Word: arally
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Around the world, the U.N. is eyeing other ecological disasters for their conflict potential. There is the loss of half the Aral Sea to Soviet-era irrigation, and the melting of the Himalayan glaciers (which feed rivers from which 500 million people draw water); and there are Chinese plans to dam the upper Mekong, halving water flow to 65 million Southeast Asians. In a 2003 report, the U.N. Environment Program said water shortages already affected 400 million people and predicted that number would multiply tenfold by 2050. At that time, more than a sixth of the world's population...
...involves a knuckle-whitening three-hour flight in a Soviet-era aircraft - or a 40-hour drive across the steppes - from the Uzbek capital of Tashkent. But when you finally arrive at Nukus, there are two surreal sights to behold. The first is the dried-up bed of the Aral Sea - once the world's fourth-largest lake, but now a hellishly arid [an error occurred while processing this directive] landscape of grounded fishing boats and sand. The second is the Savitsky Karakalpakstan State Art Museum, tel: (998-61) 222 2556. The few travelers who stumble upon it never fail...
...devastating surges down the Yangtze River cause hundreds of millions of dollars in damages, while deforestation turns farmland north of Beijing into desert. In Uzbekistan, the Soviets created one of the world's worst environmental disasters by using the Amu Darya to irrigate massive cotton farms, shrinking the Aral Sea by half and, as pesticide run-off evaporated and poisoned the air, creating a cancer cluster the size of England. Meanwhile, China's plans to build a series of dams across the upper reaches of the Mekong are expected to halve water flow on the river that provides employment, transport...
...late: Vozrozhdeniye has been unguarded for a decade. The shrinking of the Aral Sea has revealed a peninsula that makes the island accessible by wading. The Uzbek state petroleum company even conducted test drills for natural gas. Although Washington believes no anthrax has been extracted, no one can be sure. "God only knows," says the analyst. "There's been nobody out there watching...
...those living nearby, anthrax is the least of their worries. Soviet siphoning of water from the Amu Dar'ya river to irrigate vast collectivized cotton farms turned the fertile delta into desert in a few decades. The Aral Sea split into two and receded to less than half its size. Rains failed. Without the sea, temperatures became erratic. What water remained was a concentrated cocktail of salt, minerals and pesticide runoff from the cotton fields upstream. Moynaq, the nearest town, watched its livelihood drain away with the parting Aral. The former bustling port used to can 70 million tins...