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Science

Aral Sea Disappearing 156

Posted by michael from the poof dept.
W33dz writes "The BBC is reporting today that the Aral Sea on the border of the former Soviet republics of Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan has lost half its size and 75% of its volume in the last 15 years. The article includes some stunning pictures from both NASA and the new European Space Agency's Envisat satellite. This seems especially poignant since the US Government is hosting a summit on a proposed International Earth Observation System in Washington this month (BBC article). The meeting is intended to defend much of the Bush Administration's environmental policy and has an amazing guest list filled with the Who's Who of US politics."
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Aral Sea Disappearing More

Aral Sea Disappearing

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  • Dissappearance, why stop it? There's a lot of things we dont know about nature and ecological climates.

    For all we know, this could be based on the 13000 year cycle of the earth.

    • Re:If it's a natural..... (Score:5, Insightful)

      by turgid ( 580780 ) on Thursday July 31, 2003 @10:36AM (#6580406) Journal
      For all we know, this could be based on the 13000 year cycle of the earth.

      If oonly it were. The article says that it's more likely to be due to the excessive and wasteful irrigation systems in the area which take water from the rivers that supply the sea.

      • Re: If it's a natural..... (Score:4, Informative)

        by Black Parrot ( 19622 ) on Thursday July 31, 2003 @12:41PM (#6581659)


        > The article says that it's more likely to be due to the excessive and wasteful irrigation systems in the area which take water from the rivers that supply the sea.

        Doesn't our own Colorado River now disappear in the sand rather than flowing into the Gulf of California as it once did, as a result of so many people tapping its water?

        • Re: If it's a natural..... (Score:4, Informative)

          by RevAaron ( 125240 ) <revaaron@hotmail. c o m> on Thursday July 31, 2003 @01:12PM (#6581913) Homepage
          That, and the flow is very reduced by that lil thing we call the Hoover Dam.

          • Re: If it's a natural..... (Score:4, Insightful)

            by Red Rocket ( 473003 ) on Thursday July 31, 2003 @01:49PM (#6582158)

            That, and the flow is very reduced by that lil thing we call the Hoover Dam.

            ...and that bizarre freak-show called Las Vegas where every casino competes with every other one to see how much water they can waste.
            • Nevada's share of the Colorado River water is 1% set in the 1930's. Nevada has never used its entire allotment -- inefficient irrigation of California's Imperial Valley has been using (wasting) the excess. Nevada (and the Las Vegas Valley) has been experiencing the greatest rate of population increase of anywhere in the US. As Nevada's population grows, the allocation must be changed.
              <p>
              As for the "wasting of water" by the casinos, there is an aquifer (underground river) running under the Las Vegas
              • "Nevada exceeded its own 300,000-acre-foot allotment by about 8 percent last year, but it was the breakdown of the Golden State negotiations that prompted Norton to temporarily suspend the use of the additional water."

                http://www.reviewjournal.com/lvrj_home/2003/Jul- 10 -Thu-2003/news/21701082.html

                You said something about facts?

            • ...and that bizarre freak-show called Las Vegas where every casino competes with every other one to see how much water they can waste.

              I'll be sure to shed a tear for you next month when I'm there, driving my rented SUV between the golf course and the fountains of the Bellagio.

          • A dam can only delay the flow of water, not decrease it indefinately. If the Hoover dam actually decreased the flow of water in the Colorado River, it would eventually overflow. The lake behind it can only hold so much water. What the damn does do is screw up the movements of fish and decrease the temperature of the water.

            In a moving river, the water shallow and warmed by the sun, but in a large resevoir, it get's cold. The river water temp is therefore much colder downstream of the dam which screws w

            • A couple of points-- in dammed rivers, the water temperature is warmer, not colder, than in the free flowing river pre-dam (except maybe in the immediate vicinitity of the dam). See this [epa.gov] report on the columbia river warming as an example. Dams slow the river, slow==warm. The warmer water has a dramatic effect on the wildlife, just in another direction.

              As far as the water loss, the dams make it possible to use the water from the seasonal floods year round for irrigation. If you take water from a large singl

    • It's not natural (Score:1, Redundant)

      by crow ( 16139 )
      It's due to excessive draw on the rivers that feed the sea for irrigation. According to the article, the much of the water is actually wasted due to poor-quality irrigation systems.
    • If you would've read the actual article, you would know that they're placing the blame on the badly implemented irrigation system which takes water from the rivers that feed the Aral Sea.

