Inconvient Truth-Aral Sea

[Ptarmigan]

Here is an Inconvient Truth. Since Global Warming is in the news. It overlooks other real and dire environmental problems. The biggest ecological disaster is in the former Soviet Union. It is the Aral Sea. Once the fourth largest lake in the world. Now, it just a dryland with separate lakes. It is due to irresponsible irrigation practice during the Soviet Union.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aral_sea

I wonder what the Global Warming nuts have to say about this?  This is really overlooked.

[djones520]

This was actually really interesting.  I had not honestly heard a word about it before today.

From the sounds of it though, their making some pretty significant headway in restoring the body of water.

[franksolich]

I was near (perhaps 350 miles) the Aral "Sea" in the mid-1990s.

If it is in fact being "restored"--which I surely hope it is--it is perhaps because no one has any money or motivation, and so instead of being exploited, the Aral "Sea" is just being left alone, ignored, and nature is naturally restoring it.

Despite what the primitives and envirowackos think, nature can do that.

The Dust Bowl, the largest man-made environmental catastrophe in the history of the world, was to leave the Great Plains barren and sterile for 10,000,000 years, if one listened to the primitives and the envirowackos of the late 1930s, early 1940s.

The Great Plains had been gouged, trillions of cubic tons of soil dumped into the Gulf of Mexico, and even in the Atlantic Ocean.

There were enormous--by human standards, not by nature's standards--projects launched to restore the Great Plains, and those projects helped, at the cost of tens of billions of dollars (in dollars of the 1940s and 1950s), but nature had done 99.9% of the work in restoring the Great Plains circa 15 years after the Dust Bowl.

Primitives and envirowackos woefully overestimate the power of man, and abysmally underestimate the power of nature. 

It was either the sparkling husband primitive or the crooked tale primitive who made the comment the other day about how "the planet's already destroyed."

Stupid primitive,  Really stupid primitive,  Just a really really stupid primitive.

The "planet" will destroy mankind long before little tiny puny man even makes a dent.

I think this perception--that man is capable of doing irretrievable damage to the "planet"--derives from that primitives and envirowackos, refusing to acknowledge the existence of God, think of themselves as gods themselves, more powerful than nature.

Bah, humbug.

[Ptarmigan]

I was near (perhaps 350 miles) the Aral "Sea" in the mid-1990s.

If it is in fact being "restored"--which I surely hope it is--it is perhaps because no one has any money or motivation, and so instead of being exploited, the Aral "Sea" is just being left alone, ignored, and nature is naturally restoring it.

Despite what the primitives and envirowackos think, nature can do that.

The Dust Bowl, the largest man-made environmental catastrophe in the history of the world, was to leave the Great Plains barren and sterile for 10,000,000 years, if one listened to the primitives and the envirowackos of the late 1930s, early 1940s.

The Great Plains had been gouged, trillions of cubic tons of soil dumped into the Gulf of Mexico, and even in the Atlantic Ocean.

There were enormous--by human standards, not by nature's standards--projects launched to restore the Great Plains, and those projects helped, at the cost of tens of billions of dollars (in dollars of the 1940s and 1950s), but nature had done 99.9% of the work in restoring the Great Plains circa 15 years after the Dust Bowl.

Primitives and envirowackos woefully overestimate the power of man, and abysmally underestimate the power of nature. 

It was either the sparkling husband primitive or the crooked tale primitive who made the comment the other day about how "the planet's already destroyed."

Stupid primitive,  Really stupid primitive,  Just a really really stupid primitive.

The "planet" will destroy mankind long before little tiny puny man even makes a dent.

I think this perception--that man is capable of doing irretrievable damage to the "planet"--derives from that primitives and envirowackos, refusing to acknowledge the existence of God, think of themselves as gods themselves, more powerful than nature.

Bah, humbug.

You said it well. The idea of humans being able to change Earth is arrogance.

[The Night Owl]

I think this perception--that man is capable of doing irretrievable damage to the "planet"--derives from that primitives and envirowackos, refusing to acknowledge the existence of God, think of themselves as gods themselves, more powerful than nature.

As I had suspected, a lot of the right wing skepticism regarding the idea that mankind is causing climate change is rooted not in science but in religious fervor.

Tell me... If the Bible passage which indicates that mankind has dominion over the Earth and all life on it is true, then what gives you, a believer, the idea that God hasn't given mankind the ability to harm or even destroy the Earth as we know it?

