Postel quoted in Science Magazine on new water report
February 13, 2012
Post Carbon Fellow Sandra Postel was quoted in Science Magazine about a new Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences report on humanity’s water footprint.
From the article:
The average American uses enough water each year to fill an Olympic-sized swimming pool, and global agriculture consumes a whopping 92% of all fresh water used annually. Those are the conclusions of the most comprehensive analysis to date of global water use, which also finds that one-fifth of humankind’s water consumption flows across international borders as “virtual water”—the water needed to produce a commodity, such as meat or electronics, if the ultimate consumers were to make it themselves rather than outsource its growth or manufacture.
The new study “is the most comprehensive and finest-resolution analysis to date,” says Sandra Postel, director of the Global Water Policy Project, which is based in Los Lunas, New Mexico.