by Maude Barlow, Tony Clarke
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Product Description
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 companies—Perrier, Evian, Naya, and now Coca-Cola and PepsiCo—head one of the fastest growing and least regulated industries, buying up fresh water rights and drying up crucial reserves. 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 twenty years—more than twice the rate of the increase in human population. Blue Goldcaptures in striking detail the forces behind the depletion of the world's fresh water, and the human and ecological impacts it entails.
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2 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
 Excellent case for public ownership of water services, 2006-09-08
This excellent book makes the case for public ownership and control over our water services.
In the past ten years, three giant global corporations, France's Suez and Vivendi Environnement, and Thames, have seized control over the water supplied to almost 300 million people in every continent. Vivendi increased its water revenue from $5 billion in 1990 to over $12 billion by 2002, RWE from $25 million in 1990 to $2.5 billion in 2002.
These companies claim to be `passionate, caring and reliable', yet they push for higher rate increases, frequently fail to meet their commitments and abandon a waterworks if they are not making enough money. As Suez's Chief Executive Officer said, "Water is an efficient product. It is a product which normally would be free, and our job is to sell it." In France, charges for privatised water services are 13% higher than for public services.
For two months in 1998, after privatisation, more than three million residents of Sydney were forced to boil their drinking water to kill parasites. Fifteen months after the city of Adelaide signed a contract turning over its waterworks to Thames Water and Vivendi, the city was engulfed in a powerful sewage smell, `the big pong'.
New Jersey, Buenos Aires, Bogota, Manila and Jakarta have all experienced problems after privatisation. In 1996 Hamilton in Canada experienced its worst-ever sewage spill, when 48 million gallons of untreated human waste, heavy metals and chemicals flooded into Lake Ontario. Atlanta, Georgia, gave control over its water to Suez five years ago, and quality and service dropped. The city returned control to the public utility.
In Cochabamba, Bolivia, after Aguas del Tunari, a Bechtel subsidiary, took control of the city's waterworks in 1999, it raised water bills 100%. The contract allowed the company to close down people's private wells unless they paid Aguas del Tunari for the water. Union leader Oscar Olivera said, "They wanted to privatise the rain." The city's people organised a referendum. Most voted to end the contract and forced Bechtel out of the country. Similarly, in 2000 the people of Grenoble succeeded in returning their water and sewage system to public control.
In Iraq, the US state put Bechtel in charge of rebuilding the water and sewage systems. But, as the U.S. Agency for International Development reported, "Baghdad's three sewage treatment plants, which together comprise three-quarters of the nation's sewage treatment capacity, are inoperable, allowing the waste from 3.8 million people to flow untreated directly into the Tigris River." A UN survey in May 2004 found that 80% of families living in rural areas had no safe water. Only 64 of 249 planned water projects have been completed.
In 1999, South Africa initiated five water privatisation programs, aiming to make people pay the full cost of having running water in their homes. As Nelson Mandela had said, "Privatisation is the fundamental policy of our government. Call me a Thatcherite, if you will." Consequently, ten million South Africans had their water cut off for various periods, forcing people to get water from polluted rivers and lakes, leading to South Africa's worst outbreak of cholera. More than 140,000 people were infected and 265 died.
The Congress of South African Trade Unions (COSATU) says that 98% of whites, but only 27% of blacks, had access to clean water in their homes in March 2001. A smaller proportion of the population has access to water than in 1994. In rural areas, only 2% of blacks had indoor plumbing. Two million people have been evicted for not paying utility bills. Many poor families pay 30% of their income for water. Despite South Africa's rating by the United Nations Development Index as a middle-to-upper-income country, one child in 22 dies before reaching the age of one, often from diarrhoea caused by poor water. The 13% white minority is 18th on the Human Development Index, equal to New Zealand. The black majority is 118th, in line with Bolivia. Of all the countries in the world, only Guatemala has a wider gap between rich and poor.
