Blue Gold
The Fight to Stop the Corporate Theft of the World's Water
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- USD 19.99
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- USD 19.99
Descripción editorial
"Probably the most eloquent call to arms we're likely to hear about the politics of water" (The Globe and Mail, Toronto).
In this "chilling, in-depth examination of a rapidly emerging global crisis," Maude Barlow and Tony Clarke, two of the most active opponents to the privatization of water show how, contrary to received wisdom, water mainly flows uphill to the wealthy (In These Times). Our most basic resource may one day be limited: Our consumption doubles every twenty years—twice the rate of population increase. At the same time, increasingly transnational corporations are plotting to control the world's dwindling water supply. In England and France, where water has already been privatized, rates have soared, and water shortages have been severe. The major bottled-water producers—Perrier, Evian, Naya, and now Coca-Cola and PepsiCo—are part of one of the fastest-growing and least-regulated industries, buying up freshwater rights and drying up crucial supplies.
A truly shocking exposé, Blue Gold shows in frightening detail why, as the vice president of the World Bank has pronounced, "The wars of the next century will be about water."
"Maude Barlow and Tony Clarke combine visionary intellect with muckraking research and a concrete plan for action." —Naomi Klein, author of The Battle for Paradise
"A sobering, in-depth look at the growing scarcity of fresh water and the increasing privatization and corporate control of this nonrenewable resource." —Library Journal
"An angry and persuasive account." —Bloomberg Businessweek
"The dire scenarios laid out in this comprehensive book are truly frightening." —The San Diego Union-Tribune
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
The world's water supply is fast falling prey to corporate desire for the bottom line, the authors argue (Barlow chairs Council of Canadians, a public advocacy group; Clarke is the director of the Polaris Institute of Canada). Indeed, "the human race has taken water for granted and massively misjudged the capacity of the earth's water systems to recover from our carelessness," the authors write. Even if that's a hard statement to prove, the authors marshal an impressive amount of evidence that corporate profits are increasingly drinking up precious water resources. In some countries, water has already been privatized, leading to higher rates of consumption and depleted resources. And in other places, poorer residents actually pay more for water than their richer neighbors. In the meantime, Pepsi and Coke's sales of bottled water are taking water away from municipal supplies. The authors cogently argue that water a basic necessity should be treated differently from other commodities and not placed into private hands. In the end, their argument becomes a screed against the power that multinationals wield in our economically liberalizing world: in free trade treaties, they argue, governments effectively yield control over water rights to corporations, with harmful consequences for both economic parity and nature. The authors are vague about what the average person can do to help stave off this crisis, but those concerned about the environment and about the costs of economic globalization will find much to get riled up about in this book.
