By P Gosselin
The world is better than what the media think.
‘Die Welt’ science journalist Axel Bojanowski was recently interviewed by the online “BauerWilli” (BW) and discussed his recently released book
“33 Amazing Glimmers of Hope – Why the world is better than we think,”
Future looks promising. German journalist Axel Bojanowski rejects the rampant apocalypticism among the media. Image: created by Grok AI
Bojanowski argues there is an overly negative and apocalyptic style of reporting in the media, particularly concerning climate and environmental issues.
Cult-like behavior
According to Bojanowski, predicting the end of the world has become a sign of belonging among journalists. He sees this as a counter-movement to the post-war prosperity.
Not surprisingly, Bojanowski is seen as a “troublemaker” in his field for highlighting positive developments, yet he views the personal attacks as a good sign – and proof that critics lack factual arguments and are desperate to justify themselves.
Alarming false claims
The media, especially in Germany, like to spread false claims, such as the 15,000 liters of water allegedly “consumed” for producing one kilogram of beef:
BauerWilli: There are many myths and false claims in agriculture that are constantly repeated. One example: 15,000 liters of water are supposedly “used” to produce one kilogram of beef. If you calculate for your fellow citizens how many liters that is for a 700-kilogram cow, they will start to doubt that the figure can be correct. But they had never thought about it before. And yet this nonsense cannot be eradicated.
Axel Bojanowski: : Yes, that’s very typical. There are rarely any corrections to environmentally apocalyptic claims in the media. A press release from Greenpeace is treated like a study. They find some substance in some product and immediately start talking about “poison in …”, completely regardless of the dose, which is often well below the limit value. With state-of-the-art detection methods, you can prove anything. These headlines attract a lot of attention, bring in readers, and bring donations to environmental organizations. There is a well-established collaboration between NGOs and the media. They play off each other.”
Use Wikipedia with “great caution”
In the interview, Bojanowski reminds that although social media and artificial intelligence (AI) offer new ways to correct misinformation, he warns that sources like Wikipedia are often controlled by activists and should be used with caution.
The ‘Die Welt’ editor also criticizes the increasingly negative portrayal of agriculture in the media and textbooks, despite it being the foundation of civilization. He believes that the younger generation will take matters into their own hands and likely won’t so easily reject the foundations of prosperity (fossil fuels, nuclear power) as current activists do.
Bojanowski concludes with an appeal for more optimism and encourages productive people to have the courage to withstand resistance.
15,000:1 to produce beef? I wonder what the true figure is, and how much of that is rainfall which would otherwise just rush out to the local watershed and out to sea.
Some real quick googling and crap arithmetic:
600-2400 cows per square km. Call it 1000.
50 cm (20 inches) of rain per year is half a ton/m^2/year.
That’s 500,000 tons/year/km^2.
That’s 500,000 kg/cow/year.
If a cow weighs 500 kg, that’s 1000:1. If half the cow goes to non-beef-for-dinner uses, it’s 2000:1.
Still off by 7.5. Google says dairy cows live up to 6 years. Bingo!
Oh well, I’m sure you guys will find my arithmetic errors. It’s late and time to hit the sack.
the 1×1 of alarmism: take the “real” number and multiply it by 10 (or waaay higher), one idiot will believe it and share this life threatening nonsense with at least other 10 idiotic believers. That multiplier hopefully cascades into an avalanche and voilá: mass panic.
Good math, and thank you for it…hardly anyone would make the same effort (you see mine was even less). Assuming it really takes 1500 litres/kg beef…I’m off by 500 litres to your 2000.
In an unrelated matter, just if someone asks how much chicken use to drink, to conclude how many eggs per litre they tend to lay.
Well I simply don’t care, I just refill every day and toss out the spoiled water 😉.
Yeah. Here’s the deal. The rain falls on the field whether cows graze or not. Also, cattle is typically grazed on marginal land that is not good for much of anything else. So the real answer is zero incremental usage.
We don’t tend to eat dairy cows. They’re used to make milk and/or more cows. We eat the bulls, typically about a year or so old. At least that’s in Australia, but we do like our very good beef here.
Yeah, I figured dairy was a stretch, but I was trying to come up with some way to make the numbers match.
We consume all the cattle, even the dairy cows.
Those numbers are probably accurate. I think the 1,000 cows per km is far too dense. Of course stocking density is a function of rainfall/fertility. Here in Northern California, its around 20 acres per cow. Our rainfall is about 20 inches per year.
According to GROK, this is 41 million liters of water. What you get from that though, is the maintenance of one cow, and one calf raised to about six months old, or about 500 pounds. He needs another nine to 15 months to reach ideal slaughter weight depending upon the beef market, local grass growth conditions, and grain market. Most likely, he’ll be weaned at 6 months (goes from being a calf to a stocker), and go to a stocker for another seven or eight months (goes from being a stocker to a feeder), and at 15 months go to a feedlot for three or four more months (and emerges a fat steer or fed steer).
In parentheses are the industry terms for the different classifications of cattle.
