Cynthia Barnett’s Business in a Bottle and Peter Gleick’s Selling Bottled Water both claim the bottled water industry has convinced the general public that bottled water is more beneficial for them than tap water. However, it is Gleick’s argument in Selling Bottled Water drastically expands on the heavily qualified evidence Barnett presents in Business in a Bottle: Barnett’s opitimism seems to seep into her argument in which she argues that bottled water has simply put out effective advertising and our government is trying to do the right thing in regards to regulation. Yet, when looking at Gleick’s evidence, you can see see how his argument extends the evidence presented by Barnett to widen the frame to show a much darker more accurate picture
…show more content…
However, Gleick extends this argument by providing us more evidence and moving beyond the few examples that false advertising and fear mongering, showing us that it is not simply happenstance and good advertising, but manipulation and coercion that have brought up the industry. So why did the water bottle industry explode? Barnett gives us a pretty clear reason why “bottled became the second-highest-volume commercial beverage in the United States” in 2003: cryptosporidium (Barnett, 130). A 2003 outbreak of the paraisite in Wisconsin’s tap water made national headlines and made 400,000 people sick (Barnett, 130). However, Barnett does not go far enough and by her wording, it seems she knows this. She specificies that this incident simply “often linked” to the bacteria and that the headlines regarding cryptosporidium were sensationalized, which sets the stage to qualify the rest of he argument (Barnett, 130). In doing this and in ignoring the fact that “400,000” people do not constitute a large majority of the U.S, especially considering that bottled water salesincrease all over the country, she leaves the door wide open for Gleick to extend the argument and question the other contributing factors that must have lead to this rapid growth of the bottled wate rindustry. He does this by poviding a very simple answer that Barnett may have seen herself: …show more content…
A perfect exampe is one we are familiar with: Golden Road LLC. What kind of government inneficiency did Barnett present in regards to the fact that they make “outrageous claims,” as she said? None. She does not comment on the lack of government regulation here, allowing her more optimistic argument to stand. Because of this, it is made much clearer that it is not that Barnett disagrees with Gleick, but simply that she narrows her evidence into such a small frame that she seems to live in a much kinder world. Gleick shows us that sadly, the world isn’t a joyful as Barnett’s limited evidence seems to paint it. In 2007, Barnett went on his own quest to figure out what exactly the FTC and FDA do about claims like the one’s Golden Road makes. Gleick found out that there have been “fewer than half a dozen actions against bottled water and almost none against misleading health claims.” Gleick points out, this might be fine, “if these kinds of claims were rare,” however, “they arent” (Gleick, 117). Barnett finds that the world is plagued by claims like this, moving past the Barnett’s qualifiers and gives us various examples of fake benefits that these water companies can supposedly provide. He mentions oxygenated water, which has no more benefits than regular water. However, bottled water companies allege that it can “enhance brain function, increase muscle performance,” and better you in a variety of other
However, Gleick extends this argument by providing us more evidence and moving beyond the few examples that false advertising and fear mongering, showing us that it is not simply happenstance and good advertising, but manipulation and coercion that have brought up the industry. So why did the water bottle industry explode? Barnett gives us a pretty clear reason why “bottled became the second-highest-volume commercial beverage in the United States” in 2003: cryptosporidium (Barnett, 130). A 2003 outbreak of the paraisite in Wisconsin’s tap water made national headlines and made 400,000 people sick (Barnett, 130). However, Barnett does not go far enough and by her wording, it seems she knows this. She specificies that this incident simply “often linked” to the bacteria and that the headlines regarding cryptosporidium were sensationalized, which sets the stage to qualify the rest of he argument (Barnett, 130). In doing this and in ignoring the fact that “400,000” people do not constitute a large majority of the U.S, especially considering that bottled water salesincrease all over the country, she leaves the door wide open for Gleick to extend the argument and question the other contributing factors that must have lead to this rapid growth of the bottled wate rindustry. He does this by poviding a very simple answer that Barnett may have seen herself: …show more content…
A perfect exampe is one we are familiar with: Golden Road LLC. What kind of government inneficiency did Barnett present in regards to the fact that they make “outrageous claims,” as she said? None. She does not comment on the lack of government regulation here, allowing her more optimistic argument to stand. Because of this, it is made much clearer that it is not that Barnett disagrees with Gleick, but simply that she narrows her evidence into such a small frame that she seems to live in a much kinder world. Gleick shows us that sadly, the world isn’t a joyful as Barnett’s limited evidence seems to paint it. In 2007, Barnett went on his own quest to figure out what exactly the FTC and FDA do about claims like the one’s Golden Road makes. Gleick found out that there have been “fewer than half a dozen actions against bottled water and almost none against misleading health claims.” Gleick points out, this might be fine, “if these kinds of claims were rare,” however, “they arent” (Gleick, 117). Barnett finds that the world is plagued by claims like this, moving past the Barnett’s qualifiers and gives us various examples of fake benefits that these water companies can supposedly provide. He mentions oxygenated water, which has no more benefits than regular water. However, bottled water companies allege that it can “enhance brain function, increase muscle performance,” and better you in a variety of other