[The Night Owl]

You said it well. The idea of humans being able to change Earth is arrogance.

Arrogance is an attitude of superiority based on presumptuous claims. Claiming that humans are not able to change the Earth seems like a pretty presumptuous claim to me.

[JohnnyReb]

I think this perception--that man is capable of doing irretrievable damage to the "planet"--derives from that primitives and envirowackos, refusing to acknowledge the existence of God, think of themselves as gods themselves, more powerful than nature.

As I had suspected, a lot of the right wing skepticism regarding the idea that mankind is causing climate change is rooted not in science but in religious fervor.

Tell me... If the Bible passage which indicates that mankind has dominion over the Earth and all life on it is true, then what gives you, a believer, the idea that God hasn't given mankind the ability to harm or even destroy the Earth as we know it?

Kudzu

[franksolich]

Arrogance is an attitude of superiority based on presumptuous claims. Claiming that humans are not able to change the Earth seems like a pretty presumptuous claim to me.

I'll let scholars of the Bible--which I'm not--answer the comment about man "having dominion over the earth;" I doubt it means what the nocturnally foul one and I think it means.

A single modest dust-storm of the 1930s, ten miles in width and five miles in depth, and only God knows how high in the sky, moving at 15 mph, in less than an hour, generated more electricity than what was consumed by the entire city of New York City at the time (the 1930s) in a whole year.

A single Sandhills thunderstorm generates more power than all of the weaponry, all put together, including nuclear ones, used by mankind since the beginning of time.

(Sources: general basic elementary 7th-grade science textbooks.)

Against such forces, mankind is a speck of dirt against Mount Everest.

The minute we start to make a dent on this "planet," the planet will turn and consume us.

[franksolich]

I am suddenly reminded of the Dnepropetrovsk region of south-central Ukraine, perhaps the most polluted area on the world, what with all of these power-plants built there during the Soviet era; nuclear and other wastes actually just dumped onto the ground, or slithered into the river.

The death-rate in that area of a socialist paradise of workers and peasants is astronomical, despite all their free medical care.

It boggles the mind, it is so high, the mortality rate.

Well, the "planet" is getting its revenge for having been treated thusly.

[The Night Owl]

I'll let scholars of the Bible--which I'm not--answer the comment about man "having dominion over the earth;" I doubt it means what the nocturnally foul one and I think it means.

Dominion is defined as being absolute rule or ownership, but in the context of the Bible, which places God as the absolute ruler, dominion probably means something closer to stewardship.

Stewardship is defined as being the careful management of that which has been entrusted to the steward's care. If God has entrusted mankind with the careful management of the Earth, then mankind must have the ability to change the Earth. Without the ability to change the Earth mankind cannot manage it. If mankind cannot manage the Earth, then mankind is not the steward of the Earth. But the Bible tells us that mankind is the steward of the Earth.

[franksolich]

Dominion is defined as being absolute rule or ownership, but in the context of the Bible, which places God as the absolute ruler, dominion probably means something closer to stewardship.

Stewardship is defined as being the careful management of that which has been entrusted to the steward's care. If God has entrusted mankind with the careful management of the Earth, then mankind must have the ability to change the Earth. Without the ability to change the Earth mankind cannot manage it. If mankind cannot manage the Earth, then mankind is not the steward of the Earth. But the Bible tells us that mankind is the steward of the Earth.

Actually, your interpretation of that matches mine exactly, but I'd like a more scholarly opinion.

The flaw in your reasoning however is that you assume "stewardship" doesn't have consequences, good or bad.

The "planet" was a Gift from God to mankind, to sustain and nourish life, and mankind is charged with taking careful care of that Gift; if mankind doesn't take good care of that Gift, then mankind dies, while the planet goes on to sustain and nourish other sorts of life.

I mean, it's like the Bostonian Drunkard inheriting a hefty substantial trust-fund; when it's allowed him (apparently for very good reasons, even though the Bostonian Drunkard's 37 years old, there are some restrictions), he'll of course have absolute dominion over that cash, sole stewardship of it--to use it wisely, or to lose it.

Same thing here.

[franksolich]

I mean to add--the brain still thinks after the mouth shuts up--

So assume, quite reasonably, that the Bostonian Drunkard squanders his money.

Left with no means of support, the Bostonian Drunkard inevitably withers away and confronts that Fate which we all must.

However, that money the Bostonian Drunkard squandered is still around, in some other pocket, or pockets.