably their best hope.
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u/TheOneTrueBananaMan Feb 02 '23
You really think the states by the Great lakes and every state in between is going to let a pipeline run across the country? Transporting their water, most of the states in the southwest can't manage the water they already have.
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u/Nukedogger86 Feb 02 '23
As a Minnesotan, I sure as hell wouldn't, and I'm pretty sure it did get shot down.
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u/Desperate-Bison1450 Feb 02 '23
Um.. California is not a desert. It has 3 of them. Furthermore, California produces more agriculture than any other state.
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u/AmbitionSpecialist Feb 02 '23
California throws billions of gallons of water on crops in order to grow them in a desert. It would be more efficient to grow them almost anywhere else.
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u/Desperate-Bison1450 Feb 02 '23
This is untrue. Most of California is not desert and never has been. It's mostly farm land in the central valley where most of your produce comes from.
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u/voucher420 Feb 02 '23
The Central Valley is a desert. The sandy soil is ideal for growing all sorts of plants that love good draining soil and hot weather. The majority of crops are only possible due to water sources that include the California aqueduct, several dams and man made lakes, and a vast system of canals. Some farmers use well water, but that’s drying up the aquifer faster than it can naturally recharge.
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u/TheOneTrueBananaMan Feb 02 '23
We will see, no droughts where I live. Also, I never mentioned California.
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u/Desperate-Bison1450 Feb 02 '23
The post is about California. You're replying to a comment about California. So you don't really have to "mention"what is already implied. And yeah, Minnesota is not known for droughts.
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u/greenvillebk Feb 02 '23
California was technically the first to tap the water supply in an industrial fashion so they have dibs. I’m joking but that’s also the justification for their legal case
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u/MyriadSC Feb 02 '23
If you're gonna complain about almonds, then you're gonna need to complain about cows that requires more water than almonds... Or if you want to avoid the whole issue don't use either and just use oat or soy milk or almost any of the other rules which are drastically less than either of those. Anyone who genuinely is concerned with water usage isn't going to use cow or almond milk when alternatives are just as good and use way less.
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u/CatCatPizza Feb 02 '23
Not to criticize you per se. But didvyou do the math on everything a cow produces vs the almond cost? Not just milk
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u/Adventurous_Bobcat65 Feb 02 '23
Similarly, if it takes a pound of almonds to make a gallon of almond milk there must be a nutrient-rich byproduct that goes somewhere. A gallon of unsweetened almond milk has 480 calories. A pound of almonds has 2,640. So either a pound of almonds isn’t going into that gallon, or there’s a lot of almond nutrition left over at the end to go somewhere else.
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u/MyriadSC Feb 02 '23
If we are doing a cost analysis there's a factor beyond the water that makes the cost of a cow immense. Ethics. There's nothing that makes that cost worth paying. I get what you're saying, but the point of the OP was to criticize water usage from the perspective of those paying the price. If we are going to include other factors, then we need to take the whole picture, including the perspective of the cow.
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u/BoredPsion Feb 02 '23
Cattle exist to feed us.
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u/MyriadSC Feb 02 '23
And that has a cost. One not paid by us, but by the cow and the cost is, to use an old meme, too damn high. Especially when we don't need them.
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u/BoredPsion Feb 02 '23
The sole purpose of cattle is to become food. If you don't like that fact, take it up with our ancestors from about ten millennia ago.
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Feb 02 '23
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/BoredPsion Feb 02 '23
You are an omnivore. Like every other great ape on the planet that isn't a gorilla. Get over it.
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u/global-heartbeat Feb 02 '23 edited Feb 02 '23
And we're missing the point again. It's not the almonds. It's the cows. And the alfalfa to feed the cows. That's where 50% of the Colorado River water goes. Most of the almonds are grown with well water. And it's crazy but California isn't the biggest user of the river water.
Edit: this video is a good overview of the problem: https://youtu.be/sHU9t3Gd8Fs
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u/greenvillebk Feb 02 '23
Wdym? Well water still pulls ground water from the river’s watershed? Tbh no matter how you slice it; the industrialized use of water without conservation efforts was destined to cause problems. Every bit of water that circulates through a metropolitan area was once part of a watershed. In hindsight it was pretty naive to believe we could endlessly pull water from rivers, rain, or the ground.
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u/global-heartbeat Feb 02 '23
A well in the Sacramento valley absolutely does not pull water from the Colorado rivershed. Geography matters here. And the focus on metropolitan areas misses the lions share of the problem...animal agriculture.
