Water & Vegetarian 12/8/03 1:41 am

So it’s nearing the end of my first semester in school and I’m reflecting on several things I’ve learn as a result of this semester.

First is how odd and strange the water is in the western united states. Most water is used by agriculture (near 70-80% in most places), which is not the first place water conservationist look. Urban consumption can be reduced by removing green lawns and other water conserving methods, but none near as much as improved watering techniques in agriculture. Further the amount of subsides that agriculture have (and how farmers are paid not to grow by these subsides) is wretched. Water subsides alone make me ponder what power they believe Nature really is.

A quote to remember, “Water flows uphill to Money and Power” a quote from cadillac desert by Marc Risener

The second major incident that has changed is my reversion to being an omnivore. I say reversion given that still think it’s useful, however I now see my own individual scale as an inept attempt at preserving humanity on a scale that works only with proper marketing. I believe in grassroots building, but only when it’s a cohesive, communicating mass. Any such movement requires a goal, money, power, and communication. Work I’ve done with the Dean campaign has shown me some of this, and I’ve begun to some of this after doing more management of volleyball and teams.

I see being vegetarian as necessary to human existence in a near term of 50 or so years, but currently a basic understanding of world environment and population health is not understood by all but a small percentage of people. If a marketing campaign was used to educated a larger majority of humanity and thereby convince many to change to being a vegetarian, then I can see major effects rippling. This is far more achievable by a single individual or small group of individuals that are properly motivated, then by a disconnected bunch of seedling rooted people that cannot affect market economics nor politics given their lack of a semi-unified goal/message.

Other things have been learned but I’ll address them as I remember them.