Bottled and Sold: The Story Behind Our Obsession with Bottled WaterIsland Press, 03.05.2010 - 232 Seiten Peter Gleick knows water. A world-renowned scientist and freshwater expert, Gleick is a MacArthur Foundation "genius," and according to the BBC, an environmental visionary. And he drinks from the tap. Why don’t the rest of us? Bottled and Sold shows how water went from being a free natural resource to one of the most successful commercial products of the last one hundred years—and why we are poorer for it. It’s a big story and water is big business. Every second of every day in the United States, a thousand people buy a plastic bottle of water, and every second of every day a thousand more throw one of those bottles away. That adds up to more than thirty billion bottles a year and tens of billions of dollars of sales. Are there legitimate reasons to buy all those bottles? With a scientist’s eye and a natural storyteller’s wit, Gleick investigates whether industry claims about the relative safety, convenience, and taste of bottled versus tap hold water. And he exposes the true reasons we’ve turned to the bottle, from fearmongering by business interests and our own vanity to the breakdown of public systems and global inequities. "Designer" H2O may be laughable, but the debate over commodifying water is deadly serious. It comes down to society’s choices about human rights, the role of government and free markets, the importance of being "green," and fundamental values. Gleick gets to the heart of the bottled water craze, exploring what it means for us to bottle and sell our most basic necessity. |
Inhalt
1 | |
Fear of the Tap | 15 |
Selling Unwholesome Provisions | 33 |
If Its Called Arctic Spring Why is it from Florida? | 51 |
The Cachet of Spring Water | 63 |
The Taste of Water | 79 |
The Hidden Cost of Convenience | 87 |
Selling Bottled Water The Modern Medicine Show | 109 |
Drinking Bottled Water Sin or Salvation? | 131 |
Revolt The Growing Campaign Against Bottled Water | 143 |
Green Water? The Effort to Produce Ethical Bottled Water | 163 |
The Future of Water | 171 |
Acknowledgments | 181 |
Notes | 183 |
203 | |
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Bottled and Sold: The Story Behind Our Obsession with Bottled Water Peter H. Gleick Eingeschränkte Leseprobe - 2010 |
Bottled and Sold: The Story Behind Our Obsession with Bottled Water Peter H. Gleick Keine Leseprobe verfügbar - 2011 |
Häufige Begriffe und Wortgruppen
accessed December 12 actually advertising agencies Alice Waters Aquafina aquifer bacteria beverage Bottled Water Association bottled water companies bottled water industry bottled water plant bottled water quality bottled water sales bottlers bottles of water bottling plants brand buy bottled water Cabazon California campaign cholera claims clean Coca-Cola Coca-Cola Company coliform consumers contamination costs Cryptosporidium Dasani drinking water efforts Emoto’s energy environmental Ethos federal Fiji Water gallons groundwater hydrologic cycle IBWA International Bottled Water James Randi Kabbalah Centre Kabbalah water label landfills million mineral waters municipal water Nestlé oxygen oxygenated water packaged Penta Water PepsiCo percent PET bottles plastic bottles Poland Spring problems protect public water pumping recall regulations restaurants safe water sell spring water standards surface tap water taste Thum tion tled water United waste water bottles water comes water fountains water systems water-quality York