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u/Slant_Asymptote Feb 02 '23
All plant milks use significantly less water and land and produce less CO2 than animal milks. But yeah, sure.
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Feb 02 '23
[deleted]
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u/Slant_Asymptote Feb 02 '23
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Feb 02 '23
[deleted]
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u/Sir_Honytawk Tech Tips Feb 02 '23
6 hours later
*crickets*Still searching huh?
Couldn't find a credible source huh?
How strange ...2
u/Maser2account2 Feb 02 '23
I was wrong. Nearly all of my sources have been redacted or were out dated. I can admit that. And as for why I didn't respond sooner, the surgery I was working went very poorly and went about 3 hours over.
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u/Btmoney24 Feb 02 '23
You know a gallon of actual cows milk takes waaay more water than a gallon of almond milk?
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u/SteelCode Feb 02 '23
Shhhhhhhhh cows just sprout magically full grown from little seeds in the ground and producing milk right away… don’t mention the V word.
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u/Maser2account2 Feb 02 '23
First off, no they don't. They will drink around 50 gallons a day. They produce about 8 gallons of milk a day. The rest of the water they consume is green water. Unlike Almonds.
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u/global-heartbeat Feb 02 '23
Green water? That's not a thing. And you conveniently forgot to include the water consumed growing the crops we feed the cows. It's estimated to take 11,000 liters of water to produce one liter of milk.
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u/Maser2account2 Feb 02 '23
Green water is the water obtained from the eating of food.
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u/global-heartbeat Feb 02 '23
Thank you for clarifying Green water. I hadn't heard that term. It's probably because it's the most miniscule amount compared to all the other water used to produce dairy.
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Feb 02 '23
These numbers have got to be a fluke. It costs $2 for a liter of water and $4 for milk. But you are saying it actually takes 11,000 liters for a cow to make a gallon? Do you mean a bull? I have really bad news for you, that’s not milk.
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u/global-heartbeat Feb 02 '23
Milk is subsidized. By the government. To prop up dairy farmers. That's why prices are artificially low.
Read the study for yourself : https://theconversation.com/11-000-litres-of-water-to-make-one-litre-of-milk-new-questions-about-the-freshwater-impact-of-nz-dairy-farming-183806
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u/Btmoney24 Feb 02 '23
Ummm…. I’m not sure if you’ve heard of supply chain but unlike the tree once it is planted if you water and it produces almonds or fruit. The cow eats a ton of food that needs to be grown, watered, harvested, and delivered. Not to mention how much methane cows produce which almond trees do not. Also, transportation costs and pollution for the feed and then ultimately the delivery of cows milk. Almond tree have a much lower carbon foot print than cows milk. Green water??? Is that like healthy cigarettes?
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u/Sir_Honytawk Tech Tips Feb 02 '23
What about all the water their food needs?
Or do they not need crops to live?2
u/Maser2account2 Feb 02 '23
Most of the crops they eat are left overs of different crops. E.g. bad ears of corn, the outer shell of nuts, grass, etc.
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u/Aescwicca Feb 02 '23
There's like... 15-20 almonds in a gallon of almond milk based on protein content. Not a pound.
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u/Roos19 Feb 01 '23
Should have kicked the european asses if they wanted to control their own water
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u/Guenda09 Feb 02 '23
Cow milk production uses more
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Feb 01 '23
In 8000 years they have seen numerous water sources dry up.
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u/htmlcody Feb 02 '23
in 8000 years they never figured out how to store and conserve water resources with resovoirs or cisterns of any kind
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u/SirToaster933 Feb 01 '23
Yeah, Natives have always been treated like crap, makes me wish that they all united and took a chunk out of our country for themselves
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u/LemonConnoiseur Feb 01 '23
Volunteer whatever lands you call home. I’ll gladly take it off your hands
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u/Deep_Ad6301 Feb 02 '23
very funny meme, I just want to clear something up. Again- very funny meme. Its actually not almonds that take up water ITS LAWNS. Personal lawns take up 50% of the water we have, so yeah.
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u/No-Bans Feb 02 '23
Lmao. Completely wrong. In Arizona for instance agricultural use of water is over seventy percent of the states water. Lawns and swimming pools along with all other residential water use isn’t even 25%.
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u/shadowdash66 Feb 02 '23
Lawns do play a factor but a minor one. Agricultural takes up most of the use because it's on a "use it or lose it" basis. Lawns were already banned in Nevada i think.
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u/shadowdash66 Feb 02 '23 edited Feb 02 '23
Don't forget about alfalfa. There's people growing it simply because they CAN and would rather keep the rights that much water.
