How the Soviets Transformed Nature (and failed miserably) | Earth Explained!
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- čas přidán 20. 04. 2023
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The Aral Sea was once the fourth largest lake on Earth. But in just over 40 years, this vast body of water almost completely dried up. Now, the exposed lakebed causes devastating effects across Central Asia, from dust storms to melting glaciers. It’s an environmental disaster - and entirely man-made.
The Aral Sea dried up when its source rivers were diverted to feed Soviet cotton plantations in the 1960s. But this was just part of Stalin’s plan to change Russia’s climate, using techniques from tree planting to “nuclear landscaping”. We look at the catastrophic consequences and the lessons they can teach us for the future.
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Hawaii has to be the worst form of measurement I have seen. Other than that great video.
That is a crazy story! Thanks for the hard work!
Isn't it?! Thank you for watching it!
The best thing about the past is that we can learn to not make those mistakes in the future.
Also as an Italian i really appreciate the wonderful pronunciation at 3:37!
That's true! Grazie mille!
I remember in the 1980s the geography books we used at school showed the Aral sea as it's full size!!!! Then once I was older and the internet was invented... I saw it's true size..... Gone!
Hi Allen!
It must be crazy to have followed it until it disappeared!
How they ever thought it would work.. the audacity..
Insane, right?!
It wasn't all that audacious, IMO - the U.S. had Project Plowshare in the 1950's, 60's and 70's that detonated test nukes for "peaceful construction". Some PP proposed projects were rerouting water transport in California; creating a deep water harbor in Alaska; widening the Panama Canal; clearing a path through a mountain range to build a new Interstate highway; creating an alternate seaway to the Suez Canal; extracting natural gas through fracking; etc.
@@johnmcgimpsey1825 Figures that this wasn’t the first time using nukes to do landscaping…
Why even bother making a video about Stalins aforestation plan if you don't bother going through how the project actually developed?
Planting trees around farmed areas on a steppe prone to droughts and soil erosion is not an expression of dictatorial megalomania or wanting to "change the climate", it is a common method for soil preservation, widely used in the United States after the dust bowl.
Don't make videos of complex things outside of you own main area if you have no ambition to do more than five minutes of research on them. 0/10 points.
You messed up Stalin's "Great Plan for the Transformation of Nature" with Khrushchev's "Virgin Lands campaign". Those are separate projects.
The soviets lofty goals of terrain sculpting were only the most disastrous outgrowth of an ideological trend in "western" governments that started in France under Lewis XIV. That is, the idea that the state can and should dominate and subject the land and geography into the plans and objectives of the government and its backers. I like to think of myself a socialist of sorts and I think there's some things to be said for the existence of workplace democracy and central planning in the USSR but their disastrous environmental record speaks to a broader problem of their inability to fully free themselves of the ideological assumptions of the monarchs and capitalists they overthrew.
That's nonsense. The very core of socialism (even though many socialists refuse to see it) is reflected in this attempt toward total control of man's living environment, just like it was total control of the economy. It's the heart of utopianism which is the enemy of liberal democracy, which in turn is the TRUE enemy of the overthrown monarchs of previous eras.
Liberal democracy accepts that the world is chaotic and uncontrollable, as is the economy, and things will never be entirely perfect, flat, and utopian; the best we can do is to allow people some freedom within this chaotic world in order to adapt to its fluctuations. Socialism wants to create a perfect structure where everything is equal, which can never exist in a "natural" environment, because nature by itself is the antithesis of utopian perfect order.
Utopian socialism will always at some point be at odds with nature itself.
No nuance! Nuance bad! Stalin bad!
Didn’t you know, life is like Star Wars or a marvel movie, there has to be a bad guy that we can blame!
@@Xloi63 Stalin bad, yes.
Just a few days prior I learned that during the cold war, there was a policy of nukes for peace, with ideas such as nuking a national park in England to create gas storage or nuking the Sahara to create an inland sea, I was wondering if the soviet block had something similar in mind and they didn't disappoint XD
Hi Salvador!
Omg, "nukes for peace", the name already sounds insane 😅
Amazing story , i seen another video with this story before .
This whole thing could cause conflict in the future in central Asian !
Thank you.
Thank you for watching our videos :)
Please make a video on the wildlife ( mainly the cape buffaloes ) of Manda bay . Manda Bay is an island surrounded by sea . Animals on that island survive with the help of humans ( Manda bay lodge authorities and donations ) . It is an interesting topic. Your video could attract attention and may even help Manda bay lodge authorities to get some more donations to support wildlife on that island.
Thanks for the suggestion, we will pass it own to the team!
That’s really cool, but those technically aren’t wild life. They are pets
@@rmf9567 You can't call them pets . You can call them semi wild .
@@a.i2625 I was joking 🙃 your right
Would it have worked if he just planted the trees or if he wanted cotton maybe green house structures would have been a bit more reliable?
What were the consequences of afforestation?
Wikipedia's very short article only says the water retention improved nearby crop yields.
Holy shit. So Russia actually almost wiped China off the map... And now they want to work together. Yeah, that's a great idea guys, you two work so well together! lol
😅
They almost had a nuclear war,too
Hey, Terra Mater! As one not given to miss one of your uploads, I thought it important to convey that it took six days for this to appear on my side recommendations (and with no appearance on homepage). Algorithmic woes must be bested. Just this moment I see in side recommendations a crocodile cave video from you that failed to show itself before now. That's where I'll be headed.
