I often find myself picking out an old issue of National Geographic magazine from a large stack of them I've compiled in my spare time, dating from present day back to the early 60's. Last night, I was reading an issue dated February 1990, which, really for the first time, brought the depletion of the Aral sea to light, another blunder of the rapid and unregulated industrialization of the soon to be dissolved Union of Soviet Socialist Republics.
Back then the Aral sea actually still was a sea to some effect. However today, the Aral Sea no longer exists, like the self proclaimed worker's paradise which hosted, leached off of, and eventually depleted all the once 4th largest lake on the planet had to offer from the late 50's on until its collapse in 1991 -- a means Soviet Moscow perceived as justified by the ends, which in this case was the production of 90% of the nations cotton via the mass collective farming of cotton irresponsible and ill thought out irrigation of the two major rivers that fed the Aral only made possible --. Yes, some stagnant remains of the sea remain situated around the now, for the most part, inhospitable, sandy, salty desolate 68,000km2 wasteland that used to serve as the fertile seabed of the Aral sea some 50 years ago, but the only purpose they serve today is as a testament to what used to be.
What struck me the most about the article was that the worst case long term scenario scientists had predicted and outlined was actually better then what the reality of the situation the Aral sea and its surrounding area and their inhabitants find themselves in today. I wonder if in twenty years I'll be looking back to a similar then present day report on climate change to see that I'm living in a reality worse then what was once perceived from a theoretical standpoint as the worst possible outcome. Or maybe I'm just being overly cynical.
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