Blue Gold

The vice president of the World Bank has pronounced, 'The wars of the next century will be about water.' Blue Gold tells why.

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.

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 only flows uphill to the wealthy, who can afford it. The consumption of water doubles every twenty years, more than twice the rate of increase in the human population. Blue Gold captures in striking detail the forces behind the increasing depletion of the world's freshwater and the human and ecological impacts.