In case you missed it, as I did...This is news to me, huge news. Apparently, the Aral Sea, what used to be the fourth largest lake on the planet has shrank to a mere 1/10 of its former glory. And that's not all. The ecological, environmental and economic repercussions of this, 50 years in the making, disaster are being felt much further away than just the former coastline.
Thankfully it seems there are efforts being taken to save this once great body of water and reverse the damage that has been done to it and the people that depended on it. Though I fear that it will take just as long if not longer to fully restore it, if that is even possible.
Listed by Time as one of the ten worst environmental disasters of the last 50 years it pales in comparison to a few others. But to me it is significant because until today I had not known about the situation. Most of the others I had heard of and three of them I was fully conscious and aware of as they happened.
As far as changes go this is a big one. Also the fact that it was a deliberate, man-made disaster (unlike most of the other disasters on the list) makes this significant. Intent to do something makes a big difference to me.
Something like the Kuwaiti Oil Fires set by Saddam Hussein probably qualifies by my standards as the worst item on that list because it was willful, intentional, known to be disastrous and most of all was a very childish action. He should have been roasted like a marshmallow in one of those in my opinion.
As for the chemical spills/explosions/exposures there is a similar line that is crossed but I don't really think that anybody wanted what happened at, for example, Bhopal to happen. However, just because it may have been an accident does not indemnify those responsible, and it certainly does not mean that you can drag your feet for decades and then offer a pittance to those affected by your f#ck-up. I still feel that the people of Bhopal got the rawest of deals possible and they are still suffering to this day. Seriously, F#CK YOU Union Carbide!
Situations such as Chernobyl, Three Mile Island and Tokaimura were clearly accidents but still point out the flaws that will arise in any complex system that mere humans devise.
As for the oil spills, Exxon Valdez and Deepwater/Gulf Coast (the current mega-disaster that tipped off this race to point out other huge environmental disasters that try to make it seem okay, really people this sh!t is not okay), these are completely avoidable, willful to a degree(drunken captain and disregarded regulations by BP) and seriously problematic for decades to come. The fact that BP is trying to scam gulf coast fishermen to sign liability waivers is just despicable. Probably more despicable than Exxon trying to wriggle out of paying for their own screw up. My point is that companies and people (oh wait, that's right, companies are people now, just like you and me, more on that latter) that make all this lovely ecological damage possible should and must take full responsibility for what they have done.
Now did the planners of the irrigation system that diverted the rivers that fed the Aral Sea know what would happen? Well, probably not, but then again they had to know that something would happen. I would hope the engineers knew that water is a finite resource and diverting it in such massive quantities might (more like probably) lead to other problems down the road. Unfortunately, that is the major flaw with human designs on mother natures carefully crafted systems. We think that we can do what ever the hell we want now and don't think or (more likely) don't care what happens in the future. And we also seem to think that we can do it better. That is a mentality that has not changed since we settled down to grow crops and raise livestock. What has changed is the scale at which we are able to rearrange the face of the Earth. The one thing we can learn (though sadly we probably won't) from all of these "disasters" is that with great power comes great responsibility. However, in my opinion, most of these planners, architects, engineers, tycoons, or developers only wonder if they can do something and don't stop to think about whether they should.
Until we change that mentality and the power balance that allows these mega-projects to become mega-disasters we will be stuck cleaning up messes that never should have happened in the first place. Seriously world, GROW THE HELL UP.
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