Banking report: Industry knows a lot about water crisis, climate change

So says Morgan Stanley: 

A global water crisis has been long in the making. Depleted aquifers, droughts made worse by climate change, advancing desertification, the decline of once dependable glacial melt-off, even as growing demand from larger populations and economic activity all put unprecedented pressure on the supply of fresh water. It’s created what the World Economic Forum calls the fourth greatest global societal risk by impact—after weapons of mass destruction, failure of climate change mitigation and adaptation and extreme weather events. The global consequences of insufficient safe drinking water range from higher child mortality and other health issues to social instability and mass migrations. 

The growing scarcity of fresh water also affects the global economy, especially industries with high water usage, which run the gamut from food companies and energy firms to textiles and technology manufacturers.

Hat tip, Axios AM.

And look, I know that major financiers worldwide have been bankrolling greenhouse-gas emitting, water-hogging corporations since forever, but I find the report a credible counter to denialist ideologues like Ron Johnson, and I also note these jaw-dropping and guilt-tripping data I need to address:

* A single kilogram of beef takes more than 15,000 liters of water...

* ...growing, washing and dyeing the cotton used to make a single pair of jeans requires 9,500 liters of water.

* Producing a single smartphone requires more than 12,000 liters of water. And on that point, far more, here.

For the record, I rarely eat meat anymore, but I am wearing jeans and have an iPhone in my pocket.

Separately:

I'm still wondering how much Lake Michigan water - - 

 

- - it would take for the highly-subsidized Foxconn plant going up in Mt. Pleasant to produce one device with an LCD screen should something actually roll off the assembly line there.

A Wisconsin judge agreed in the face of strong counter-arguments that the company can access a controversial, piped-in diversion of up to seven million gallons a day from Lake Michigan equal to 1,100 large water tanker trucks in a 14-mile line.

The company says it will use less, but the company's product lines have been, shall we say, in flux.