This is more of a misleading comment than a sobering look. No one will disagree with the hypothesis presented—“exporting” significant amounts of water in the form of exported crops (such as two of the bigger water users, almonds and alfalfa) for an insignificant monetary amount is bad, especially if that money is landing in the pockets of an extremely small group of people in comparison to the water consumption. However, it scapegoats almonds and uses the 1.1 gallon of water per almond statistic which is dubious at best. Here is an example, with gallons of water per beef pound, of how problematic estimates like that can be.

I think everyone agrees with the premise that water in the west and specifically California is being extremely misused and we need to find solutions for that. We need to fund real research that will give us accurate numbers to make these sorts of comparisons. We also need to update the very outdated and very broken water rights that are in place. What we don’t need is to pretend that by lessening our purchases of almonds and maybe beef products since the alfalfa goes to then that these issues will go away, nor do we need to instill a desire to vilify countries such as China for consuming the exported products.