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Same thing happened to the Aral Sea: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aral_Sea https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aral_Sea

madaxe_again 11y ago
I went there (Aralsk, specifically) four years back, while en route to shymkent from aktobe. It's a sad, sad place. Photos don't do it justice - you drive for hours through barren desert, passing next to nothing, and then you reach Aralsk - a nothing harbour city in the middle of nothing, with a tide that went out to never return. Everything is dilapidated, dusty, everyone is old, the smell of diesel mixed with shit and mud is overpowering - the sea looks dry, but under a thin crust is meters of gloopy dumped oil and sewage. Learned that the hard way. It used to be a bustling place, full of greenery, and the desert around it was green - but the Soviets drained it from the Uzbek side, and whether it can ever be refilled more rapidly than it evaporates is anyone's guess. Central kaz could have been a place. Instead, it's nothing, and probably will remain such. Easy to go "oh it's just a lake", but it turns out humans need water.
- chadzawistowski 11y ago
  Interestingly, the Soviets planned to take Siberian rivers that drain "uselessly" into the Arctic sea and divert them southwards towards Kazakhstan and into the Aral sea. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Northern_river_reversal https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Northern_river_reversal
agentgt 11y ago
No the same thing did not happen to the Aral Sea. What happened to the Aral sea was far far worse and far far more of our fault (humans).
- xlm1717 11y ago
  That was far far more the Soviets' fault, not "our" fault.
  - Killah911 11y ago
    Ah! That makes it much better. At least I'm not to blame. (Sarcasm) I think "we"(humans) need to take more responsibility as a whole. If one of the people in your life boat is drilling a whole in the bottom in the middle of the sea, being able to place blame doesn't matter so much. "We" are all going down if "we" can't do something about it.
    - linkregister 11y ago
      Subsuming responsibility for things that one could have prevented is one thing; accepting responsibility for something that nothing short of war could have prevented is another.
  - cjensen 11y ago
    And the US eliminated the largest freshwater lake West of the Mississippi [1]. [1] (largest by area) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tulare_Lake https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tulare_Lake
    - JBReefer 11y ago
      A. Whataboutism is lame B. The Aral Sea was 10x larger [1] C. I do appreciate the irony of A D. the scale of both is mindblowing, so I upvoted you [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aral_Sea https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aral_Sea
      - cjensen 11y ago
        Sorry: I meant that as a response to the notion that the Soviets made a unique error with the Aral (hence the "don't blame us" stated in the parent) rather than being a common symptom of water diversion worldwide. It was not meant as to be a whataboutism, which is an awesome word for bad moral equivalence. I am so stealing that.
      - awakeasleep 11y ago
        Whataboutism is lame when used to excuse a behavior, but completely valid when used to rebut accusations of unique malfeasance. There is a big difference between something being your problem vs our problem.
- cjensen 11y ago
  You are right. That said, diversion of water for agriculture is also a confounding factor in the case of Lake Poopó.

I went there (Aralsk, specifically) four years back, while en route to shymkent from aktobe. It's a sad, sad place. Photos don't do it justice - you drive for hours through barren desert, passing next to nothing, and then you reach Aralsk - a nothing harbour city in the middle of nothing, with a tide that went out to never return. Everything is dilapidated, dusty, everyone is old, the smell of diesel mixed with shit and mud is overpowering - the sea looks dry, but under a thin crust is meters of gloopy dumped oil and sewage. Learned that the hard way. It used to be a bustling place, full of greenery, and the desert around it was green - but the Soviets drained it from the Uzbek side, and whether it can ever be refilled more rapidly than it evaporates is anyone's guess. Central kaz could have been a place. Instead, it's nothing, and probably will remain such. Easy to go "oh it's just a lake", but it turns out humans need water.

chadzawistowski 11y ago
Interestingly, the Soviets planned to take Siberian rivers that drain "uselessly" into the Arctic sea and divert them southwards towards Kazakhstan and into the Aral sea. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Northern_river_reversal https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Northern_river_reversal

agentgt 11y ago

No the same thing did not happen to the Aral Sea. What happened to the Aral sea was far far worse and far far more of our fault (humans).

xlm1717 11y ago
That was far far more the Soviets' fault, not "our" fault.
- Killah911 11y ago
  Ah! That makes it much better. At least I'm not to blame. (Sarcasm) I think "we"(humans) need to take more responsibility as a whole. If one of the people in your life boat is drilling a whole in the bottom in the middle of the sea, being able to place blame doesn't matter so much. "We" are all going down if "we" can't do something about it.
  - linkregister 11y ago
    Subsuming responsibility for things that one could have prevented is one thing; accepting responsibility for something that nothing short of war could have prevented is another.
- cjensen 11y ago
  And the US eliminated the largest freshwater lake West of the Mississippi [1]. [1] (largest by area) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tulare_Lake https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tulare_Lake
  - JBReefer 11y ago
    A. Whataboutism is lame B. The Aral Sea was 10x larger [1] C. I do appreciate the irony of A D. the scale of both is mindblowing, so I upvoted you [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aral_Sea https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aral_Sea
    - cjensen 11y ago
      Sorry: I meant that as a response to the notion that the Soviets made a unique error with the Aral (hence the "don't blame us" stated in the parent) rather than being a common symptom of water diversion worldwide. It was not meant as to be a whataboutism, which is an awesome word for bad moral equivalence. I am so stealing that.
    - awakeasleep 11y ago
      Whataboutism is lame when used to excuse a behavior, but completely valid when used to rebut accusations of unique malfeasance. There is a big difference between something being your problem vs our problem.
cjensen 11y ago
You are right. That said, diversion of water for agriculture is also a confounding factor in the case of Lake Poopó.