Rated
Dec 23 2008
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3 reviews
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australia, water, global warming, climate change, cattle
• newint.org
From the page: "Regarding the use of energy, a study by David Pimentel of Cornell Universityâ€s Ecology Department has shown that the production of animal protein demands the expenditure of about eight times as much fossil-fuel energy as a comparable amount of plant protein.
Pimentel has also calculated that that it takes 500 litres of water to produce 1 kilo of potatoes, 900 litres per kilo of wheat, 3,500 litres per kilo of digestible chicken flesh and a massive 100,000 litres for 1 kilo of beef. Given that Australasia is the driest continent, Australia can ill afford agricultural practices which overuse water. Yet, this is clearly what is happening.
And it is not just the meat industry which is the culprit. The dairy industry also requires considerable water use. According to CSIRO (Australiaâ€s Commonwealth Scientific and Research Organization) expansion of the dairy industry in the Murray Darling Basin between 1990 and 2000 resulted in an increase in water use from 2,400 billion litres to 4,200 billion litres, contributing significantly to the water crisis which has been dominating news here over the past two years.
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