In 2004, the Organisation for Economic Development and Co-operation concluded its study of privatisations in sub-Saharan Africa, "profit-maximizing behaviour has led privatised companies to keep investments below the necessary levels, with the result that rural communities and the urban poor were further marginalised."
The European Commission has been driving privatisation of all our utilities, and its new EU-wide water regulations should mean fat new contracts for the water giants. Since 1998, Vivendi and Suez, backed by the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, have secured water concessions in at least 23 major cities and districts in Eastern Europe.
The big three are also moving into the USA, buying its largest private water utility companies. They have increased their lobbying and federal election campaign spending. In Washington, they have already secured beneficial tax law changes and are now trying to persuade Congress to pass laws that would force cash-strapped municipal governments to privatise their waterworks in exchange for federal grants and loans.
Water, like air, is a necessity of human life. It must not be treated as what Fortune magazine calls, "One of the world's great business opportunities. It promises to be to the 21st century what oil was to the 20th: a precious commodity that determines the wealth of nations." By 2002, the six most globally active water companies ran drinking water distribution networks in at least 56 countries, up from 12 in 1990. Yet private companies still run only about 5% of the world's waterworks.
In 1989, Blair wrote, "The major utilities - gas, water, electricity and the oil, postal and telecommunications networks - are uniquely important to the national economy. Their operations underpin the rest of industry. We believe that the great utilities must be treated as public services and should be owned by the public - by the community as a whole."
Public utilities offer better, cheaper and fairer water services than private firms. Countries need to keep water in public hands, under democratic control.
4 of 59 people found the following review helpful:
 NEVER AGAIN, 2004-12-19
This was, without question, one of the most depressing and boring books that I have ever read. I made the mistake of choosing this book for an analytical book report, and found it to be the most depressing choice I could have made. I wouldn't even reccommend this book to my worst enemy.
4 of 7 people found the following review helpful:
Addresses Threats to Our Most Valuable Global Resource, 2004-05-17
This was a great book that highlights the current threats to our global water supply. This book was particularly thorough in the analysis of the privatization of water resources. It explains the international institutions that prop up global water companies. I was very impressed with the extensive research that the authors must have put into this book - they used many examples of water issues from around the world. This book is a great introductory book for someone interested in becoming more knowledgable in water issues. It is also a great book for the general public to help them to understand more about a resource they probably take for granted. Don't buy bottled water! It is environmentally wasteful of resources and economically unjustifiable. It contributes funds to private companies and helps to support global water corporations!
11 of 14 people found the following review helpful:
 Pirating our Water Supply, 2003-05-22
Blue Gold's a book to let you know more about where your water in America is going. Can we stop this theft of our most valuable resource. A study reports huge corporations seeking control of the world's water supply. These involve giant European corporations in collaboration with the World Bank. Together increasingly taking control of public water supplies with tragic results. a report 'The Water Barons' says that by 2002 private water companies were operating in 56 countries and 2 territories. This rose from a dozen in 1990. Companies that are expanding control are Suez Lyonnaise des Eaux and Vivendi Environment of France, Thomas Water by RWEAG of Germany, Suar of France and United Utilities of England working with Bechtel Co. of the United States. All of these have worked closely with the World Bank. They lobby aggressively for legislation and trade laws to require cities to privatize their water. A recent update is that these companies continue in their acquisition to control water companies in the Northeastern U.S. region.
In major cities around the world, they persuade governments to sign long-term contracts with major private water companies. The concern, is that a handful of private companies could soon control a tremendous bulk of the world's most vital resource. Are water barons providing a good product? One certain city in the U.S. cancelled it's water contract because of complaints of poor service and unsanitary water conditions. In other countries and poorer countries were unable to pay huge water bills were forced to drink from disease-ridden lakes and streams resulting the spread of deadly epidemic outbreaks such as chlorea. In regions of the U.S. where ground water isn't enough to support domestic and fire protection water needs. It's necessary to develop alternative sources of water. The water crisis is worldwide. Many countries are facing a severe shortage. Some will run out of water by the year 2011. Can we find alternative ways to conserve our greatest resource. And, in the meantime can we stop the railroading of public water to greedy giant corporate barons. This book is a eye-opener. Another good reading on this subject is, 'Cadillac Desert.'