Rest assured that thy comments doth bring us great delight and comfort, for we value them more than words can express. But alas, we must confess that we struggle to fathom the inner workings of CZcams's algorithm, for it is a mystery beyond our mortal comprehension.
that was a good video. i wounder after 50 years from now which videos show the disasters caused by so called clean energy sources!!
We're glad you enjoyed the video!
Teamwork matters..
Super interesting video. Crazy how much damage human interventions into nature can cause
Hi Mariella! It's crazy! Thanks for watching it! 🤗
We often think we know all there is to know when we do stuff like this but in reality we will never know or fully understand the intricacies of Mother Nature. The list of “great ideas” going awry with nature is too damn long! We really need to stop trying to Tetris our way through every inch of the earth to make it how we want it; we aren’t the only inhabitants on earth, and we’ve done waaaay more harm than good. Tl;dr: humans - especially those in charge - suck.
Comrades ☕
🚩
"bigger than belgium and hawaji combined". Thanks, that helped alot?
The Great Man theory of history prevails again.
This is a deeply unserious way of framing this story.
How so? I have no previous knowledge of this series of events and only know what I’ve just heard in this video. Would appreciate it if you could elaborate, potentially correcting a mistake, which I’m sure that the ones behind the video would like to be able to remedy, if necessary.
If I was the premier and my goal was to boost central Asian economies I would just had propped up the aral sea fishing industry, providing an economy boost while having reserves of food by doing fish farms there while at the same time keeping the aral sea maybe at most build a dam in between but not that big so the aral sea could still be big this way providing hydroelectricity, and a reservoir while at the same time build canning factories there to make CA a booming fishing economy, not have a commie climate change dream
I comment for the CZcams gods .
CZcams's gods thanked you for this comment
complete insanity.
Totally! 🤯
What's worst is the Iraq government won't let anyone's ideas to refill the Euphrates river
Hello from Russia !!!👍👍👍
Hello from Austria!
@@terramater Austria - isit very beuteaful country 👍👍👍🌄🤝🤝🤝
Thank you!
What madness 🤦♂
Totally! 🤯
Excellent video.
Incidentally, this is also why planned economies don't work. Total control is not only unattainable but undesirable.
Thanks for the feedback and for watching our videos 🤗
Too long. Just give us facts. Let us give opinion.
Damn, these Soviet plans were complete bonkers 😮
Crazy!
When the Soviets do it, it's megalomania
When the Americans do it, it's ambition
THANKS
Okay, name a similar project by the US which was called ambitious but ended up in a environmental disaster.
What are you comparing this project to?
There were a few crazy projects proposed, but none of them were green-lit.
At least the Americans had ethical limits and understood landowner ship.
Narrator voice is terrible, and rest of the video is awesome
I feel like Gorbachev was the only General Secretary with a brain, and maybe a heart.
Gorbachev in the hell
Megalomania likes how the Dutch fighted the ocean?
well they didn't want to nuke the ocean
Whataboutism, the tankie's bread and butter.
Commies doing horrible things in the name of Communism, nothing new here folks lmao
Anyway great video, didn't know about the Glasnost bit tho
Gorbachev was the only descent Russian leader that the USSR had
thank god capitalism is saving the environment
No, no, guys, their elite would never say all for communisn, but the idea is for
All belong for the country
All for nation
All for the advantage of our government.
And all in fact is for the benefits of some elites group of their own, but by the name of mass of people.
Many can be sacrificed as long as the elites group of their own advanced and they have countries as their own for their protection🛡️
@@EranBZD nope, no, not capitalism, not industrialism, we must put some good to what they're to be used.
When we need capital and business, ask capitalism and industrialism
When we need to manage our nature, ask naturalist, they're very good to understand how it works, for example like naturalist from UK🇬🇧.
And if I need to understand about government system, I will never trust to absolute power, because I'm only trust the absolute to the CREATOR of universe, from all laws in nature, in physics, and what already works in this universe😊
Crazy, right?! Thanks for the feedback and for watching it!
Hard to understand this guy
I hope the next video is about America blowing up the Nord Stream pipeline. It is easily an even worse geological pollution event, maybe the worst in known history
You mean Putin blowing up the pipelines because that's what Russian invaders do
Nope. First of all it is by far less catastrophic than the aral sea and it is not even clear who has done it. It might have been America but it could just as likely have been Russia. Stop your propaganda.
I feel like this subject has been treated differently because it was the Soviets. Cold War has ended, you don't need to do propaganda anymore.
I hope all the socialists watching this episode take note what happens without democracy.
Yea , I'm all for criticism and learning from mistakes, but this video is 70% using adjectives like "gigantic" death cycle, "megalomaniac", etc. etc.
I liked this channel but if it is going to be another propaganda outlet lemme know so I can unsubscribe.
❄️
See yourself out, tankie.
What's wrong?
The scale and very large region and also the projects is really mega, not just some kilometers project, and it affects some wide mass destruction
Those words completely fit the plans and the outcomes described in the video so I'm not sure what you're on about.
Journalism bias is calculated in how many adjectives there are, and how superlative they are. This video is full of it. But idk if it's worth for me trying to teach u common sense
Terra Matter is far worse today than it was 2 years ago
That’s very sad to hear 😔