The Last Drop

The Politics of Water

Mike Gonzalez, Marianella Yanes

• Publisher: Pluto Press
• Year: 2015
• eBook ISBN: 9781783715213
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Biological Sciences
• Subtopic: Environmental Science
• Index: Biological Sciences

Indispensable for human existence yet increasingly owned and controlled by private capital; the last decade has witnessed an intensifying battle for water. The Last Drop is a wake-up call to everyone who takes for granted what comes out of their kitchen tap. This book traces a path through the arguments that surround the question of water, setting out to make the scientific arguments more accessible and the political questions more urgent. The exploding profits of the multinational companies which dominate the water industry are testimony to how high the stakes are - by 2012 it had become a worth a trillion dollars. Against the market fundamentalists, the authors argue that it is both possible and necessary that considerations of equity and social justice prevail. They call for our water supply to be saved from subordination to the whims of the multinationals and placed under direct democratic public control.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Contents
• List of Figures, Table and Boxes
• Preface
• Acknowledgements
• Introduction
• 1. A Floating Planet
• 2. How Water was Privatised
• 3. Disasters, Natural and Otherwise
• 4. A Short Trip Through Amazonia
• 5. Bitter Harvests
• 6. Virtual Water
• 7. Water and Global Warming
• 8. Ya Basta! Enough is Enough!
• 9. What is to be Done?
• 10. A New World Water Order
• Notes
• Index