Globalized Water vs. Globalized Cola?

When water taps dry up, Lemon Cola may fill out the emergency stock. A in a Norwegian church used lemon-flavored Cola in a baptism ceremony, after faucets were turned off in a numbing cold spell at the end of March, Reuters reports.

While the lack of water boosted the creative spirits in the church, little did the Norwegian know about the amount of virtual water in the soft drink he used as a substitute.

Dubbed by the Water Footprint Network – an international non-profit foundation – the concepts of “virtual water” and “water footprint” measure, in the context of trade, the quantity of water used in the production of goods and services. Experts indicate, for example, that a 2-liter bottle of soda requires up to 132 gallons of water to produce.

“The interest in the water footprint is rooted in the recognition that human impacts on freshwater systems can ultimately be linked to human consumption, and that issues like water shortages and pollution can be better understood and addressed by considering production and supply chains as a whole,” says professor Arjen Hoekstra, creator of the water footprint concept.

Read more here and here.

Source: Reuters