      Large scale irrigation began in the 1960s and has led to the Aral losing half its area and three-quarters of its volume.
    • It's as natural as co-operation between countries over water supplies and conservation.

      I guess once every 13000 years two countries might actually share....

      Greed - The universal constant.

      Q.

    • Not Natural (Score:3, Informative)

      by kalidasa ( 577403 ) *
      There's a long section in the Economist about two weeks ago on the Central Asian Republics with one article that talks about the politics of water there. The Aral Sea is drying up because the irrigations systems of the countries along the rivers that feed it are horrendously inefficient, and because the water system as a whole in the region is poorly managed. Unfortunately, with one megalomaniacal ruler in Turkmenistan, and a whole host of other political solipsists in the region, this isn't likely to chang

  • Bush? (Score:1, Redundant)

    by Anonymous Coward
    What does Bush or his policies have to do with a sea in Asia that started to disappear 10 years before he came to office?

    • Re:Bush? (Score:5, Funny)

      by mrami ( 664567 ) on Thursday July 31, 2003 @10:45AM (#6580485) Homepage
      Sir, you are lacking in the uninformed reactionary spirit that made this land so great!

    • Project Seabuster (Score:5, Funny)

      by AtariAmarok ( 451306 ) on Thursday July 31, 2003 @12:45PM (#6581704)
      This was when George W Bush was working for his dad on a secret CIA project back in 1986.

      Not wanting to commit things to paper and have them get out through the Freedom of Information Act, the planning went around by word of mouth. Dick Cheney (fresh back from a mission to pollute the canals on Mars) wanted to tell Bush Jr over the phone to get rid of the CCCP (Russian acronym for USSR).

      However, the phone cut off mid-conversation, and all Bush could hear Cheney say was "About Russia? I want you to get rid of the C..."

      Bush took this partial instruction literally, and proceeded to eliminate the smaller of Russia's internal salt seas.

    • Re: Bush? (Score:2, Funny)

      by Black Parrot ( 19622 )


      > What does Bush or his policies have to do with a sea in Asia that started to disappear 10 years before he came to office?

      Well, we tried to blame it on Clinton but couldn't make it stick because it predates him too. Can we agree on Nixon, or maybe Johnson if someone steps up to defend Nixon's honor?

      • Johnson rises (Score:2, Funny)

        by Anonymous Coward
        What was that again? Johnson rises to defend Dick's honor?
  • Let me start of by saying that I don't normally agree with the Bush administration when it comes to environmental policy. Thus far they have not pushed at all for alternative and reusable energy sources, which is a huge mistake. That being said, this is a proposal for a 10 year initiative that could benefit everyone in years to come. First of all, it means that scientists will be funded for this study. Second of all, when it comes to the global environment, ten years is a small amount of time. If we do this
    • <rant>Did you read the fucking article? This has almost nothing to do with the Bush administration! It is about a sea between some Asianic nations that is losing its water to poor irigation. Even if president Bush wanted to step in and do something, he couldn't because is it a local affair between the Asian nations. Also this does not have anything to do with Global warming.
      <P>
      So before you go around slamming the Bush administration and big business and global warming please RTFA!
      <P>
      • Did you read the BBC article linked in the summary? There is more to the article than what you read. You should read all the links before you reply to a comment you don't understand.
    • but has anyone considered that these less developed nations who are pushing for new regulations to be imposed want to see developed nations crippled and therefore the wealth they have redistributed to the rest of the world?

      No.

      Where does a developing nation get its wealth? From trade. Weakening the developed countries means they have less money that can be used to buy whatever it is developing countries have to sell, and a side effect is weakening the currencies of developed countries so the manufactured g

  • WMD Facility on island (Score:4, Interesting)

    by PeteyG ( 203921 ) on Thursday July 31, 2003 @10:43AM (#6580468) Homepage Journal
    I recall watching a documentary on a Soviet-era facility dedicated to researching and developing bioweapons. As of the late '90s, there were massive stores of anthrax and smallpox buried there, and some of it was leaking.

    They mentioned that the sea was shrinking, and that would make it easy for animal life to transfer the deadly pathogens to the mainland.

    Or make it easier for the terrorist bad guys to get their hands on it.

    I think this is a bad thing all around.

  • Pardon me? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Otter ( 3800 ) on Thursday July 31, 2003 @10:47AM (#6580500) Journal
    This seems especially poignant...The meeting is intended to defend much of the Bush Administration's environmental policy and has an amazing guest list filled with the Who's Who of US politics.

