What is Digg?73 Comments
- WilliamTanksley, on 10/12/2007, -1/+5Interesting. So you see that the USSR polluted phenomenally, and your first conclusion is that all superpowers pollute, and your second is that we need more state control of pollution.
Not splendid logic on either conclusion.
The first one is a preposterous non-sequitur; a generalization from a single data point (or possibly a pair of data points, although I'd have to guess what the second superpower is).
The second one is an absurdity. The USSR _had_ state control; it had amazing control. It simply misprioritized that control. Such misprioritization is inevitable with central control; you will either grossly pollute now, or you will enact over-restrictive and arbitrary rules that block the actions that USED to cause pollution, while ignoring the actions that are polluting now but seem somehow vital to your goals. (You won't restrict the actions that seem vital to you now, no matter how much you claim to care about pollution.) - NewEvolution, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2One thing the article doesn't mention is the fact that the irrigation plans were originally in two parts. The first part was the mentioned diversion of the rivers feeding the sea from the south for agriculture. There was a sister plan to divert a river to the north to re-supply the sea with water. THAT portion of the plan was considered too costly, but they diverted the other two rivers anyway.
Coolest part about the whole thing however, is the beached ships.
http://www.kz/gallery/aral/ar96-14.jpg - mkjones, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2BBC report:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/dates/stories/october/22/newsid_3756000/3756134.stm
Satalite Images:
http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Newsroom/NewImages/images.php3?img_id=16277 - inkswamp, on 10/12/2007, -0/+2Sad. And there's still a significant number of people on the planet who think pollution and the environment are hippie/liberal issues. This ***** affects all of us eventually.
- Mongoose, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1The abandoned ship reminds me of Half-Life 2.
- nrbelex, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1Make that http://digg.com/science/The_incredible_shrinking_lake_-_Africa_s_receding_Lake_Chad
- bloodroot, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1@WilliamTanksley
Please tell us how polution would be reduced without regulations. - rodball, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1@WilliamTanksley
Thanks for saying it; it had to be said. :-) - leha, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2You can grief about stupid sea as much as you want but what about people in Uzbekistan. Alot of their income comes from cotton. So here is the choice a sea or good being of a few million people. And I can tell you that life in Uzbekistan is no sugar as at is so if they stop growing cotton a lot of them will starve to death.
PS: Americans and Europeans are good at b*ching about enviroment but forget about how much they destroy enviroment themselves. And a lot of this damage not because they dont have food or cloth but because they want "good life". - nailz420, on 10/12/2007, -0/+1if you take any mildly polluted body of water and concentrate it, it'll be just as toxic
- goofballjm, on 10/12/2007, -1/+2I would have to say the bathroom at my brother's apartment is the most toxic place on earth
- SIDSI, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0Toxic places are closer than you think. [url]http://www.weirdus.com/stories/PA03.asp[/url]
- HebrewHammer, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0@WilliamTanksley
in a free market system, things that would normally be considered common sense must be regulated by the government. If a company can save a couple bucks by polluting what is convenient with no fear of repercussion, guess what, they will. - captn_howdy, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0Nice place to take the wife on kids on vacation I bet, just don't drink the water.
- eclectro, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0Most toxic place has got to be the Hanford nuclear site in Washington,
Nothing beats the soup ponds they have there! - livelifeup, on 05/25/2009, -0/+0I have covered this issue in my blog, with the recent photos of 2008....the south sea seems to have disappeared completely
- inactive, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0mctuna, you made an Ironic comment and didnt even know it. :D
- Stockwell, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0In comment to: "PS: Americans and Europeans are good at b*ching about enviroment but forget about how much they destroy enviroment themselves."
The biggest destroyer of the environment currently are the USA and their big corporations - look at what is happening in India and China now...
The USA even refuses to follow Kyoto guidelines, in the end it could be that the US become the most toxic place on earth, but by that time they'll have intoxicated the whole planet.
I'm Belgian (country being Belgium then), and yes I know Western civilization is a pain when it comes to the environment, but at least we try our best to make our little spot on earth a little bit greene.
And yes, even Belgium has a few dark pages in it's 175 years history of independence (Let's not forget what we did (well our King Leopold II in the days actually) in Congo.....
Let's send all bigshots and biggots into space and give the plant to our kids, at least then they'll probably have a chance... - retral, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0Woot, another one of those bodies of salt water salty enough to float in :P
-ahem- - Stonekeeper, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0They got it wrong: It's stallman's bedroom. God bless him.
- WolfBoss, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0A body of water that large should not be green
- LiquidPenguin, on 10/12/2007, -1/+1@nailz420
"if you take any mildly polluted body of water and concentrate it, it'll be just as toxic"
Holy crap, how did you ever come to that observation? That's pure genius! - mkjones, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0Anyone who reads this MUST look at the NASA space images related to the article. It shows just how fast the Sea shrunk over the years.
- EvilBadger, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0Its like watching the formation of salt flats...just with massive pollution involved. Kinda sucks.
- medieval, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0nrbelex: it's not that no one cares, but there are no apocalyptic pictures in the link you posted, so no diggs for the Lake Chad story.
- nrbelex, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0And to think, nobody care's about Africa's similar problem (http://digg.com/science/The_incredible_shrinking_lake_-_Africa_s_receding_Lake_Chad)...
