Blue Gold: The Battle Against Corporate Theft of the World's Water

Michael A. Fleming is a Ph.D. candidate in sociology at the Memorial
University of Newfoundland and a sessional instructor at the University
of New Brunswick.

Multinational corporations, more than any other source, are threatening
the world’s water supply and are among the single-most damaging
water-wasters. Industries with particular interest in clean water (such
as the soft drink conglomerates) are among the least regulated of all
and are significantly invested in increasing their share of control of
the world’s dwindling freshwater resources. While the corporations
enjoy the security of increasing ownership of water, the most vulnerable
populations of the world struggle for enough to keep themselves alive.
Left unchecked, the looming worldwide water crisis will severely limit
our ability to rely on access to water as a human right. The
repercussions, just like the crisis, of the commoditization of dwindling
water supplies will be felt worldwide. This dire situation sets the
context for Blue Gold.

To prosper, capitalism must expand. This expansion takes the form of
global patterns of industrialization and increased intensity in
production, with little regard for the environmental impact of this
production process. The use and misuse of water fails to capture the
attention of the public in the way the systematic misuse of other
natural resources has. Ignorance has permitted the wastefulness and
blatant disregard for the world’s supply of fresh water by
multinational corporations to go largely unchecked in the public sphere.

The struggle for global control of scarce water resources and the
corresponding cost of ownership of fresh water reserves has become a
price of doing business that the multinational corporations have had to
absorb. Like any costs, it is reasonable to assume that the cost of
clean water will be transferred to the consumer, transforming water from
a right to a privilege—one that we will not all be able to afford.
Industrialization has severely impacted the quality, quantity, and
reliability of water resources throughout the world. In everything from
agribusiness to the high-tech sector, previously thought of as a clean
industry, water pollution abounds, water supplies dwindle, and water
politics threaten human and ecological growth.

Maude Barlow and Tony Clarke expose the dirty politics of clean water
throughout the world, while pinpointing the causes and consequences of
our disregard for water with surgical accuracy. Their book is an
essential step forward in highlighting the significant economic
realities associated with securing access to the most central of all our
biological needs—fresh water. Supported with straightforward examples
and startling statistics, Blue Gold should be seen as a call to action
for Western society.