New Books in Environmental Studies
Science:Natural Sciences
In just four decades, bottled water has transformed from a luxury niche item into a ubiquitous consumer product, representing a $300 billion market dominated by global corporations. It sits at the convergence of a mounting ecological crisis of single-use plastic waste and climate change, a social crisis of affordable access to safe drinking water, and a struggle over the fate of public water systems. Unbottled: The Fight Against Plastic Water and for Water Justice (U California Press, 2023) examines the vibrant movements that have emerged to question the need for bottled water and challenge its growth in North America and worldwide.
Drawing on extensive interviews with activists, residents, public officials, and other participants in controversies ranging from bottled water's role in unsafe tap water crises to groundwater extraction for bottling in rural communities, Daniel Jaffee asks what this commodity's meteoric growth means for social inequality, sustainability, and the human right to water. Unbottled profiles campaigns to reclaim the tap and addresses the challenges of ending dependence on packaged water in places where safe water is not widely accessible. Clear and compelling, it assesses the prospects for the movements fighting plastic water and working to ensure water justice for all.
Joshua Mullenite is an Assistant Professor and the Director of the Sustainability programs at Chatham University in Pittsburgh, PA. They can be found on Mastodon at https://fediscience.org/@mullenite
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America's Chernobyl, Part 1: Living in a Poison Town
Tema Milstein and José Castro-Sotomayor, "Routledge Handbook of Ecocultural Identity" (Routledge, 2020)
Carl H. Nightingale, "Earthopolis: A Biography of Our Urban Planet" (Cambridge UP, 2022)
Erica Gies, "Water Always Wins: Thriving in an Age of Drought and Deluge" (U Chicago Press, 2022)
Yonatan Neril and Leo Dee, "Eco Bible: An Ecological Commentary on Genesis and Exodus" (ICSD, 2021)
The Battle of Buxton: Saving a Lighthouse in the Era of Climate Change
Nic Maclellan, "Grappling with the Bomb: Britain’s Pacific H-Bomb Tests" (ANU Press, 2017)
Rosetta S. Elkin, "Plant Life: The Entangled Politics of Afforestation" (U Minnesota Press, 2022)
Jeannie N. Shinozuka, "Biotic Borders: Transpacific Plant and Insect Migration and the Rise of Anti-Asian Racism in America, 1890-1950" (U Chicago Press, 2022)
Laura A. Ogden, "Loss and Wonder at the World’s End" (Duke UP, 2021)
Evan Berry, "Climate Politics and the Power of Religion" (Indiana UP, 2022)
Nick Higham, "The Mercenary River: Private Greed, Public Good--A History of London's Water" (Headline, 2022)
Elena Conis, "How to Sell a Poison: The Rise, Fall, and Toxic Return of DDT" (Bold Type Books, 2022)
David Silkenat, "Scars on the Land: An Environmental History of Slavery in the American South" (Oxford UP, 2022)
Tony Hall, "Great Trees of Britain and Ireland: Over 70 of the Best Ancient Avenues, Forests and Trees to Visit" (Read Media, 2022)
Meng Zhang, "Timber and Forestry in Qing China: Sustaining the Market" (U Washington Press, 2021)
Adrienne Buller, "The Value of a Whale: On the Illusions of Green Capitalism" (Manchester UP, 2022)
Max Ajl, "A People's Green New Deal" (Pluto Press, 2021)
Paul Dobryden, "The Hygienic Apparatus: Weimar Cinema and Environmental Disorder" (Northwestern UP, 2022)
James Cheshire and Oliver Uberti, "Atlas of the Invisible: Maps and Graphics That Will Change How You See the World" (W. W. Norton, 2021)
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