So, I've been going through several proposed Soviet Geo-Engineering plans, and I just read about this proposal to divert water from the Aral Sea into Uzbekistan. Apparently Stalin wanted to make use of the lands for agriculture, such as growing cotton. I think this would've made Uzbekistan a very rich and prosperous country from all of the agriculture it could export. How would this affect the USSR in the long run, and would Central Asia become richer if this plan ever came to fruition?
DBWI: Irrigated Central Asia
- Thread starter Kasu
- Start date
Considering the massive mercury poisoning of Central Asia in Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan, caused by their attempts to conduct "rain-seeding", I don't have much faith in the project or its ability not to provide an agricultural bounty for the region. Then again, the famine that took place in2008 would have been avoided....
Geo engineering works. Australia did the hydro and then eventually turned the rivers back. As an agricultural export economy Australia has a GDP/capita just below South Africa’s. There’s no reason it wouldn’t be just as successful in the Soviet Union. Shut up in advance Greenie scum, that’s current politics.
OOC: I think they are trying to establish the green movement as a discredited/outcasted political movement in this scenario.
Your callous disregrd for the logistics and planning concerns me. The USSR was a logistical nightmare that had moments of scientific WTFness as often as inventions. Assuming everything would go right and not cheap out or screw up in the end is reaching for the damn stars.
Ic: tree and desert loving city living wankers who think that cotton wasn’t worth some useless coastal rainforests.
Ooc: someone desperately supporting geoengineering as sensible and economic in a timeline where Australia turned the rivers back would be hyperdefensive and batshit insane. The plan was specced as hydro expensive. The spec was (as traditional in Australia) a massive underquote. It would have been environmentally and economically disastrous. Such a supporter of this is going to cut off their opposition before they talk, and do so with invective born from the indefensibility of their position. For assistance Australia’s current gdp/cap is USD53,799.94. South Africa’s is 6,160.73. Australia has a services economy supplemented by bulk ore export. The current politics would probably be around just how fucked coastal Queensland’s rivers would be.
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If I had to guess, it depends on how the soviets handled the two biggest challenges with geoengineering: evaporation and salination of the water due to the evaporation revealing and releasing minerals from the soil that the water then dissolves into it. These problems are compounded when the area is traditionally drier and water is scarce, since over doing it can lead to what our little Squanderer here will refuse to admit; it can utterly ruin what agriculture you do have and rapidly desertify regions that otherwise were better off.
Case in point, the Murray River going bone dry on the regular now due to all the evaporation and run off due to the cost cutting measures that Aussie contractors put in to match their super low underquote. A drip system similar to what China does in their western provinces in areas like Gansu or Qinghai for example would have helped quite a bit with evaporation at the very least. Larger amounts of desalinization plants would also be very useful, as what Libya and Egypt do.
The Soviets, given their track record with even simpler projects such as the Grand Electrification Program, would probably have screwed it up and nuked the fishing industry that makes up a good deal of the profit (and diet to a degree) for Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan. Heck, they almost did with their rainmaker program in the 1980s, since the run-off caused a pretty bad die-off of the fish population and polluted the water.
Case in point, the Murray River going bone dry on the regular now due to all the evaporation and run off due to the cost cutting measures that Aussie contractors put in to match their super low underquote. A drip system similar to what China does in their western provinces in areas like Gansu or Qinghai for example would have helped quite a bit with evaporation at the very least. Larger amounts of desalinization plants would also be very useful, as what Libya and Egypt do.
The Soviets, given their track record with even simpler projects such as the Grand Electrification Program, would probably have screwed it up and nuked the fishing industry that makes up a good deal of the profit (and diet to a degree) for Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan. Heck, they almost did with their rainmaker program in the 1980s, since the run-off caused a pretty bad die-off of the fish population and polluted the water.
Strangely enough, according to authors Kurt Vonnegut and Rachel Carson, the American and Soviet "cloud-seeding projects" of the 1950s/ 1960s were some of the primary reasons for the establishment of the dreaded "Greenie" movement. Consider that the "Second Dust Bowl" in the 1980s/ 1990s, caused by the soil contamination was the primary reason for the rise of leaders like Al Gore to pass legislation to protect national resources as a national insecurity issue...
As for the Soviets, it took the mass contamination of the waterways and soil, along with Chernobyl, to get the Soviets to admit to their situation. If it took Chernobyl and the Famine in Central Asia to admit to an environmental crisis, nothing less than the complete disappearance of the Aral Sea would have triggered the Soviets into taking action....
As for the Soviets, it took the mass contamination of the waterways and soil, along with Chernobyl, to get the Soviets to admit to their situation. If it took Chernobyl and the Famine in Central Asia to admit to an environmental crisis, nothing less than the complete disappearance of the Aral Sea would have triggered the Soviets into taking action....
Agriculture-based export economies never work out economically for the exporters in question. Especially cotton. It didn't work out for the American South, it didn't work out for Egypt or India. It's not going to work out for Uzbekistan. Diversification is key, and that means developing human and industrial capital and not just exporting cotton or palm oil.