    Errr, not to nitpick but the Soviet governments that were responsible for the disastrous irrigation projects in Central Asia were led by Nikita Khrushchev and Leonid Brezhnev. The current Bush administration had very little to do with it.

    • Re:Pardon me? (Score:5, Funny)

      by duffbeer703 ( 177751 ) on Thursday July 31, 2003 @11:27AM (#6580898)
      If Clinton was still in office, we would still be getting 24/7 coverage of his scandals and nobody would have paid attention to this story.

      Since we are hearing about this story, it is obviously G.W. Bush's fault.
      • Insightful or inciteful?

        Either way, I bet there is a good laugh in the parent post whichever side of the political spectrum you are on.

        Basically saying the previous president was a whore in nearly every sense of the word and the current is far less scandaless. Or the media made too big of an issue out of the failings of the past president and does not look deep enough for the current president.

    • I think Bush is fucking up a lot of things in his own country and abroad, but indeed good Otter- it's rather unlikely Bush had anything to do with this at all.

      However, a combination of Soviet irrigation and the regional and worldwide state of environment and resource use policies is likely the cuprit. ...unless he was secretely draining the sea, piping the water elsewhere, like he wanted to do with Lake Superior! :P (retard)
      • It's unlikely Bush had anything to do with this? Geez! Is it so had to say "Bush has nothing to do with this."?

        • Geez! Is it so had to say "Bush has nothing to do with this."?

          No, it's not hard, but it's not something I can say with certainty. Maybe I'm nuts, but I don't like to make absolute statements like the one you reccomend- there is a chance, however small (or not-small, I can't say, I've no clue)- that Bush had something to do with the Aral Sea disappearing.

          It's a simple matter of probability. As a scientist, I don't make silly absolute statements that I can't back.

    • Re:Pardon me? (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Fly ( 18255 ) on Thursday July 31, 2003 @03:05PM (#6582679) Homepage
      I don't think the point is that Bush is responsible for it but that Bush has the view that we don't need to worry about messing up the environment when the Aral Sea shows that we can very well mess it up. The comparison is between Bush and those who are responsible for the environmental death of the Aral Sea.

    • Re:Pardon me? (Score:2, Informative)

      by Cplus ( 79286 )
      There is a lot of American involvement in this problem, but it is actually positive. American RFS [riverside.com] (river forecast system) technology that is being utilized to manage the flows of the Columbia, the Mississippi, and other large rivers in the states is being utilized to control the flows of the rivers that are draining the Aral. I read a great article about it in the dead tree version of Wired [wired.com] a while ago, the text is available online here [wired.com].
  • I watched a video about this in a Political Science class that I had to take. In the video, they showed places that used to be shipping piers that are now desert. The video also stated that 80% of the feeder rivers' water is lost due to evaporation in inefficient irrigation canals.

    To the editors: the link to the BBC site links relative to slashdot. Add http:// before the link!

  • Huh? Blame the Bush administration? (Score:4, Insightful)

    by kawika ( 87069 ) on Thursday July 31, 2003 @10:48AM (#6580520)
    If anything, the Aral Sea situation shows that these issues are not as simple as environmental extremists would like to make them out to be. Farmers need water. As the article says, their irrigation systems are not efficient, but who will pay for a new one? Perhaps the farmers should be made to pay for such a system, and maybe they should even compensate the fishermen who have lost their livelihoods. But answers that are acceptable to all sides are not so no-brainer obvious.
  • A lot is made of the "leaky irrigation" and such, but that makes no sense. Is the irrigation surrounding the rivers taking the water out of the sea's watershed? Seems unlikely. The water would just eventually run back into the river and the sea. I mean, how is water leaking from a poorly-built irrigation system different from the rain that falls right next to it and feeds the rivers and the sea to begin with? This reeks of sensationalism. There may be a real environmental problem here, but "leaky ir
    • The word "leaks" is misleading in this sense. The water evaporates from the irrigation ditches and hence, doesn't flow down the river.
      • Ok, I buy that, but it would seem that the watershed for the Aral Sea would be rather large. Is it plausible that the evaporated water would escape it before it rained back down again? That's not a rhetorical question; I am genuinely curious how far it would go...
    • It's not necessarily a red herring. If the problem is that a large amount of water is evaporating, it wouldn't necessarily make it back into the watershed, but could be lost through airborne transmission.

