Comments on: Aral Sea Shows Signs of Recovery, While the Dead Sea Needs a Lifeline

By: Capdiamont

Capdiamont — Mon, 03 May 2010 07:33:43 +0000

Something not mentioned in this post, is the live anthrax, and other bio weapons Russia put on what what was an island in the Aral sea.

By: RickW

RickW — Thu, 29 Apr 2010 04:35:23 +0000

While we’re at it, why not run a tunnel from the Pacific to Death Valley? And from the Mediteranean to the Qattara Depression? And a canal from the Arabian Sea to Lake Assal?
http://www.unu.edu/unupress/unupbooks/80858e/80858e0a.htm
And of course, there is always the enticing possibility of resurrecting NAWAPA:
http://www.schillerinstitute.org/economy/phys_econ/phys_econ_nawapa_1983.html

By: Bilbal

Bilbal — Sun, 25 Apr 2010 22:32:06 +0000

Long term consequences forgotten.

Consider :
buffalo herds that stretched to the horizon -
passenger pigeons that filled the sky -
redwoods as old as Jesus, now a rarity -
southwest prairie grassland, overgrazed, now called desert -
great prairie grasslands, plowed and blown away, remember the dustbowl -
river confined by dikes, deltas drained, remember Katrina -
coastlines developed, marshes drained, remember any significant hurricane -
and the list goes on ….

Lest we forget our own foibles.

By: Sue Timko

Sue Timko — Sun, 25 Apr 2010 21:19:32 +0000

Hey Mike, as a resident of Colorado you beat me to it, but , you are absolutely right about the Colorado River. The green lawns and huge fountains (and all that needlessly evaporating water) I have seen in Phoenix and other desert cities in Arizona and elsewhere are shocking to me, let alone the golf courses and crops that have no business growing in the desert. Anybody down there heard of xeriscaping? I live in a relatively “wet” part of Colorado (about 14″/year of precipitation), but. gave up the plants I would have planted in my native Ohio long ago. They don’t belong here Vive la difference! There are some awfully nice things that grow with litle or no artificial irrigation. Xeiscape does not equal “zero” scape. And stealing water so some wealthy retirees (or others who like green golf courses who should have stayed east of the Mississippi) is no better than what the Soviets did to the Aral Sea, is it? A little common sense is in order. Thanks, Mike.

By: Mike Moxcey

Mike Moxcey — Sun, 25 Apr 2010 16:31:36 +0000

It ain’t just the Russians. Look at the Colorado River. America has been destroying it since 1922. We use its water to grow cotton in Arizona and golf courses in Nevada. That is desert, not arid steppe (like Eastern Colorado). The Colorado ain’t much of a river any more (it doesn’t make it all the way to Mexico) and the dammed lakes we created with its water are drying up.

We’re all in the same boat, too many people for the available resources.
The Earth is a single size.

By: Sherwood Botsford

Sherwood Botsford — Sun, 25 Apr 2010 14:12:35 +0000

Re: Dead sea.

I’m sorry. I don’t get really excited about microbes and brine shrimp. If you do NOTHING, they will become crunchy.

In general solutions that pay for themselves work faster. Bringing water in from either the Red Sea or the Mediterranean can generate power twice — once by the elevation difference, and once by the dilultion process. Sure, you’ll end up with a salinity gradient — less salty wehre the resalinization plant comes in.

Done right, it can be a source of water and power in a region that needs both.

The only way we as a species can have zero impact is to all commit suicide. I consider that many people would object. So we have to choose at any given time between workable alternatives.

30 years of watching catastrophists predict the End of Life As We Know It has convinced me that eco-systems are much more robust than previously thought.
Most impacts from serious oil spills vanish in a couple years. A decade brings fish back in the Aral Sea. Lake Erie is coming back to life. Polar bears that lived on baby seals are now eating bird eggs,

The big disruptions are ones when we move a pest from one habitat to another, and it takes a while for a new balance to be struck. We still finding the balance from having earthworms in North America, honey bees in North America. Dutch elm disease.

Much of the time natural selection for 5-10 generations works out a resistant type. E.g. We’re starting to see resistant elms, resistant chestnuts.

Critters with short life cycles — microbes and brine shrimp and their ilk, will adapt to changing salinity fairly quickly.

Study the Dead Sea options carefully, yes. But this looks like a viable soltuion to me.

By: CapitalismGood

CapitalismGood — Sun, 25 Apr 2010 05:45:36 +0000

Capitalism also brought us Love Canal, Bhopal, Times Beach, and the very real possibility unchecked population growth in the American Southwest leading to water shortages.

By: opit

opit — Sat, 24 Apr 2010 22:30:29 +0000

Capitalism without rules is Fascism. Worrying about ‘Left-Right’ rather than Authoritarianism – which covers both ideologies – is to say that somehow one Police State is different from another. Shall we ask the families of the imprisoned, torture and murdered how important such niceties really are ?

By: scott

scott — Sat, 24 Apr 2010 15:25:31 +0000

It’s always been a fact of human existance..being downstream just sucks….

By: Zero

Zero — Sat, 24 Apr 2010 14:23:59 +0000

@Arthur Reader
What I was trying to point out is that Capitalism without rules (i.e. EPA, clean air act, etc.) can be as bad as Communism or Authoritarianism. Without strong rules created by and agreed upon by the majority of the people and strongly enforced Capitalists won’t care for the environment much more than the others. After all the proper job of a company under Capitalism is to make a profit for it’s share holders. Which is as it should be.

By: pheldespat

pheldespat — Sat, 24 Apr 2010 12:29:16 +0000

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2010/04/photogalleries/100402-aral-sea-pictures/#aral-sea-satellite-image-2009-outline_16958_600x450.jpg

“Things are not quite as hopeful for the South Aral Sea. Micklin predicts that the eastern lobe of the South Aral (the lighter area near the middle of the photo) will dry up for good this summer if the climate remains as dry as it has been in previous years.

Published March 31, 2010″

The North branch of the Aral Sea is somehow safe now. The South branch is doomed.

By: Arthur Reader

Arthur Reader — Sat, 24 Apr 2010 11:34:25 +0000

And the Cayahoga River fire is what happens when Capitalism runs unchecked.

Funnily enough the Cayahoga River is doing just fine now because capitalism enabled enough resources to fix the problem. That’s the story the world over: poverty and authoritarianism produce environmental catastrophe.

By: Hussam Al-Tayeb

Hussam Al-Tayeb — Sat, 24 Apr 2010 11:27:17 +0000

“In the past century, the Dead Sea’s surface area has shrunk by almost a third.”

I wonder what will be the geographical and political implications to Dead Sea eventually disappearing even if after two hundred more years. Eventually some country will want to claim that open dry land.

Regrading the Aral Sea, yes people never really care enough many times until it is very late.

By: Zero

Zero — Sat, 24 Apr 2010 10:12:19 +0000

And the Cayahoga River fire is what happens when Capitalism runs unchecked.

By: Arthur Reader

Arthur Reader — Sat, 24 Apr 2010 07:43:43 +0000

There are few more dramatic examples of humanity’s careless treatment of the earth than the Aral Sea.

Not humanity – the Soviet Union. And it wasn’t careless, it was a deliberate act by an appalling totalitarian regime.

The Aral Sea is what happens when you let Communistic ideology control the environment.