This should be on the main news EVERY NIGHT, not on some obscure corner of you tube.

I first read about this in the National Geographic in the late 1980’s. While it makes sense now, at the time I did not realize how fast it was changing. I still have a 30 year old world globe with the full sea on it from when I was in grade school.

@makemap FYI is was the sovjets who directed the main rivers feeding the sea to get a bigger cotton industry. it wasnt the locals drinking it all away.

To save the southern part of the Aral requires restoring the Amu Darya's flow back into the sea. Cotton production can still be managed by utilizing the large man-made lakes (resulting from irrigation run-off from the lousy canals made under Communism) to feed the crops (and keeping the water clean). Fully restoring the Aral Sea is crucial to the health and economy of that region. This is not a pipe dream: it can become reality if the government and its people cooperate.

@ptaaffe I wish you were correct, but we in the USA have done the same thing many times over. The Colorado river is being sucked dry, but the pain is mostly felt in Mexico, so we pretend there is no problem. That is far from the only river, and many other parts of the natural system have been greatly affected.

I loved it..a real good feature to understand a huge man-made disaster..Thank you

Very insightful addendum, hadn't thought of that, you're right.

Actually, it was a plan to make Uzbekistan a cotton producing area by damming and redirecting the Amu and Syr Darya rivers to irrigate the desert. It actually worked in the end, and Uzbekistan today is one of the world's premier cotton producing nations, but it came at the cost of a gargantuan ecological disaster.

...this video, if my reading is correct, dates from 2008...I find a bit ironic that it doesn't mention the programme, running for years now, aiming at recovering it...apparently with some success in certain places...nevertheless, with or without success, the authors of this beautiful and sober narrated video could have made a short mention to it...thank you for this beautiful video, take care :-))

This is just terribly sad. Mankind will destroy itself...

it was a good teaching my teacher want us to know this and now i know a lot of stuff now ty

Thank God we saved Mono Lake in California from the same fate. This is just terrible. Sad.

Fascinating video - used it in a recent blog post on the Aral Sea

@uninterestingentity Yeah; feels great that it is being restored...a little.

One of many ecological disasters Soviet central planning engendered. A very visual illustration of how little regard this former regime had for environmental concerns to say nothing of its callous inhumanity.

thanks! one of those songs in everything, but you never know the name

It's not just Aral sea. I think Baltic sea is also in big trouble. Soviet Union never paid any attention to pollution etc, and they polluted the crap out of the Baltic sea. The fishing industry is pretty much dead, and even if you catch some fish, probably should not eat them since they likely contain toxic chemicals. And it the pollution will not go away anytime soon, if ever.

Good informative film.

The Aral Sea is all the worst case environmental disasters happening in the same place in slow motion.

@ThePowerWithinMe For 50 years Soviet leaders diverted the rivers which feed the sea to irrigate cotton. And when it became clear that the land wasn't suited for the thirsty crop the planners simply increased the use of hazardous chemicals. The Soviets government drained it. And the Soviet People are really pissed. But now the rivers have been diverted back to the Aral Sea and it's starting to fill up again. But it will take years for it's aquatic life to return.

there's a common phrase.... there are two things that we can't measure in life, the universe and human stupidity!!!

@docrock66 look up the Salton sea. happening here in our backyard

man has the power to destroy pacific ocean so that we can play cricket there

And some insist that humans are too insignificant to affect climate.

Very cool :D

It's things like this and easter island which really highlight what a disease we are...

all things to all men cinematic orchestra

this is so very sad, why must humans destroy our planet. We can use its resources but why to such a drastic extenct

It's not really a paradox. It's just very ironic and sad.

Dynamite the dams. The local bigshots will never do what needs to be done.

This is a crime. People should be prosecuted and held responsible for crimes like this.

Good to see that Kazakhstan is pushing to restore the northern portion, with success too. It's only too bad Uzbekistan won't get off it's collective ass.

yeah, i agree. I heard somewhere that there are different possible solution to make possible the coming back of the sea at its original place, but they're too much expensive

Toxic dust storms blowing across a former sea bottom. Welcome to our sci-fi world.

We brought the rats, rats stopped the trees by eating the acorns, essentially our doing. Sad is a very applicable adjective to describe these types of global concerns.

Governments and corporations ... these two can fuck up anything.

a good video for educational purpose.

I noticed many people (including me) were looking for the name of the songs in the video so here you go : -All Things To All Men -Sybyzgy (Traverse Flute) -In The Steppes of Central Asia

and i feel sad about them i wish i can help but i cant

They very briefly touched on why the sea dried up. What's the cause? Redirection of water?

el lago de chapala tambien se esta secando.

Save Earth , Save Aral Sea

agricultural diversion it wasnt jus russians it was everyone tht immigrated in tht particular area

It is really sad and an ecological crime that one of the largest inland seas has been drained of it's water.

@abdlloh its never too late. Lets just build a canal between the aral and the caspian sea.

So much for the Soviets' Grand Plan. What a massive crime against those people and against the Earth.

You are shrinking.

@dydx09 Yes absolutely. Sickening.

@ericgcollyer No, there really isn't. There are people who gladly sell everything, including our health and environment, to special interests for higher short term profits, and then there are people who don't.

nice video

Humanity, the Destroyer of Worlds

Well they reckon there is Oil so better to get rid of the sea and then drill or ?

