60 of 61 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Great review of water policy, February 11, 2008
Maude Barlow has written a very readable review of water policy. At first this would not seem like a very exciting topic, but water policy will soon affect all of us as we deplete the supply of accessible clean water.
Ms. Barlow divides her book into five chapters. She starts by explaining the crisis. Basically, with so many humans on the planet, we are managing to deplete or pollute our finite resource of clean water. We are withdrawing water from aquifers at a rate faster than the aquifers can recharge. Through global warming, we are melting the glaciers that provide us with river water. Through carelessness in industry and agriculture, we are polluting the very same water that we drink.
In the second chapter, the author describes how a powerful water industry is forming to control these dwindling resources. She gives multiple examples of how the industry is not developing for the betterment of humanity or for fair distribution of water, but to reap profit from the increasingly scarce resource.
In the third chapter, she describes the problems with technological fixes such as desalination, water nanotechnology, and cloud seeding. She also emphasizes the ethical and practical problems with bottled water.
In the fourth chapter, she discusses some brave activists who are fighting back against the corporate control our water. She does a good job in covering the activities in multiple continents - the Americas, Asia, Australia, Europe, Africa - and giving concrete examples of activists who have pushed back and won against corporate water interests.
Ms. Barlow finishes with a chapter called "The Future of Water." Here she reviews potential sources of conflict over water. How will the water in the Colorado River be shared as the population in the US Southwest continues to grow? How will Israel, Jordan, and Palestine share the water of the Jordan River? How will Turkey and Syria resolve the conflict over the big dam project on the Euphrates? She finishes by speculating on potential alternatives to conflict. How do we encourage water conservation and fight for water justice?
There is also an appendix with "Sources and Further Reading" as well as a good index.
On the whole, this is an excellent book to review the upcoming water crisis. You will also understand more about the policies that are exacerbating the problems as well as some potential solutions.
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23 of 26 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Darn Hot!, November 6, 2007
This review is from: Blue Covenant: The Global Water Crisis and the Coming Battle for the Right to Water (Paperback)
A tremendous warning is the one Maude Marlow makes with this wonderful book... fascinating in essence, it lets us know why we must head towards a different kind of "growth"... simple: we are finishing even water supplies! the degree of detail she describes cannot be interpreted other than a last warning... either we rationalize our economies (world, national and even individual) or we are condemned to a next war: for water!
Referring to water, Ms. Barlow says: "...those areas of life thought to be common heritage of humanity for the benefit of the many, now coming under corporate control for the benefit of the few (rich)" is a phrase that resonates in my head as I drink water from my purchased bottle of water and wake up to conscience of this once simple act and its implications...
Worth reading document, rich (to say the least) in data, research material, etc.
¡Bravo Ms. Barlow!
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8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Good overview, but needs more about the solution, December 24, 2009
I came at this book as an academic teacher and researcher (in the field of Civil & Environmental Engineering at Cornell) who is working in the energy area and wanted to get an overview of the current status and challenges with world water issues, since energy and water are related in many ways. (You can learn more about my background from my energy systems book
Energy Systems Engineering: Evaluation and Implementation, coauthored with Lou Albright.) I read the book cover to cover. I found the book helpful by and large to get me up to speed, especially the first chapter ('where has all the water gone?'), where Barlow lays out what is going on around the world and identifies certain key geographic hotspots. There were two limitations in my view: 1) too much time spent naming and recounting the interactions between various players in the struggle over water, which did not interest me after a certain point, and 2) more importantly, too much discussion of the problem and not enough time spent outlining a solution at the end. In other words, the book spends a fair amount of time detailing the failures of the privatization of water delivery service to address the need to provide clean and adequate water, but even if there were no privatization movement afoot, would all of our global water problems be solved? I doubt it -- there would still remain the need to modernize the infrastructure, to bring clean water to millions or probably billions who don't yet have it, and to manage it more carefully so that we don't run out overall. Hence 4 out of 5 stars.
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