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.

Visit the Bottled and Sold Facebook Page by clicking here.

REFERENCES
"Gleick covers the topic in illuminating detail, yet packages his writing with the skill and passion of a novelist. Supported by research, including interviews and plant visits, Gleick examines how water is found, pumped, bottled, treated, lied about, and sold to a relatively unsuspecting public. If selling bottled water is a shell game, Gleick picks the right shell every time." - Foreword

"Gleick trains his scientifically objective eye on the bottled water phenomenon... [and] offers a sobering yet sensible look at society's ill-considered thirst for bottled water." -Booklist

"With the gusto of a born raconteur and the passion of a believer, Gleick makes a sound case for improving the developing world's access to and the developed world's attitude toward safe, piped drinking water purified by the natural hydrologic cycle." - Publishers Weekly

"Alongside fascinating discursions into the history of the public water fountain, cholera, and Kabbalah, Gleick provides an dispassionate glimpse into purposeful distortions of science that drive us to believe bottled water will make us 'healthier, skinnier, or more popular.'" - Seed

CONTENTS
Preface
Contents
Chapter 1: The War on Water
Chapter 2: Fear of the Tap
Chapter 3: Selling Unwholesome Provisions
Chapter 4: If It’s Called “Arctic Spring Water,” Why Is It from Florida?
Chapter 5: The Cachet of Spring Water
Chapter 6: The Taste of Water
Chapter 7: The Hidden Cost of Convenience
Chapter 8: Selling Bottled Water: The Modern Medicine Show
Chapter 9: Drinking Bottled Water: Sin or Salvation?
Chapter 10: Revolt: The Growing Campaign Against Bottled Water
Chapter 11: Green Water? The Effort to Produce Ethical Bottled Water
Chapter 12: The Future of Water
Acknowledgments
Notes
Index

THE AUTHOR

Peter H. Gleick is President of the Pacific Institute for Studies in Development, Environment, and Security in Oakland, California, and is a recipient of the prestigious MacArthur Fellowship for his work on water issues bestowed in 2003.

Among the issues he has addressed are conflicts over water resources, the impacts of climate change on water resources, the human right to water, and the problems of the billions of people without safe, affordable, and reliable water and sanitation.

In 2001, Gleick was dubbed a "visionary on the environment" by the British Broadcasting Corporation. In 1999, Gleick was elected an Academician of the International Water Academy, in Oslo, Norway and in 2006, he was elected to the National Academy of Sciences, Washington, D.C.

Gleick received a B.S. from Yale University and an M.S. and Ph.D. in Energy and Resources from the University of California, Berkeley. Gleick is the author of the biennial series on the state of the world's water, called The World's Water, published by Island Press, Washington, D.C. He regularly provides testimony to the United States Congress and state legislatures, and has published many scientific articles.

Peter serves as a major source of information on water issues for the media, and has been featured on CNBC, CNN, Fresh Air with Terry Gross, NPR, and in articles in The New Yorker, and many other publications. He has also been featured in a wide range of water-related documentary films, including "Running Dry" and "Flow: For Love of Water", accepted for the 2008 Sundance Film Festival.

Peter Gleick is the brother of noted author James Gleick and editor Elizabeth Gleick.

Peter's blog click here

DETAILS
Title: Bottled and Sold - The Story Behind Our Obsession with Bottled Water
Author: Peter Gleick
Publisher: Island Press
209 pages
ISBN: 978-1-59726-528-7
Hardcover
Priced £19.99

Posted on Environment Times Online on 25th May 2010.