Water, water, everywhere. It looks that way. More than 2/3s of the earth's surface is water but of that, only a tiny percentage is suitable for drinking. Underground water supplies, aquifers, the most abundant source of fresh water, are being depleted. It is predicted that two-thirds of the world's population will not have enough drinking water by 2025. Corporations with their allies in government and international financial institutions are taking advantage of this crisis by pushing through water privatization schemes. Collectively they are manufacturing consent for corporate control of water. For businesses water is blue gold. Ka-ching. For humanity it is the very basis of life. A global water justice movement is emerging to establish water as a right, which can't be bought or sold for profit.

Maude Barlow
Maude Barlow is the National Chairperson of the Council of Canadians, Canada's largest public advocacy organization, and the co-founder of the Blue Planet Project, working internationally for the right to water. She is the recipient of the Lannan Cultural Freedom Fellowship Award, and the Right Livelihood Award, the alternative Nobel Prize. Author of many books, her latest is Blue Covenant: The Global Water Crisis.