Based on the baselines I have been using, our water consumption has been 107% of the average. This has really influenced our overall progress toward a 90% reduction in carbon consumption, as discussed here.
But, there is good news.
One of the 90% Carbon Reduction Challenge organisers has confirmed that water used for food production is not included:
Me: for the purposes of numbers [do we] not include in our
water figure the volume of water on food gardens?Sharon: That is the case. Otherwise, the water numbers discriminate based
on location, effectively. And generally speaking, particularly if
you are using collected rainwater, greywater, etc… as part of it,
growing locally appropriate foods is less water intensive than
growing them elsewhere and shipping them about. Nabhan does the
math on that one.If you were growing rice in Texas, I would count that in. But if
you are growing ordinary garden crops, using irrigation only when
necessary and doing everything else you can to limit water usage, I
would consider the greater good of growing the food to justify the
use of water.
What does that mean for us? Two things:
- I get a whole bunch of maths to do to work out our new figures.
- I get a whole bunch of hope that we might just make it yet.
2 responses so far ↓
1 KMH // Sep 12, 2007 at 9:08 pm
Bryan,
Did you get a new number for the water yet? I am still struggling with water usage. It seems we’ll never get it down far enough.
Kim
2 admin // Sep 13, 2007 at 8:08 am
I can only imagine the amount of water you would use on your “small” holding of land, and the effect it would have on your figures. In any case, I haven’t yet come up with a new figure for our non-garden water use; I should have it sorted out to include in the weekly update – tomorrow.
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