Blue Future: Protecting Water for People and the Planet Forever

Front Cover
New Press, The, Jan 7, 2014 - Technology & Engineering - 336 pages
In her bestselling books Blue Gold and Blue Covenant, world-renowned water activist Maude Barlow exposed the battle for ownership of our dwindling water supply and the emergence of an international, grassroots-led movement to reclaim water as a public good. Since then, the United Nations has recognized access to water as a basic human right—but there is still much work to be done to stem this growing crisis.

In this major new book, Barlow draws on her extensive experience and insight to lay out a set of key principles that show the way forward to what she calls a “water-secure and water-just world.” Not only does she reveal the powerful players even now impeding the recognition of the human right to water, she argues that water must not become a commodity to be bought and sold on the open market. Focusing on solutions, she includes stories of struggle and resistance from marginalized communities, as well as government policies that work for both people and the planet.

At a time when climate change has moved to the top of the national agenda and when the stage is being set for unprecedented drought, mass starvation, and the migration of millions of refugees in search of water, Blue Future is an urgent call to preserve our most valuable resource for generations to come.
 

Contents

Introduction
1
Water Is a Human RIght
7
1 The Case for the Right to Water
9
2 The Fight for the Right to Water
20
3 Implementing the Right to Water
33
4 Paying for Water for All
50
Water Is a Common HerItage
65
5 Water Commons or Commodity?
67
10 Corporate Control of Farming Is Extinguishing Water
155
11 Energy Demands Place an Unsustainable Burden on Water
172
12 Putting Water at the Centre of Our Lives
189
Water Can Teach Us How to LIve Together
207
13 Confronting the Tyranny of the One Percent
209
14 Creating a Just Economy
227
15 Protecting Land Protecting Water
246
16 A Road Map to Conflict or to Peace?
269

6 Targeting Public Water Services
88
7 The Loss of the Water Commons Devastates Communities
102
8 Reclaiming the Water Commons
118
Water Has Rights Too
135
9 The Trouble with Modern Water
137
Notes
289
Further ReadIng
312
Acknowledgements
314
Index
315
Copyright

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About the author (2014)

A recipient of Sweden’s Right Livelihood Award and a Lannan­ Cultural Freedom Fellowship, Maude Barlow is head of the Council of Canadians and founder of the Blue Planet Project. The author of sixteen books, including Blue Gold and Blue Covenant (both available from The New Press), she is on the boards of Food & Water Watch and the International Forum on Globalization. She lives in Ottawa.

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