I don't live in California, but lets assume that the percentage of American beef that California produces matches up with the percentage of the beef I eat that is from California. I think that is more than generous.
So 5.7% of the beef I eat is Californian. The majority of the rest is raised in areas with their own independent water supplies.
Let's assume that the percentage of almonds that are from California matches up with the percentage of the world's almonds that are Californian. This is more than generous, as I wager exceptionally few of the almonds that I eat are imported, since the US exports almonds...
So 80% of the almonds that I eat are Californian.
If you want to defend almond-eating and condemn my beef-eating, those statistics are going to be a problem for you.
California could completely ban all cows within California and ban the export of Alfalfa for all I care. The price increase would not particularly bother me. If California halted production of almonds, I don't think almond-eaters would be very happy at all. For the record, I would support California doing both.
Why are you normalizing to world production and not how much you eat? 5% of cattle production could be a lot of cattle and 80% of almonds could be a fairly small amount of cattle.
Percentages of different things cannot be compared sanely.
Because if almond-eating is actually more defensible than beef-eating, then I should be able to replace my beef with almonds and leave California in a better situation. In reality though, if I replaced beef with almonds, California would be considerably worse off.
Think about it, which harms California's water supply more? A New Yorker drinking a gallon of cow's milk? Or a New Yorker drinking a gallon of almond milk?
I don't live in California, but lets assume that the percentage of American beef that California produces matches up with the percentage of the beef I eat that is from California. I think that is more than generous.
So 5.7% of the beef I eat is Californian. The majority of the rest is raised in areas with their own independent water supplies.
Let's assume that the percentage of almonds that are from California matches up with the percentage of the world's almonds that are Californian. This is more than generous, as I wager exceptionally few of the almonds that I eat are imported, since the US exports almonds...
So 80% of the almonds that I eat are Californian.
If you want to defend almond-eating and condemn my beef-eating, those statistics are going to be a problem for you.
California could completely ban all cows within California and ban the export of Alfalfa for all I care. The price increase would not particularly bother me. If California halted production of almonds, I don't think almond-eaters would be very happy at all. For the record, I would support California doing both.