This video was made possible by Brilliant. Learn with Brilliant for 20% off by being one of the first 200 people to sign up at Brilliant.org/reallifelore During the time that the British ruled India The British Government became concerned about the number of venomous snakes around Delhi So they began offering a reward for every dead cobra that people brought them. This worked out OK for a time Until smart people began realizing that you could simply breed the snakes in large numbers And turn them all in for a reward When the British found out about this they cancelled the whole program and the snake breeders let their now worthless cobras go and as a result the cobra population actually increased Ever since then whenever somebody tries to solve a problem with a solution that end up making the original problem even worse the situation has been called the cobra effect And one of the worst cobra effects in history took place here in the Soviet Union during the last half of the twentieth century on a lake that used to be called The Aral Sea For all of recorded human history The Aral Sea was the world's fourth largest lake and a vital piece of the local ecosystem that surrounded it. It was roughly the same size as Ireland And supported a thriving community of fishing towns and port cities. And when you look at different world maps over the past few centuries You'll always see something there and even when you look at pictures taken from airplanes in the 1960's You can clearly see that it's there But then compare all of these images with an image taken by NASA just last year This is the same lake in the same place today So, what happened to all of it? Tracing satellite images back from the past few decades can start to unravel part of the mystery These pictures show that the lake began drying up in the 1960's, when it was last full So, what caused it all to start in the first place? The short answer is Stalin But there's more behind the story than just that During the soviet unions existence The Aral Sea alone provided 1/6th of all the fish in the country And employed more than 40,000 people but a few poor decisions ended up erasing this entire natural landmark and all of those jobs from the surface of the Earth You see, this guy named Stalin became the leader of the USSR And he believed that his government could transform nature itself to benefit his people There are two rivers that used to feed the Aral Sea The Amu Darya in the south And the Syr Darya in the east Stalin's plan was to have his engineers divert water from both of these rivers by digging canals towards new fields that would be planted across Uzbekistan That would begin growing cotton The plan was to make cotton a major Soviet export at any cost And little regard was given to what would happen to the Aral and the community surrounding it And for a time, it kind of worked By 1988, Uzbekistan became the world's largest producer of cotton And the Soviets were exporting it across the world But it was coming at a massive cost Those canals that the Soviets began finishing in the 1960's were not only taking enormous amounts of water from the lake but they were also insanely inefficient and leaked constantly As a result, the fourth largest lake in the world began steadingly drying up By 1998, it had shrunk to just 60 percent of its original size And by 2004, it was down to only 25 percent of its original size But in addition to this, the other half of the disaster was the rapidly increasing levels of salt that the lake was getting What remained of the lake in 2004 was five times saltier than it was back in the 1960's Which meant that basically the entire ecosystem and the creatures that once lived in and around it were gone the larges coastal port town named Heralsk That was the center of the lake's fishing economy was now located over a hundred kilometers away from the water and was surrounded by dried up, worthless land As the lake receded further, it created a new gigantic desert instead, covered in salt that made it worthless for things like agriculture But that's still not the end of the tragedy Because the lake was often used as a dumping ground for toxic chemicals and weapons for decades, too Now with the lake bed exposed those chemicals and weapons were just sitting out in the open and the winds have began kicking all of this up into huge toxic dust storms that ravage across the landscape Life around the former Aral Sea today, is a harsh one. Infant moratlity is very high, at 75 deaths per 1,000 births If the Aral Sea region were its own country, that would be the fifth worst rate in the world Even worse than countries like Nigeria or Mali The cotton boom that was once exploding in Uzbekistan has been challenged by the rampant dust storms that deposity salt and toxins across their fields Even more water is being used from the Aral Sea rivers to wash away the salt and the lake is just a fraction of what it once was Down to only 10% of its original size now There are plans to revive the lake In both Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan but so far the legacy of bad soviet engineering policy still looms high over the lives of those who still live here and haven't fled from one of the worst cobra effects in history If you want to become an engineer that will hopefully work on more successful projects in the future Two things you absolutely need a solid grasp on are math and physics And Brilliant is a great place to quickly learn about both because their courses breakdown concepts into their intuitive principles and then build them back up so you aren't simply memorizing things You're understanding them instead Whether you want help with understanding the way engineers think through courses like calculus, classical mechanics, or you're interested in other interesting stuff like logic, probablility, computer science, or more They really put a ton of effort into making each and every class as perfect as can be and best of all, you can sign up for brilliant at brilliant.org/RealLifeLore and get access to some courses for free and then, by being one of the first 200 people to use that same link in the description you'll also get 20% off whenever you upgrade to premium And you'll also be helping to support RealLifeLore at the same time Thanks for watching, and I'll see you again next week
I have been lucky enough to visit the Aral sea, its surreal. The coastal town of Moynak is an empty shell, boats just laying in the desert rotting. Tourists are free to climb up them and explore.
Whats left of the lake is really salty. Just a quick 30 second dip and once you dry off you are covered in salt.
In the middle of the desert you are looking at coastal cliffs and if you grab a handful of sand you just have a hand full of sea shells and not a drop of water to be seen for miles.
Its really quite sad, but the view of the night sky when camping is incredible.
Sorry, we ?
Very annoying presentation and voice, but actually quite good information.
Here's a short BBC video about the lake.
Man cannot survive without nature. Nature would flourish without man.
coTTOn
"This guy named Stalin" It's as if they just read a wiki page and decided to make a video.
Jesus fucking Christ
Sylvester Stallone knows a lot about cobra effects.😉
Russia is the fuck up older brother of humanity