- winkydo, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0This article has recently (as of 22:16, 15 February 2006 (UTC)) been linked from Digg.com, a high-traffic Internet site.
- StarWarsFever, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0I check out the Aral Sea on google earth and it actually looks to be getting slightly bigger when compaired to the 2003 sat pictures....
- vfrex, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0Another winner!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lake_Karachay - Jetfire, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0I didn’t read the whole article since this is old news. But this thing had a two fold affect. besides the Sea being drained and the toxic stuff in it. It’s a Sea which means salt water. The water going to the plants has salt in it, which affects the crops ability to grow. This makes them use more water.
Also Republicans don’t hate the Environment; we just like a common sense approach to it. - jmholloway, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0holler to v4r4n. thats my opinion on pretty much every environmental issue. maybe that makes me a bad person, but ive taken way too many evolution classes to think other wize...
- leha, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0"Actually, leha, you are wrong. We Americans b*tch about our own ecological problems just as much as other people’s, if not more. Ask any neocon, and they’ll tell you how much they wish the rest of us would shut up about it. And doesn’t everyone want a good life? I’m sure the Uzbekistanians do as much as anyone."
Everybody wants a good life and it is good. My point though is that in the case of Aral sea environmental destruction was worth it. Americans dont do anything about pollution and probably - theuber1337, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0I'm probably one of few but when I look at the ship it makes me think of Fallout and Fallout 2.. I suggest you youngins play it, perhaps the most under-appreaciated and yet greatest RPG's ever.
- shiftless, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0Pic of Lake Chad shrinking:
http://veimages.gsfc.nasa.gov//1647/landsat_chad.jpg - ersatzphi, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0Definitely something straight out of post-apacolyptic mad max world.
- inactive, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0yikes, pretty creepy stuff. methinks the industrialists should live there, live amongst their own creation.
- dhughes, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0 If you want to see toxic go to the Sydney Tar Ponds in Sydney, Nova Scotia, Canada. Over a hundred years of waste steel products, coal sludge and countless other toxic substances.
An environmental activist tried a to ceremonially clean it up, after his first shovel full of the goop he fainted from the fumes!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sydney_tar_ponds - iiftmlis, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0It's not a reasonable inference to look at environmental degradation in Russia and use that as a condemnation of governmental environmental control here. Or any other kind of state control here. There is too large a difference between US and the old USSR state.
In USSR the state had extreme control but set all the priorities. In the US, there are mechanisms in place for the people to set the priorities of the government. In the USSR it didn't matter if a majority of their citizens wanted to make the environment a priority. In the US, it does matter.
I'm not trying to say that the US system results in the best results, or even that it's better. I'm just saying that the difference is significant enough that you cannot make the claim that "It didn't work in the USSR so it won't work here" as WilliamTanksley seemed to be saying above. - generalleoff, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0They are afraid we are going to vandalize it. At least that's what that little notice says to me.
- Anchoret, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0> Hmm... I thought chernobyl, ukraine was the most toxic place on earth...
Some claim it's an area outside Chelyabinsk. The claim is also made for various places in Kazakhstan.
Wherever it is, it's in the former USSR. It's simply astonishing. The sort of thoughtlessness and irresponsibility attendant to their treatment of hazardous waste is not to be believed...such as the recycling of high-gamma nuclear waste as "seed irradiators" in the kholhoz system. These rusting piles of junk are discarded all over the landscape, where they can be located in winter by looking for melted spots in the snow...they're that hot.
Now Chechens are hunting them down for "dirty bomb" material. - akhost, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0Being a native New Jerseyan, I'd like to challenge that claim...
- vfrex, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0My vote goes to Lake Karachay. When the bed of the lake was exposed due to a drought, the radioactive sediment was spread by strong winds to surrounding areas. The entire lake has been filled with concrete (TALK ABOUT SHRINK). Now, that radioactive waste is making its way into underground rivers.
- v4r4n, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0With 10% of the children killed off, makes you wonder if the kids that do survive are that much more tolerant of pollution and resistant to cancer, (dare I bring up evolution...).
- JimXugle, on 10/12/2007, -0/+0Hmm... I thought chernobyl, ukraine was the most toxic place on earth... Pripyat? I dunno.
- mooninite, on 10/12/2007, -1/+0That's a good eye-opener... and I'm a die-hard conservative!
- Wires, on 10/12/2007, -1/+0The title is slightly misleading I would say? As I don't recall it titled as the most toxic place on Earth. That would have to be anywhere within a 10m radius of George Bush.
- rudolphdude, on 10/12/2007, -2/+1Stupid superpowers, stupid stupid stupid....but hey, kids with ten fingers ON EACH HAND is cool, right?
- PradaPete, on 10/12/2007, -1/+0that's almost as stupid as to design a keyboard where every key has a little OLED display on top.
- zodster, on 10/12/2007, -1/+0It makes me sad to see one more horrific environment story about Russia. They need to prioritize their environment somehow (I know money doesn't grow on trees either).
- AnimeRules15421, on 10/12/2007, -2/+1(sarcastically): Yet another great accomplishment the USSR made and there not around to see it. Yay Nuclear warfare.
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