Ragnar's World: Reality check

One of the most common replies I find in any onlin discussion about climate change is this : "I think it is arrogant to beleive that man can influence something as complex as the climate!". Well. These people should take a trip to Aral. And take a look at what happened to the Aral sea. And more importantly, it's surrounding climate. A micro climate catastrophe for everyone to see.

I had seen some documentaries about what happened. In the old Soviet Union, they wanted to grow cotton. And cotton need water. Loads and loads of water. And the Aral Sea was just that. A incredibly huge load of water. So they started growing cotton and using water from the Aral Sea to water the fields. The enormous amounts of water used led to the decline in the water levels. And the lower water levels cause the whole climate around the sea to change. There was less plants to hold humidity. And thsi again led to less rain. Further increasing the drop in water level. Which in turn caused more plant death. And the Aral sea almost disappeared in the end. Not just from watering of fields, but also from evaporation. Now this of course happened all the time. But the temperature also rose in the region. With this giant body of water shrinking, there was less to absorb the heat. Same with plants. So the temperature in the region changed. Much colder in the winter and much warmer during summer. All this contributed to the Aral sea almost vanishing before they realized what was happening.

Today, much of this rich body of water is just dry land. With lots of salt. When water evaporates, it leaves the salt. This is usually not a problem, since more water comes in the form of rain. But in this case. There was less and less rain. And less plants to use the salt. In the end, the salt became too much for the plants, and they died. And the remainign water became to salty. Thing Dead Sea in Israel. Not wuite as salty, but too salty for plants and most fish and water creatures. The Aral sea was once a bustling sea fo freshwater fish. Now, just some extremophile water creatures survive.

On the train from Turkestan, I talked to a local guy about this, and he pointed out the windows of the train. "Do you see the white layer on the ground? That is salt. Blown here from the Aral sea by the winds. And it is killing plants here too. Hundreds of km from Aral, the vegetation was struggling. All because of salt from this once so great and lifegiving sea of fresh water.

I walked down to what used to be the busy harbour of Aral. The huge cranes now just rusting away. All that is left, are some pools of water that gather when the occasional rain comes. The rest is just stinking braque water. And salty, dry sea floor.

It is by no means arrogant to believe man can change the climate. I have been staring at it. With my own eyes. And it should have been a real wakeup call to anybody. There is no believing in climate change. Because it is really happening. Right before our eyes. And the Aral sea gives us a glimpse of our possible future. And it seems like most people just wants to close their eyes and pretend it's all a hoax.