Amazon.com Book Description (ISBN 0771010869, Paperback)

A real-life thriller about the corporate takeover of our most basic resource. In a shocking exposé, Blue Gold shows why, as the vice-president of the World Bank has pronounced, "The wars of the next century will be about water." 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 fresh-water rights and drying up crucial supplies. Maude Barlow and Tony Clarke, two of the most active opponents to this trend, show how the corporate giants act in their own interest and how, contrary to received wisdom, water flows uphill to the wealthy, who can afford it. The consumption of water doubles every 20 years—more than twice the rate of the increase in human population. Blue Gold captures in striking detail the forces behind the increasing depletion of the world's fresh water, and the human and ecological impacts.