      It probably depends a lot on the air currents and geography of the region. But it's very surprising how much water can be moved through the air.

      Irrigation can also move water from one watershed to another (it does not respect watershed boundaries like rivers tend to).

      For a really interesting techn

    • Re:"Leaky Irrigation" In A Watershed? (Score:4, Informative)

      by duffbeer703 ( 177751 ) on Thursday July 31, 2003 @11:35AM (#6580966)
      Have you ever seen the mouth of the Colorado river near Baja California?

      In case you haven't, it's a small stream in a salt-flat. Irrigation projects siphon all of the water out.

      The Soviets built massive irrigation projects that drew off of the Volga and other rivers. They were and probaly continue to grow everything from rice to cotton on land that was once parched steppe.

      What ends up happening is that since you are spreading billions of cubic feet of water across hundreds or thousands of square miles, the water is used, evaporated (probaly about 75%) or added to the watertable.

      Large-scale irrigation causes all sorts of problems. There has been reasearch that hypothised that the added moisture in western states increases the number of thunderstorms and forest fires in the Sierras and Rockies.

      • Have you ever seen the mouth of the Colorado river near Baja California?

        In case you haven't, it's a small stream in a salt-flat. Irrigation projects siphon all of the water out.

        Ummmmmm.... aren't you being a little 'generous' there with your euphemisms? You know, calling the Hoover Dam an "irrigation project"?

        Yes, large-scale irrigation DOES have effects on the surrounding environment. Building a gigantic fucking wall across a river bed does too.

        If you wanted to give an example of out-of-control irr

        • The building of the Hoover dam itself, does not really cause the lose of water. It is the useage that does. The colorado river gets used mostly by California that is sucking it dry before it hits the ocean. In fact, most of the states take what they are suppose to, except for Colorado and California. Colorado is not taking anywhere near what they are alloted and Ca is taking the CO and the Ocean's allotment. That is where Norton's deal is going to cause issues for CA. Being a Coloradoan, I am happy that we

          • The building of the Hoover dam itself, does not really cause the lose of water. It is the useage that does. The colorado river gets used mostly by California that is sucking it dry before it hits the ocean.

            Right, but the original parent's post implied that, at the mouth of the river, what was previously a huge flowing river has been turned into a small stream because lots of irresponsible irrigation projects are sucking the water away.

            My point is: the river is hugely diminished because they built the Ho

    • Re: "Leaky Irrigation" In A Watershed? (Score:5, Informative)

      by Black Parrot ( 19622 ) on Thursday July 31, 2003 @02:21PM (#6582358)


      > Is the irrigation surrounding the rivers taking the water out of the sea's watershed? Seems unlikely. The water would just eventually run back into the river and the sea.

      No, much irrigation water is lost to evaporation or to incorporation into the crops.

      Remember that crops, like most other life-forms, are mostly water. So for those little seeds turn into railcar-loads of consumables, all that water has to come from somewhere. Irrigation converts flowing water into money.

      Also, some kinds of irrigation are extremely wasteful in terms of evaporation. Next time you drive through Texas under a blazing sun and see all those endless acres of rice shoots submerged under 6" of water, ask yourself what the evaporation rate must be. The lakes behind big dams also greatly increase the evaporation rate in a drainage system.

      And though what goes up eventually comes down, it might come down half a continent away.

      > I mean, how is water leaking from a poorly-built irrigation system different from the rain that falls right next to it and feeds the rivers and the sea to begin with?

      In general terms, it is distributed differently, which means it can behave differently w.r.t. evaporation etc.

      To make up an illustrative example, suppose you water your lawn to a total of 10" over 10 months, just a little bit every night. Not much runs off, right? But if you get a 10" rain over a couple of days it stacks up faster than it can be absorbed or evaporate, so most of it runs downhill into streams that feed the sea.

      Surely that's not precisely what's happening in Central Asia, but it should call attention to the fact that the way water is distributed in space and time can have a big effect on where it ends up.

  • It is really a lake (Score:1, Interesting)

    by zasos ( 688522 )
    Just to clarify and emphasize why this is a big deal: Aral is not really a sea - it's a lake. A sea is a body of water that has direct exit into an ocean. A lake - doesn't connect to any ocean. Aral Lake is the second largest lake in the world - the first on is Caspian. Both of them are usually referred to as Sea because of their great size.
    • "ust to clarify and emphasize why this is a big deal: Aral is not really a sea - it's a lake. A sea is a body of water that has direct exit into an ocean. A lake - doesn't connect to any ocean"

      huh? It is a sea, primarily because it is salty.

