RE: Why we're running out of water
no, the article never said water gets used up.
The article did say that clean water that is where it is needed is limited. The gallons that are "used" in making a pound of beef, are turned into wastewater and water vapor. Much of the water vapor falls into the ocean, the waste tends to pollute other fresh water.
Desalination will be the ultimate solution to having unlimited fresh water, but currently it is hugely expensive. It takes so much energy to remove the salt from seawater it's hard to believe. The most efficient ways, involve prefiltering, then forcing the water through expensive reverse osmosis filters at hundreds of psi. It takes a lot of electricity to get that pressure, and a byproduct is the high salt brine that then has to be diluted with more salt water, and pumped out into the ocean to a distance that it will not have a noticeable effect on wildlife. If fusion power is ever developed on a scale that has been promised for many years, the issue will be over, along with the energy problems etc. The problem is it seems to always be X years in the future, where X never gets smaller.
