Environmental for Food Justice

Coca-Cola in India . Artwork by Carlos Latuff for the International Campaign to Hold Coca-Cola Accountable Moderator’s Note: Here is the first in a series of blog essays prepared by students in my environmental anthropology undergraduate class at the University of Washington taught earlier this 2014-15 academic year. The first in this new series of student authored blogs focuses on water and environmental justice with a specific concern for the impact of the Coca-Cola Company on the “commodification” of thirst in India. The Indian subcontinent hosts some of Coca-Cola’s largest bottling and beverage manufacturing operations in the world. The plants are notoriously wasteful and consume more than 3 liters of water for each one liter of beverage produced. Most of the liquid exploited is groundwater and the bottling operations have severely impacted farmers and villages in the areas affected by the activities of the transnational corporation. However, the authors of today’s blog note that ...