Eye View 

by David Charbonneau


Receding Aral Sea could be a stern warning of disasters to come


April 30, 2002
Kamloops Daily News



Moynaq used to be a prosperous town on the shores of  the
Aral sea.  Fishing produced 12 million tins of  fish a year
and supported 40,000 people in 1960.

Now Moynaq, in the republic of Uzbekistan, is not  even near
the Aral sea.  The town hasn't moved.  The Aral sea has
receded.  The area has the dubious  distinction of being the
largest ecological disaster in history.

"The story of the Aral Sea is a parable of twentieth 
century development and industrialization, a parody  of
progress," says Tom Bissell in his article for  Harper's. 
Bissell's return to Uzbekistan was a trip into the future,
a preview of a world in which nature is sold for short
term profit.

What Bissell saw was the surreal transformation of 
landscape of the Aral Sea into a hellish nightmare  -- all
for the sake of cotton.  Uzbekistan is now  the world's
second largest supplier of cotton.  But what a price they
paid.  Keep in mind that this country is mostly desert and
cotton is a thirsty crop.

The water to irrigate the desert cotton comes from the 
river Amu Darya, which once emptied into the Aral Sea.  
Without this supply of water, the Sea began to shrink.  
Forty years ago, the sea was the fourth largest inland body
of water in the world.  Now the sea shrinks so fast that
cartographers can't keep track.

Astronaut Jay Apt saw watched the death of the Aral Sea 
from space.  The rapidly growing exposed snow white sea 
beds are "loose salt deposits mixed with pesticides and 
fertilizers.  Bourne by fierce winds, this white toxic 
dust, visible in both photographs, produces health problems
... among the highest ever recorded."

It's not like the citizens of Moynaq didn't see the disaster 
coming. Twenty years ago, city sized clouds blew sand and
poison from the dry seabeds into the town.  Infant 
mortality, anemia and tuberculosis were the first sign that
something was wrong.

Don't worry, the government told the citizens of Uzbekistan, 
your health will actually improve from the money that we 
make selling cotton.   Don't worry that the sea is receding 
and the fish are dying.  Nature is resilient and the sea 
level naturally ebbs and recovers, they were told. 

The fishermen of Moynaq wanted to believe that their 
families were not getting sicker and that the receding  sea
was not a problem.  Finally, they could pretend no longer. 
Unable to launch their boats, they left them on  the toxic
white sand beaches and walked away from a way of life.

Things got worse.  Now the rates of bronchial asthma, lung
disease, infant cerebral palsy, cancer of the stomach and
throat, urogenital and endocrine disease, are increasing at
a rate as fast as the Aral Sea shrinks.  Even without 
hindsight, the outcome was clear to those who could see.

Why aren't we alarmed that we have 500 chemicals in our 
bodies that weren't there in 1920.  How can we be 
optimistic when one-half of North American men and  
one-third of women will contact cancer in their lifetime, 
many because of carcinogenic chemicals?  

Part of the problem is the "passive bystander effect", says
George Marshall in his essay for The Ecologist.  Violent
crimes, for example, can be committed on a  crowded street
and no one will intervene. Individuals know that our
environment is under assault but we say "why doesn't
someone do something?"   

Another form of denial is the self-justifying loop:  "If the
problem were that serious, somebody would be doing
something about it."  People wait for others to act first
and if they don't, no one will.  Inaction perpetuates
inaction.

There are times when the loop of complacency is broken such
as natural disasters, like floods or earthquakes. Or in
times of war, such as avenging the killing of civilians on
September 11.   But in those cases, some  major event has to
galvanize people out of complacency.
  					
The corporate spin doctors have made global warming seem
like an immutable force of nature, even something that
Canadians can embrace in the dead of winter.  And the
spread of harmful chemicals is something  corporations could
fix, if there was a profit in it.

You won't have visit the Aral to see the disaster of 
environmental neglect.  It's coming to a neighbourhood near
you.  All you have to do is nothing.
go back to my Columns in the Kamloops Daily News