Morning-after thoughts about virtual water

Some additional thoughts (stirred up while drinking my morning coffee :-) about last night's post on "virtual water."

From one perspective, using 37 gallons of water to brew a cup of coffee seems insane.

From another, it's a reminder of how the true cost of everything we consume is mostly hidden from us.

And from yet another, maybe it's just the way things are. If you go back a few thousand years and imagine a hunter-gatherer foraging for roots and berries, there would be a large virtual water footprint in growing the plants that were being consumed. The hunter-gatherer was probably more aware of that water than we are, but the water burden is present either way.

What we need to look at today is the methods we use for producing what we consume and the distances that we transport them from the point of production to the point of consumption. A certain amount of the water requirement is embedded in the object of consumption; the rest is discretionary.

In any case, I love my coffee. And I'm guessing that brewing it at home requires less water overall than purchasing it from Starbucks (sorry, Starbucks, I know you're hurting already...).