Also there's still idiots wanting to build golf resorts out there. Let that sink in.
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u/Crocadillapus Feb 02 '23
Does almond milk take much less water to make than the same amount of dairy milk?
Edit: doesn't*
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u/wierdnitro7 Feb 02 '23
Fair, but people don't understand this: California is one of 6 major agricultural locations on planet earth that produces an insane amount of food and fruit. Like, I get it, and it's really crazy what they've done to all the rivers and lakes like Tulare lake and all that. But at the same time, today, a lot of people rely on that food for a variety of reasons. I really don't know what the solution is, because we need food but the climate needs to be protected first for future conservation. It's not as cut and dry as "farm bad," although the first farmers were totally the problem. Things just aren't that simple, unfortunately.
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u/Itchy_Focus_4500 Feb 03 '23
Over using the natural resources IS Not the answer. Stop growing ethanol and returning to food production in the plains and midwestern states should be part of the solution.
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u/wierdnitro7 Feb 03 '23
The problem is what is grown out west: fruits and other temperamental goods. Now maybe there's an argument to be made that stores should only sell local goods to your region, (like they don't sell bananas because we don't produce them), but as is there's no way around it. The Midwest is too cold and has too much weather for the more tropical and delicate fruits that California grows. The don't only grow that, but it's a big enough piece that totally relocating farms back east isn't a perfect solution.
Also the Mississippi got super low this summer, so we might actually not be able to grow those crops here either due to the increased water usage. But that's way, waaay, beyond what I know, so who the heck knows?
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u/Itchy_Focus_4500 Feb 03 '23
Iceland (?) provides the largest amount of bananas available, outside of South America, I believe. Just saying. With the same amount of time, and less effort and ENERGY, I think it’s very possible to change back to where we were before, while California and the entire Rest of the West, figures it out. I mean that forest conservation, water conservation, over populated areas, illegal immigration, garbage, homelessness, drugged populations & probably the biggest problem, inadequate sports teams- that’s quite a bit of work.
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u/Forward-Height-7123 Feb 01 '23
But, at least it saved the cows from being milked because that’s mean
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u/Forward-Height-7123 Feb 02 '23
Vegan/ Environmentally-friendly, locally sourced, and, most importantly, cruelty-free
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u/htmlcody Feb 02 '23
if cows moaned in pleasure whilst they were being milked this would be a non issue
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u/Alltheweed Feb 02 '23
If your cow is moaning while your milk it then you're not milking a cow... you're milking a bull.
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u/lessthanze3r0 Feb 02 '23
...don't worry though, they're cutting checks to people who believe they're supposed to be the opposite sex
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u/BovaDesnuts Feb 01 '23
Shouldn't have lost the war, then
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u/MasterofDoots Feb 02 '23
Do you realize we had weaponry that was hundreds of years ahead of what they had and most of them were infected with deadly diseases that we brought to them!? They had zero chance of ever fucking winning you absolute dipshit!
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u/BovaDesnuts Feb 02 '23
Wampanoag killed 53% of all settlers after paying them to wipe out their enemies. It was certainly in the cards at the beginning to wipe them oht
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u/ThisDadisFoReal Feb 02 '23
Michigan water basin enters the chat. Someone say they need water? $$$$$$
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Feb 02 '23
BUT COWS ARE BAD FOR THE ENVIRONMENT
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u/ClittyMcPenis Feb 02 '23
Went didn’t you use the same unit of measurement for water and almond milk so we could easily compare it.
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u/Teska-Tenka Sussy Baka Feb 02 '23
Guys guys, I have a solution: why don’t we build another city in the desert?
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u/MollyDooker99 Feb 02 '23
Most of the water for almonds comes from California sources. The colorado river is used more for Alfalfa. https://feedingourselvesthirsty.ceres.org/regional-analysis/colorado-river
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u/S0crates420 Feb 02 '23
Ah yes, let's just close our eyes on what animal farming does to water resources and blame everything on them vegans for drinking plant milk. At least my milk doesn't produce so much shit that it literally makes nearby water sources unusable.
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u/someusernameblahblah Feb 02 '23
IDGAF about almonds I just came to tell you to pick a unit of measurement and stick with it. lol
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u/dntplywthm Feb 02 '23
Found some great articles explaining this stuff! I think I’m done with any milk but soy or oat. However, I’m going to research more before chucking my box of almond milk.
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u/Originalname57 Lives in a Van Down by the River Feb 01 '23
What right does California have to water from a river that barely interacts with their state?