      The vast majority of what is called lakes do connect to the ocean: from Lake Superior to Lake Placid.

      See dictionary.com concerning sea " A relatively large body of salt water completely or partially enclosed by land." This applies to the Caspian Sea as well. Lake Su
      • http://visibleearth.nasa.gov/cgi-bin/viewrecord?1 9 315

        Description: This series of MODIS images shows the dwindling Aral Sea. Once one of the worlda(TM)s largest freshwater lakes, the Aral Sea has decreased by as much as 60% over the past few decades due to diversion of the water to grow cotton and rice. These diversion have dropped the lake levels, increased salinity, and nearly decimated the fishing industry. The previous extent of the lake is clearly visible as a whitish perimeter in these image from Ap
        • Go to Google and search on
          "aral sea" saltwater.

          You will see many references to it being a saltwater sea, including Encyclopedia Brittanica, The Aral Sea Homepage [8m.com], and a wide variety of geographical and educational pages.
          • The Aral Sea used to be considered freshwater (the salt content was low enough to make the water drinkable) but because of its realitively recent reduction in size, the salt has become concentrated, turning the sea from fresh to salt water.

      • Err, the Caspian Sea is (or is not) a lake just as much as the Great Salt Lake in Utah or the Salton Sea in California are (or are not) lakes. I think most geologists would classify any body of water that is not an arm of the ocean as a lake. So, the Caspian Sea is, IMHO, both a sea and a lake. I wouldn't consider the terms mutually exclusive.

        Also, when you say "largest", you must specify the quantity you are measuring. Are you measuring surface area or volume? For freshwater lakes, Lake Baikal in Ru

      • From Caspian Sea or Lake: What Difference Does It Make? [compuserve.com]

        "Geography. On the one hand, like most lakes, the Caspian Sea is fed by rivers and is not connected directly to the open sea. Apart from the rivers, it Is completely surrounded by land. It is below sea level.

        On the other hand, unlike most lakes, the Caspian Sea is bordered by several states.(21) It is the largest inland body of water in the world,(22) comparable in size, depth and salinity (23) to many semi-enclosed marine seas.(24) Rivers feed t

  • This is news? (Score:4, Informative)

    by DesScorp ( 410532 ) on Thursday July 31, 2003 @11:12AM (#6580751) Journal
    I remember seeing stories about this back in 1985, for fuqs sake. Back then, more than half of the sea had already dissapeared because of mismanagement by the Soviet government. I've seen several referneces to it since then. If I recall correctly, that first story was from National Geographic, but that was a looong time ago, so don't hold me to that.

  • Irrigation Kills Lakes (Score:1, Interesting)

    by cmjensen ( 30043 ) *
    In other news, the largest freshwater lake in the United States west of the Mississippi [calflytech.com] no longer exists.

    Life's tough. Without the death of Lake Tulare, California would produce far less crops to feed the world. Without the Three Gorges Dam, China would have to build lots of fossil fuel or nuke plants.

    It's always bad when we lose a valuable and unique ecosystem like the Aral Sea, but sometimes we humans must make tradeoffs. I have no clue whether the death of the Aral is an appropriate one, but I think
    • The largest freshwater lakes in the United States west of the Mississippi (Lake Powell and Lake Mead) are there because of irrigation needs, as are a wide variety of other lakes created by dams on rivers and streams all over the country.

    • Use better irrigation (Score:5, Informative)

      by superyooser ( 100462 ) on Thursday July 31, 2003 @02:33PM (#6582449) Homepage Journal
      Believe it or not, this is a desert. [mfa.gov.il] It's the Negev in the south of Israel.

      How did they make the desert bloom? [mfa.gov.il]

      The most important innovation in coping with scarce water supplies has been drip irrigation [cropinfo.net]. This method of irrigation applies water and nutrients directly to the root of the plant at a controlled rate. See the drip irrigation pipelines [mfa.gov.il]. With traditional irrigation, most of the water evaporates from the ditch and is wasted. Drip irrigation uses less water, works with saline water, requires less fertilizer, and produces more crops.

      It was invented in 1965 and has been used all over the world. If those former Soviet republics aren't using it, I suspect the reason is that they don't think they can afford to pay for the equipment. I would say that perhaps they can't afford not to pay for it.