What is happening to the rivers that fed the Aral sea now?

We Karakalpaks on nacionalnosti And the Karakalpakstan Autonomous Republic in Uzbekistan on this them shit our problem When we achieve freedom things will change for the better

thumps up if anette sørensen sent you

My name is borat, Im from kazakstan!

@norbertsited Do you mean this quote by Einstein: “Two things are infinite: the universe and human stupidity; and I'm not sure about the the universe.”

So sad. We shouldnt be able to affect our planet this way.

central asia middle southeast and africa.

me to...

@ptaaffe look up silicosis to understand why this causes TB.

@muzasbar then we must fix it quick!

Very sad video

How about reducing the amount of water you use so it becomes a sea again.

Capitalism is different than Corporatism. Corporatism is when corporations lobby the gov't for special Regulations, ostensibly for "safety" that end up preserving their monopoly. THIS is Greed, and is fueled by the government. This isn't capitalism, this is government control of our lives. Capitalism = small gov't, off our backs, low taxes. That's what I support.

this is terrifying

Nobody actually knows the whole truth about what happened at Easter Island :/ There are multiple theories, but everyone cutting down all of the trees is actually not one of the more plausible ones :L But I agree, this is sad :(

Start to clean it up, start with all boats,cranes, ports machines, time to recycle.Haw can you people just leave the stuff were ever and all your shit were you stand.What happened is bad, but what you do with whatever is left is just sad,do not give up,it can be done.The land is change but not gone.

@TheJohhnyrotten So should a lot of problems in this world. But the news only covers dramatic, exciting, recent events. Or else the news could be 5 hours long.

i know why did the aral sea shrank...it shranked because chuck norris used to pee in the aral sea but now chuck pees in caspian sea xDDD

I am somewhat embarrassed as I review my preceeding comments. I meant to write; "I freely conceed that democracy is [NOT] the supreme political principle." In a democracy 50% of the population can freely vote to kill or enslave the 49%. The proper function of any state is to protect the human dignity (in the form of rights) of all subject to its authority. Nothing contrary to human dignity is legimate regardless of whether it is sanctioned by a theory or a political majority.

@kingerz or lack of*

@uninterestingentity Nowadays both; back then, greed.

Yay, someone who actually doesn't just assume that people were stupid enough to cut down all the trees :D And yeah, people should realize that they need to think about the long term consequences when they interfere with nature -__- Also less greed would be good :L But for some people this is too much of an ask *sigh*

@normalais kind of like individuals who make broad sweeping statements about entire civilizations or political parties...

They should pump ocean water into it!

i wish there was something i could do...

@normalais But then again, what do I know? I am an Environmental Science graduate with an MBA and JD, who is a registered Republican. I can't possibly understand anything about the environment, or how businesses affect it.

@mthresh20: nope, procrastinating myself.

Somebody wanna save me time and tell me how it shrunk?

@ericgcollyer US government (especially the GOP) are controlled by corporations. And corporations do not care about stuff like environment, if destroying it means higher profits. That is not a generalization. It is a fact.

It is a strange phenomenon. So many Russian confuse Russia w/ the Soviet Union. Apologias for Russia & for the communists are all blended together. It perplexes me how these two phenomenon can be extricated from each other. Russian history as distinct from Communist history. A regime which was imposed on the Russian people by their enemy in a time of war. There is not one wit of difference b/t what the Germans did w/ Quisling in Norway & Lenin.

Though its a curse by the Soviet in 1960, the current Uzbekistan is showing NO interest in restoring the sea by abandoning the Amu Darya river, which will hurt their cotton irrigation. We, the human, are so greedy that we completely destroyed this sea in just 50 years. This is Pathetic. I am ashamed of being called human, and we are a kind of Cancer to the World. Actually, we are very closer to our End, if we do not take care of our Mother Earth.

I alluded to this confusion between Russian and Soviet distinctions in other posts; if I were a Russophobe I've no doubt fair folk like yourself would rightfully correct me. Seems like many of my foes on YT really do believe Soviet propaganda and what their disgruntled ancestors tell them. This inability to assess past crimes and the Wests refusal to institutionally condemn Soviet legacy(libs love socialism,one step away from nonexistant communism) allows a smoldering Soviet nostalgia,explosive.

und dann heißt es ARAL..alles super...von wegen...eher ARAL..alles ausgetrocknet!!

I wonder what causes the anemia

What is the music at 1.20-2.00?

"Now that Sea is 250 KM away...". Damn, Russia... really?

Where are all the fishes?

@Mekelba So only 2 people out of 111,000 dislike that the Aral Sea is depleting. logic fail.

My Name is ARAL

what is the song at the start?

@ericgcollyer That's funny. Teddy Roosevelt would be called a socialist today if he ran in a republican primary. Soviet performance on the environment was absolutely horrible. But of course in a 300 million people country there were many who cared about the environment. And the modern republican party wil choose corporate profits over anything else. That is what they call "business friendly". Bush didn't even sign the kyoto treaty.

Problem, planet?

The aral sea was never freshwater. It was/is salt water

This is the worst ecological disaster that the humanity had ever seen... and it's all our fault

MY NAME IS ARAL

Math 1a gang

Hello, fellow Harvard Math 1a P Set goers.

The Soviets are to blame