So in reality its probably closer to 80 or 100 million liters of water. We’ll slaughter a 1,500 lb fat steer which yields about 500 pounds of meat, the rest is hide, head, guts, and bones. Whilst you think cattle are poor feed in that they only yield about 33% meat, surprisingly, fish only yield about 22%.
So the end is more like 100 million liters for 200kg of meat. So its really closer to 400,000 liters per kg.
In the 1960’s, Innamincka station. It was the number of square miles to the cow. The ‘horse paddock’ was a nominal 160 square miles. Just two fences, with the Creek at one end, nothing at the other end – further than a horse would wander before becoming thirsty again.
We eat all of them (with the exception of the condemned carcasses which go to the pet feed line). Every cull dairy cow goes to the slaughter house to be made into hamburger or some other process meat.
This is the advantage of the capitalist system, there’s a crowd of people looking to maximize a gain on every little piece of waste from the system. The hide-head and guts from an animal all go to somewhere to be made into something—the blood, bones, everything. Even the very odd shaped pieces of leather from the head and face end up going to shoes or gloves because those products only use small pieces.
there’s a crowd of people looking to maximize a gain on every little piece of waste from the system.
Between some documentary shows I’ve seen, articles I’ve read, and a recent hazmat class I took, I’ve learned that there is very little manufacturing waste that isn’t now repurposed for something else.
In Australia we don’t tend to eat dairy cows, at least in steak form. We like good quality, grass-fed beef. They might get sold to McDonald’s, I guess….
Go read this. Cull dairy cows are called ‘processor cows’ https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC6039327/
That’s a long read. Got about a third of the way through and then downloaded it for later study. The map showing Australian climatic zones was most interesting.
Steers, I hope.
I asked Grok. Answer – it originates from a magazine article by A Y Hoekstra in 2008. Grok summarised: “In extensive grazing systems, cattle consume grass from large pastures. The water footprint includes all rainfall that falls on these pastures, even if much of it evaporates, runs off into waterways, or replenishes groundwater, rather than being directly used by the grass or cattle. This inclusion of rainfall is a major reason the figure is so high”.
I didn’t read on to find what the other major reasons were, I thought that one said it all.
Follow-up: The “real” water usage for beef is the “blue water” usage which in the UK is about 100L/kg. For comparison, UK blue water use is over 50,000L per person per year, or about 4m L in a lifetime.
Ehm are you shure that it’s 50000 litres and not 5000? German rough estimate per person in a household rounds about 6000 litres per annum..some more some less.
Back to the beef, impressive…so my lazy guestimation of dividing by 10 is tenfold off. Well 100 trumps 10, good it wasn’t Imperial College that came up with 15000 l/kg…might have been even higher.
Very minor point. The claim states per kilogram of meat. What percentage of the average bull is marketable meat?
That’s why I cut it in half, just as a SWAG.
Not a minor point MarkW – and thanks for noticing. That makes my question about counting what they drink irrelevant. Outside of just making it up, I can’t imagine how they can possibly reach that number.
When they say 15,000 liters – I wonder if they’re counting the water the cow drinks?
There is no way to calculate the true figure because it is entirely dependent on assumptions.
Just through water consumption a cow+calf probably use 200kg per kg of growth for the calf. Yet, if we also include all the water that goes into what they eat its a much larger number, but then a cow+calf don’t eat all the vegetation in a pasture. They only eat what is most palatable. More to the point, the water doesn’t just disappear — it cycles through the processes of nature.
So, it’s another of those things that are “bigger than a bread box and smaller than Texas.”
Go figure the daily water consumption of an NGO. You’d be surprised!
“15000” liters per 700kg cow”. Wow, I had no clue if this estimate was too high or low. So I decided to get the “non-human” (AI) angle on this problem. I asked Claude.AI (Opus 4.1) to solve the problem:
Estimate how much water is needed to produce 1 kilogram of beef? Show all sources and steps for production.
Here Claude’s response, which was amazingly close to the TFA estimate (and to the sources he referenced.
“”””
I’ll break down the water needed to produce 1 kg of beef by examining each stage of production.
## Total Estimate: **15,000-15,500 liters per kg of beef**
### Breakdown by Production Stage:
#### 1. **Feed Production Water (93-94% of total)**
– Cattle typically need **6-10 kg of feed** to produce 1 kg of beef
– Feed composition (typical):
– Grain/corn: ~1,800 liters/kg
– Forage/hay: ~500-800 liters/kg
– Soybeans: ~2,000 liters/kg
**Feed water calculation:**
– Average 8 kg feed × 1,800 L/kg = **~14,400 liters**
#### 2. **Drinking Water (4-5% of total)**
– Beef cattle drink 30-50 liters/day
– Production period: ~18-24 months
– Total: **~600-800 liters** over lifetime per kg produced
#### 3. **Service Water (1-2% of total)**
– Cleaning facilities
– Processing and slaughter
– Waste management
– Total: **~200-300 liters**
### Variation Factors:
**Production System Differences:**
– **Intensive/grain-fed**: 13,000-15,000 L/kg
– **Extensive/pasture-raised**: 15,000-20,000 L/kg
– **Mixed systems**: 14,000-16,000 L/kg
**Regional Variations:**
– Water-efficient regions (e.g., some European systems): ~11,000 L/kg
– Water-intensive regions (e.g., arid areas): up to 20,000+ L/kg
### Key Sources:
1. **Mekonnen & Hoekstra (2012)** – Water Footprint Network: 15,415 L/kg global average
2. **FAO reports** – Range of 13,000-15,000 L/kg
3. **UNESCO-IHE studies** – Similar ranges with regional variations
### Context Notes:
– “Blue water” (irrigation/drinking): ~2,000 L/kg
– “Green water” (rainfall on feed crops): ~13,000 L/kg
– “Grey water” (pollution dilution): ~500 L/kg
The vast majority (>90%) of water use comes from growing animal feed, making feed production efficiency the critical factor in beef’s water footprint.
