Water—or the scarcity of it—is not something people give a lot of thought to. But consider these facts:

1. Demand for clean water will rise by 100% between 2007 and 2040.
2. Irrigation for farming uses 60% of all water taken from rivers and aquifers globally.
3. While the world produces twice as much food as it did 25 years ago, it takes three times as much water to do so.
4. To produce 1kg of rice takes 2,000-3,000 litres of water.
5. 1kg of instant coffee takes 20,000 litres (yes, that’s twenty thousand).
6. 1 litre of milk takes 4,000 litres of water.
7. 1 hamburger takes 11,000 litres of water.
8. 1 cotton T-shirt takes 7,000 litres of water.
9. Already, 400 out of China’s 600 biggest cities are short of water.

So we can expect to see taxation on water, increased use of desalination, corresponding developments in agricultural technology, crops designed to rely on smaller amounts of water and an increased political focus on water extraction and use.

Water could be the new oil.

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