      • Yes, that area has made advances in irrigation that could be used in the U.S., which is still using modified bronze age methods such as open, unlined canals.

        However, regardless of how good the irrigation methods, it was my understanding that all irrigation eventually desroys the soil through salinization. "Better" irrigation methods merely reducing either or both the rate at which salinization occurs and the rate at which water is wasted through evaporation.

        How efficient is hydroponics in contrast?

    • Though now, I bet if you lived next to the stinky rotten fish and brine shrimp salt lake, you couldn't wait for it to go away. I wonder who owns the land after a lake dries up?

  • Irrigation threatening US water supply (Score:5, Interesting)

    by deadgoon42 ( 309575 ) on Thursday July 31, 2003 @01:31PM (#6582028) Journal
    The Central US will be running out of water in the next 50 to 100 years because of irrigation. Right now, farmers from Texas to the Dakotas get their water from deep aquifers. The problem is that these aquifers were filled by meltwater from the last ice age and are no longer being replenished. Within the next 50 to 100 years, that water will be gone. Plans are already being discussed to divert the Missouri, Mississippi, and Arkansas rivers so that their waters can be used to continue irrigation in America's breadbasket. This could have devistating effects on water supplies and ecosystems downstream.

    • Re:Irrigation threatening US water supply (Score:4, Interesting)

      by digitalhermit ( 113459 ) on Thursday July 31, 2003 @04:19PM (#6583163) Homepage
      It's not only the Central US. Florida, surrounded by water, is also having water supply problems. Many people blame the liberal water usage exceptions that are granted to industries such as sugar plantations. They use millions upon millions of gallons of water yet are exempt from many of the regulations to which other companies must adhere. Our aquifer is replenished by rainwater, but salt water intrusion into the aquifer (caused when the fresh water is depleted) essentially makes huge portions of the aquifer unusable.

      Water, water everywhere and not a drop to drink...

  • That's a Small Impact . . . (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Red Rocket ( 473003 ) on Thursday July 31, 2003 @02:14PM (#6582313)

    ...compared to the 1000 miles of streams that have been buried in West Virginia. [ohvec.org] Not to mention the 15%-25% of southern West Virginia's mountains that have been leveled [ems.org] causing the loss of 300,000 acres of highly productive hardwood forests.
    All so you can have electricity for 3 cents per kilowatt-hour.
    • Those impacts are so different, I don't know how one would compare them. The common theme, though, is that one can't really run a 6-billion person civilization without impacting the natural systems of the planet. Don't like coal? Solar cell manufacturing currently requires the use of heavy metals. Maybe we should build wind turbines all over the place? Well, some people don't like [open.ac.uk] that. Not that I'm saying the effects of coal mining you cite are good, or that we shouldn't try to do better than we do
      • It's not THAT different. Loss of a water resource compared to . . . loss of a water resource.
        I never said we should eliminate coal mining. The mountaintop removal/valley fill method is ABSOLUTELY UNACCEPTABLE, though. If you think we should do better than what we're doing now, then we're in agreement. We can do MUCH better than this. This method of mining doesn't reduce the COST of coal. It just reduces the PRICE of coal. The cost isn't represented in the price because the out-of-state coal corporations lik

  • Logic says (Score:5, Interesting)

    by confused one ( 671304 ) on Thursday July 31, 2003 @02:17PM (#6582331)
    One planet + 6-10 Billion people living in an industrial society = a planet where there is no viable "natural" ecosystem. A population this large is simply going to have an effect on the ecosystem

    We're going to divert rivers. We're going to alter the natural habitats of pretty much all life on the planet. Animal species will go extinct (unless we take the time to specifically preserve each and every one). We're going to change the mixture of gases in the air...

    At some point, everyone is going to have to come to grips with this. The Earth can't support this many people and still exist in it's "Natural" state. The hard part is not screwing it totally up and ending up with a toxic environment.

    Eventually, the land's all going to be either populated area (city / suburb), agricultural, or a managed wildlife "park".

    • Ya think 'we' (humanity) will let that happen?

      I don't. Ever read Rainbow Six? If not, you should. The main story is about a group of really clever scientists who get fed up with with humanity's irresponsibility and decide to kill 99.999+% of the population via a smart bug (modified Ebola virus mixed w/ cancer genes for robustness).