“””
There is still little appreciation that we are dealing with a dangerous nature pantheism cult in the upper echelons of the UN and WEF, which I have studied as a “hobby” for thirty years. It all started with my measles studies by wondering why Rudolf Steiner considered it necessary in order to have optimal soul journey to contract measles in childhood. This is why Waldorf schools have frequent measles outbreaks in Germany. https://oikeamedia.com/o1-219300 Mikko Paunio – The Postil Magazine
Ever since the 1980s ‘Environmental Science’ movement with successfully selling books and rewarded with research funds, the negative view became common in the scientific questions asked. Even one for fisheries admitted that “….human actions would be considered harmful unless proven otherwise.” This was realized and even countered some in the scientific literature but still exists. Sharks going extinct killing the ocean’s ecosystems didn’t happen despite heavy fishing some places, now catch and release the kindly critters.
Bianchi, T. S., M. A. Allison, P. Chapman, J. H. Cowan, Jr., R. D. Hetland, J. W. Morse and G. Rowe. 2008. Controlling hypoxia on the U. S. Louisiana shelf: Beyond the nutrient centric view. EOS Trans. Amer. Geophys. Union. 89(26):235-237.
Let’s get beyond the carbon dioxide centric view.
So guilty until proven innocent.
I have rarely seen any common process that ‘uses’ water. It generally would temporarily make use of water, treated or not, that would otherwise be left to drain into rivers and or oceans, before letting it drain into said rivers and oceans.
Natural processes never ‘use’ water, they only ever ‘borrow’ it temporarily. Our artificial processes are typically the same.
My house is not connected to any mains water. Enough rain falls on my roof alone for me to wash myself, clothes and dishes and flush toilets all year long, if I can store enough for the dry periods. Once ‘used’ it returns into the soil where it would otherwise have gone, often to more benefit in the dry periods.
Most households in developed countries have similar water sources. The fact is that we allow most of it to drain away because we don’t need it or can’t store it.
I once went to a power plant where they stated they used 1,000MGD (million gallons per day) of water to cool the condensers where the steam is turned back into liquid. He said, “Well, we put it back.”
So the “used” water is not gone, it is returned to the place it was drawn from.
You
You along the road
Must have a code
That you can live by
Crosby Stills and Nash
I guess we now know the answer to the CCR’s song from a half century ago: “Who’ll Stop the Rain”. It’s the cattle ranchers. For every cow they chose to not raise, 15,000 liters of rain will stop falling somewhere.
After rethinking it, I find these numbers are very low.
The 1,000 cows per km is far too dense. Of course stocking density is a function of rainfall/fertility. Here in Northern California, stocking density around 20 acres per cow per year, rainfall is about 20 inches per year.
According to GROK, this is 41 million liters of water. What you get from that though, is the maintenance of one cow and one calf raised to about six months old, or about 500 pounds. He needs another nine to 15 months to reach ideal slaughter weight depending upon the beef market, local grass growth conditions, and grain market. Most likely, he’ll be weaned at 6 months (goes from being a calf to a stocker), and go to a stocker operation for another seven or eight months (where he goes from being a stocker to a feeder), and at 15 months he goes to a feedlot for three or four more months (and emerges a fat steer or fed steer, fed cattle on the CBOE).
In parentheses are the industry terms for the different classifications of cattle.
He’s got a year on his birth place, and six months on a stocker operation, then maybe 1,000 pounds of grain (plus a lot of byproducts of ag —almond hulls, rice polishings, low protein wheat, tough 2/3rds of asparagus— that he can eat, but we can’t or won’t).
So in reality its probably closer to 80 or 100 million liters of water. We’ll slaughter a 1,500 pound fat steer which yields about 500 pounds of meat, the rest is hide, head, guts, and bones. Whilst you think cattle are poor feed in that they only yield about 33% meat, surprisingly, fish only yield about 22%.
So the end is more like 100 million liters for 200kg of meat. So its really closer to 400,000 liters per kg. But that 100 million liters of water got us twenty acres of semi-wild range land for two years. That water was going to fall there anyhow. We recover 100% of that water as it all becomes ground water, or runoff into streams.
This does explain to me why our beef in Australia is preferred, at least to us. Around our way, almost all beef is grass fed, often free range. We also don’t use hormones.