21 of 24 people found the following review helpful:
Threats to Blue Gold, 2002-08-31
There are not many surprises in BLUE GOLD. The primary message of Maud Barlow and Tony Clarke's book echoes the Blue Planet Project, a global campaign to assert the universal right to water, of which Barlow is one of the international leaders. It is the 'battle against the corporate world' - here in particular the 'theft of the world's water'. Of course, it is not so much a 'theft' of water - the world's water supply has been more or less stable since the beginning of time - rather the increasing control by a small group of multinationals over the water's allocation to the peoples of this planet.
Consequently, the strength of the book is in its coverage of the multi-national corporations, the 'Global Water Lords', and the exposure of their expanding power over water delivery and processing systems around the globe. Initiatives to privatize water delivery at a national level probably started with Napoleon III in France in the middle of the 19th century. At that time, governments were usually in charge of water management. Since then privatization has spread from France to the rest of the world. Today, Barlow and Clarke maintain, some 10 corporate players dominate the global water industry. Two French companies hold the lion's share. Most of these major players are multi-utility providers, which increase their hold on the water resources of countries and regions. Once a government opens a door to privatization of any of the water related services, such as water delivery or waste management, it abandons its right to take back control at any stage even if water user groups complain about bad or no service or the company does not live up to the contract. The rules and regulations of the WTO see to that, the authors claim. Although the percentage of national water systems controlled by multi-national corporations at the present time is small, Barlow and Clarke want to warn of the trend and its implication. Examples are described where things have gone wrong: poor quality of project implementation resulted in water pollution and environmental damage, and/or communities and local business lost the water supply altogether. In these instances corporate water suppliers maintained their profit margin through cutting back in previously promised investments and/or increasing consumer rates. The latter was implemented without any regard to the capacity of the poor to pay. As a result, they could be cut off from the service. Barlow and Clarke's analysis of the progression of the global water crisis and its origins is less satisfactory. A reader unfamiliar with complex topic of water might find the tour d'horizon overwhelming. The review of the diversity of root causes at local, national and regional levels is superficial and tends to present generalizations where concrete examples would have been more meaningful. The tendency to paint a black and white picture with big business as the main villain sidelines other major reasons for water crises around the world. Agriculture is only mentioned in passing, although some 70% of all water resources are used by agriculture: agribusiness and millions of small-scale and mid-size farmers across industrialized and developing countries. Implementing water conservation methods (through improved irrigation, drought tolerant crops, etc) could lead to substantial water resource savings. Recent initiatives against global corporate water control highlighted in the section 'Fightback' are selective, emphasizing well-known international as well as North American cases. The approach is usually confrontational with clearly identified opposing sides. Examples of constructive multi-stakeholder collaboration efforts in many parts of the world which attempt to tackle water scarcity are not given enough recognition.
The 'Way Forward' spells out fundamental principles and recommends a series of standards that should be included in any agreement of public-private partnerships in the water delivery sphere. These include the involvement of water users in the planning of the systems, local stewardship and watershed protection, strengthen water preservation and reclaiming of polluted water systems. Underlying all these standards is the recognition of water as an essential part of life and the right of all beings to water whatever their social or economic status. A call for capacity building and education of consumers, communities, government officials and private sector actors at all levels should be added. BLUE GOLD is an easy read, maybe for some too easy considering the seriousness of the topic. It covers very important ground, often in an overview fashion that tends to generalize and take a black and white stand. Although it is obvious that the authors did comprehensive research in preparation of the book, it shows a certain lack of thoroughness by not providing citation references (footnotes), adequate source listings and a bibliography or reading list.
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