When it comes to freshwater, the bigger picture is this: personal consumption amounts to such a thin sliver that only in the most extreme droughts can it even make a difference. Even before the drought, one estimate found that South Africa had nine million people without any access to water for personal consumption at all; the amount of water required to satisfy the needs of those millions is only about one-third the amount of water used, each year, to produce the nation’s wine crop. In California, where droughts are punctuated by outrage over pools and ever-green lawns, total urban
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