      There are people who are smart enough to create such a thing, there are people who hate the idea of overpopulation that they would happily kill off the masses, and all that w
      • Well, having a mass kill off of humans ( a war or two maybe) would be one temporary solution. However, I don't think it will really solve anything. In a few hundred (or thousand) years we'd be right back where we are now. (Based on historical fact where modern Humans (Homo Sapien Sapien) have only been around for a few ten's thousand years)
        • Historically, wars are an incredibly ineffective way to trim populations. Using the U.S. as an example, an absolutely HORRIBLE war would cost us 30 million lives. That would be more casualties then every war we've fought in history, including the Civil War, combined x 10.

          And that would only be 10% of our current population.

          And we're not overpopulated.

          For the die-offs needed to reduce the world population by a significant percentage, we'd need either nuclear holocaust, or plague. Plague being more effi
          • No, we're not overpopulated. A sustainable population (depending upon who you talk to and depending upon the level of technology applied to things such as food production) may be as high as 100 Billion; but certainly is at least 20 Billion. Since we're only pushing 10 Billion, we have some room.

            I wasn't (half-heartedly) referring to any mamby pansy little kill off a few 10's million war. I was referring to total, all-out, break out the all the weapons, no rules, war. Let's not play games here. I'm

            • Yeah, 'overpopulated' is a subjective term if there ever was one.

              Personally, I like the idea of everyone having ample land for themselves and family, enough food of any kind to go around, safety, no pollution, no animal species being endangered, etc.

              This world *is* possible, but not with even 6 billion, much less 10, 20 or 100 billion.

              But sure, if you economize everything, and pack people into sardine can apartments, feed them only the nutritional minimum to get by, take away property, piss on the enviro
            • The last war that even comes close to what you are suggesting in recent history was WWII, and just about every convention and rule of war was broken, including targeted deleberate genocide of specific races. Nuclear weapons were even used.

              In all honesty, even if nuclear weapons were used in another war, sure the casulties would be as high as WWII (possibly higher), but I think you would still see a major portion of the population survive...even have people move back into the areas where the bombs were det
    • True. I entirely agree with you. One thing though, with reference to the Aral sea disaster: this did not have to happen. According to the article, about 80 % of the water that is diverted upstream for irrigation is simply lost due to evaporation. An efficient irrigation system would be able to have the same benefits while using only half or even less of the water. At the very least, this would have postponed the drying of the sea with several decades, maybe giving enough time to find a more permanent s
      • Unfortunately, it seems humans learn by making mistakes. So, we've got to screw up (occasionally), before we figure out how to do it right. This does mean we'll have to go back and fix it.

        You know, it's one thing to do it right. It's another to really, really fsck something up. Hopefully, they've recognized that there is a problem and will fix it. It won't make up for the damage already done; but, it'll help. Only time will tell.

  • You think war for oil is bad? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Saige ( 53303 ) <evil,angela&gmail,com> on Thursday July 31, 2003 @02:55PM (#6582611) Journal
    You think wars for oil are bad?

    Wait until there are wars for water.

    People can live without oil. They may not want to (what would happen to the US without oil?), but they can. Water, however, is a different story.

    I've seen an incredible number of stories about water, water shortages, fights over water rights and irrigation, and such in the past year. As the population of the Earth continues to rise, so does the demand for water. Many of the water supplies currently being used are already being used faster than they can replenish - and they're only going to get more use.

    Eventually areas are going to start having serious water shortages.

    The most wasteful country in the world in terms of water? No suprise, the US. The combination of all the endless golf courses, which is the #1 use of water in the US IIRC, and all those suburban laws, especially in areas they're not supposed to be growing such as the Southwest, and incredible amounts of water are being taken from rivers and aquifers for pretty silly purposes.

    I wonder how long until serious money starts being spent on how to make cost efficient desalinization of ocean water, and better pumping to get the water from coasts to inland. Because there aren't going to be enough sources elsewhere to supply all the water needs at the rate things are going.

    So much water on the planet, and still there seems to not be enough...
    • There are technological solutions to our rising demand for water.

      No, desalinzation (at least not in the conventional sense), is not one of them.

      New soil polymer technologies are coming along that will drastically reduce the amount of water needed for plants---Imagine a lawn that you only have to water every 3 weeks, even in the southwest.

