John Robbins touched on the amount of water used to raise animal products to feed the masses in his latest book The Food Revolution. Cows, pigs, and chickens require an enormous amount of water to a) water them b) water the crops they eat and c) wash away their waste. The way animals are raised right now on large factory farms is unsustainable. John Robbins was the heir to the Baskin & Robbins thrown, but he gave it up and now he advocates a vegan diet not only for its health benefits but also for its sustainability compared to raising livestock. I'm not a vegan, but articles like this make me wonder if one day we won't all be forced to become vegans. The real cost of eating a hamburger at a fastfood establishment is greatly hidden, not only in terms of its water quotient but in terms of government subsidizing. If people had to pay the real cost of meat for a humburger, Happy Meals would be a thing of the past.

News flash: it takes water to do just about everything, including writing screeds about saving water. Even Utne magazine, about as far Left as we can get, noted that a truck of plastic shit on its way to Wal-Mart pollutes the atmosphere as much as a truckload of Ben & Jerry's Peace Pops.

Maybe you should ask why most of Salon's readers buy their water in plastic bottles.

Please.

What will next week's "defining crisis of our time" be? (Remember, Christians have been falling for that "Jesus is coming" line for almost 2 millenia.)

That is all...

I find so many holes in this article: Water never dries up and is lost. It regenerates and falls once again, no matter how it is used or abused. Water will NEVER cease to exist. Having it fall in the most beneficial places for humans seems to be the real problem. You can throw out alarmist numbers like "it takes 200 gallons of water to take a crap" or "4,000 gallons of water to make a book..." Oh really? Tell me one simple action or production on this planet that doesn't use water as a catalyst. Can't find one? I thought so. To compare water to oil is absolutely insane. Again, water is not past any production peak. Water is not a scarce, pricey resource required to drive the mechanics of our excessive industrial society. If oil covered the majority of the earth's surface like our oceans, I wouldn't be raped at the gas pump by greedy corporations every time I needed to fill up my gas tank. Show me the numbers. Give me the footnotes and the scientific research. Give me the links and proven beyond a shadow of a doubt documented facts. Otherwise, you're words are as fake to me as the words out of the mouths of the snake oil salesmen running our country. Water? Shit, I'll bike rather than drive before my water EVER runs out.

So water scarcity is going to unpick the seams of society as we know it?

Pop Quiz: What is 70% of the surface of this planet comprised of?

Although the surface of the earth is rich in "water" not all of it is fit to drink. And while water is not a resource that can't be "used up" it is a resource that is finite, and stretched by larger populations and industrial uses. The author is right to be concerned about water use - you may need oil for life as we know it, but you need water for life, period.

Is real science too boring to print? . . . Is science fiction more entertaining? (it may be, but it should be labeled as such).

How strong of a science background should an editor have?

Fear can be an effective selling point. Sleazy, but effective. This article is a great example as to why we need to dedicate more time in our schools studying science, the scientific method, and analytical thought.

Nearly twenty years ago, when I lived in California and was working toward a business degree, I took a course in environmental science that focused on the issue of water usage and availability. As a California native that had lived through several droughts, I was keenly aware of the precious nature of water.

Even at that time, the worldwide future as regards water was pretty clear. Our profligate water usage and our poisoning of that water through pollution, coupled with growing world population, would eventually produce the greatest threat mankind had ever faced: a world-wide, severe shortage of potable water.

There are ways around it, but they're all problematic. For instance, sea water can be desalinized, but that takes a lot of energy - energy we don't really have to spare. Or, as the interviewee noted, we can do obvious things like switch from flooding our fields to using drip irrigation. But, that costs a lot of money and farmers are already going bankrupt at an alarming rate.

Add in the projected effects of global warming on world wide precipitation patterns, and it should be obvious to anyone that the next two centuries are likely to be filled with strife related to fresh water.

So, to those who would dismiss this problem: you're right to think that the problem bringing water and people together can be solved. The question is, how many mass migrations, economic dislocations, and horrific wars will there be before all of this is settled?

Based on our experience with a relatively unnecessary commodity (oil), our prospects look pretty bleak.

The vegan diet does not necessarily have the lowest impact in all circumstances. You have to consider how much water it takes to raise the crops, and how far those crops or water need to be transported. In some areas, it's more efficient to raise goats or sheep who can forage for naturally occurring vegetation, and live primarily off their meat and milk, than it would be to move enough water to irrigate the same land, or to spend the fossil fuels necessary to deliver vegetables produced elsewhere. I am a vegetarian, but I have no illusions that my diet can be considered eco-friendly... I have too much attachment to delicious things that are imported from far-away places.