      Other composite materials actually alter the thermal properities of the soil, increase the rate of air->soil water transfer. Imagine this->Digging resevoirs, filli
    • The combination of all the endless golf courses, which is the #1 use of water in the US IIRC,
      I doubt that golf courses are the number one hit. We are still heavy into agriculture and therefor irragation would be number 1. Out here in colorado, agriculture accounts for ~80 % of the water use. In very wasteful states (CA and Tx being some of the worse abusers going), you will see rice farms useing aquafer water for irragation. Back east, the farmers are starting to get into irragation to guarentee good crop
  • It can't be that big of a deal.. the water has to go someplace.. water doesn't really leave the water cycle it just moves around.. I'm sure an ocean someplace just got 1/16 of an inch deeper or something.

  • For statistical geeks (Score:4, Informative)

    by Flwyd ( 607088 ) on Thursday July 31, 2003 @04:23PM (#6583193) Homepage
    The Aral sea used to be the 4th largest lake in the world. (Quick quiz: name the top 3.) It's now the 12th largest. (Slower quiz: name the intervening 8.)

    Not only has it lost half its surface area since 1985, it seems to have lost two thirds since 1960. outlines [dfd.dlr.de] are interesting. I wonder what it's like on that island that's almost a peninsula.

    And while this has little to do with global warming, it's a prescient example of significant human-caused environmental change.

    • Re:For statistical geeks (Score:2, Informative)

      by SEE ( 7681 )
      (PEDANT MODE=ON)

      Since, hydrologically, Lake Michigan and Lake Huron are the same lake with two lobes, the top three are technically the Caspian Sea, Lake Huron-Michigan, and Lake Superior, with Lake Victoria at 4th, and the old Aral Sea at fifth.

      If we instead use the scentifically inaccurate but traditional division of the Huron-Michigan into two bodies, then the order is the Caspian Sea, Lake Superior, Lake Victoria, the (old) Aral Sea at fourth, then Huron and Michigan as fifth and sixth, respectively.

      • I am pretty sure that I've read that Lake Baikal is the largest by volume, which is arguably a more accurate way to measure the size of a body of water. It contains almost 25% of the world's fresh water.

        Trivia: what is the claim to fame of Ryan Island? It's the largest island in the largest lake (Siskiwit) on the largest island (Isle Royale) in the largest lake (Superior) in the world. (Assuming you go by surface area and count only freshwater lakes, I guess.)

  • this book might be interesting to some of you who are interested in climate change and the changes in ecosystems, 2030 by Hunter (co-founder of greenpeace) is a wake up call if nothing more, while it may be slightly blown out of proportion it still gives a basic overview of the problems and what may be yet to come
  • Nothing to do with the U.S., "Global Warming" or the Kyoto treaty? Why bother? Unfortunately since this has everything to do with local squandering of water resources, nobody is interested railing against a bunch of local farmers or thirsty populace. Why even post an eco disaster story that so obviously is not the U.S.' fault and even worse point it out in the story. You should have waited for Reuters or the BBC to do a hatchet job on the story, distort the facts, & quote some anti-U.S. bigot to spice i
    • Well, I don't blame you for not citing the sources of your. . . interesting ideas.

      Not surprising, most of us don't consider Rush Limbaugh and Monsanto and White House spokesdroids as "Men of Science".

    • Interesting to see someone describe Reuters and the BBC as so biased that they would expect them to doo a hatchet job on Bush. In truth they have been fair more favourable to Bush than most of the European press (try reading the Guardian for an anti-Bush viewpoint) - the only press in the world with favourable things to say about that fecking moron in the Whitehouse is found in the US. Telling it like it is is not anti-US.

      The reason Bush was mentioned is because the current US government wants to put all a

  • Who's blaming Bush??? (Score:1, Informative)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Reading over the original post, the only link made between the lake's drying up and the Bush administration is that its "especially poignant" considering the recent debate over Bush's environmental policy. That's hardly trying to pin the blame on Bush, and people who reach this conclusion are reading far more than what's really there.

    The Aral Sea's disappearance serves as warning to how much damage poor farming techniques and industry can do to the environment. As previous posts have stated, water resource

  • Irony not hypocrisy (Score:3, Informative)

    by W33dz ( 643133 ) on Friday August 01, 2003 @01:16PM (#6590146)
    Having written the oringal post, I need to clarify that I was only pointing out the irony of Mr. Bush hosting an environmental summitt while his government's policies are so obviously ambivalent to the environment. Remember, this is the man who refused to even consider the Kyoto treaty and has opened up MILLIONS of acres of federal land to oil and timber companies. He and many in his administration are ex-oil executives. They made their livelihoods in petrochemicals and are not going to stop now. This is not saying that he is evil. . .it is saying that we need to pay attention to what he does not what he says.

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