On Landscape and Atmosphere

Atmosphere Project

GSD 02450 On Landscape and Atmosphere The Soviet Union : Revolutionary Ideas For Climate Change Ken Chongsuwat

wrote scientists Lyn Margolis and Dorian Sagan. This meant that we humans, were

War on Climate

a container of the sun, we live and transfer

Surviving Russia’s harsh climate

energy from the sun to the earth.

conditions has always been part of the Russian culture, identity, and ideology. Roughly

63 percent of the the Russian hemisphere is

ing to earthly matter the cosmic energies of

buried under permafrost. While Soviet Rus-

the sun.”1 This ideology provoked the lead-

sia has been blessed with one of the largest

er of the Soviet union of that time, Joseph

land mass of any nation in the world, much

Stalin. Galvanized by the idea that Russian

of it rich in resource, putting that land to

land could be transformed, he felt that it

use was stunningly difficult.

was the role of the Soviet people and its

“ We have a saying in Russian: we cannot

nation to take matters in their own hands

wait for charity from nature, our task is to take it.”

This ideology has been present

from the early 1800’s to today. Attempts

to transform these harsh conditions. 1948 “In the Name of Communism” shows Lenin on the left, indicating on a map where the first Soviet hydroelectric plants would be built, and Stalin on the right, showing on another map the location for the construction of a new canal bisecting Turkmenistan. The map on the wall behind Stalin depicts the afforestation efforts of the Great Stalin Plan. Credit: Viktor Ivanovich Govorkov, 1951.

for climate control were present throughout

during the expansion of the Soviet Union

shape the 8 million sqm. nation.

or during the Cold War. A book published

“ According to the fantastic map,

all major rivers had been dammed; a vast ir-

by Russian geochemist and mineralogist

rigation system spread into fertile but arid

Vladimir Ivanovich Vernadsky in 1926 ti-

land of the Southern steppe; hydroelectric

tled “The Biosphere”, depicts the scientific

power stations were distributed liberally;

framework of the Soviet’s attitude towards

huge reservoirs filled up behind them; ca-

humans relationship with nature. He be-

nals and locks guaranteed ease of inland wa-

lieved that life itself was a geological force

ter transport; scores of “forest belts’, dozens

and that humans had a special role. The

of kilometers long and several hundred me-

“geosphere contained earth, rock, and wa-

ters wide, ringed land that has been plagued

ter; while the “biosphere,” contained living

by constant dry winds but now would be

creatures.. 1Human lives and progress were

fertile and lush. Nature, like the Russian

basically a result of the transforming of the

peasantry, bourgeoisie, and society itself,

energies of the Sun.

would succumb to the party’s will.”

“As Darwin showed all life de-

scended froma remote ancestor, so Ver-

nadsky showed all life descended from a re-

This project will explore three proj-

ects that represents this ideology, present in

mote ancestor, so Vernadsky showed all life

Stalin’s plan during and after his reign.

inhabited place” 1. 1 pg 82 Hack the Planet)

Party instructing directions to drastically re-

the plan in 2003:

funded with the idea of power in mind

a plan was passed by the Soviet Communist

Paul Josphson and Thomas Zeller describes

the Soviet Unions reign. Whether military

This poster reads “And We Shall Conquer Drought” and shows Stalin with a green pencil, remaking the landscape as he draws in the new forests that would change the Russian climate. Credit: Viktor Ivanovich Govorkov, 1949.

“Life was single entity transform-

Former Soviet Union Permafrost regions 1984 Source: CIA - Central Intelligence Agency

1( 1 pg 82 Hack the Planet)

Time Line

Space Race

To understand how these utopian

World War I saw innovations no-

projects the Soviet Union designed we had

body dreamed of such as an automatic ma-

to understand the context of when it was de-

chine gun, World War II arguably brought

signed as well as what influenced it.

us out of the Great Depression, and the Cold War brought about a new age of technology that would forever impact world, such as the first man into space, the xray, and first man to step on the moon. While America was creating technology to counter Russia, Russia was innovating before America could counter. One of the most famous

Ring of Potassium M. Gorodsky 1958

Mitrofan Davydov 1949 KGB Soviets Explode First Atomic Bomb 1947

Curtain Wall Speech 1947

Battle of Kiev 1943

Marx / Engels

1800’s

established 1954

Yuri Gagarin First man in space 1961

Invention of Transistor Churchill 1947

Soviet Army Invation of Poland 1939

WWII

parts of the Cold War was the Space Race.

Bering Strait

Petr Mikhailovich Borisov 1960

Aral Sea

Sputnik Launch 1957

JFK elected 1957

End of World War II 1943

While the US might have won the race to the moon, Russia had beat the US to space

SALT I Signed 1971

First Man on the Moon 1969

first. In 1957 Russia launched the first satSALT II Signed 1979

ellite, Sputnik. Later in the year, Sputnik II

End of Soviet Union Remove of all 1991 nuclear missles 1987 Berlin Wall Falls 1989

was launched with a dog that survived for ten days in space. In 1961, Russia made a

Cold War

great leap in the Space Race: Yuri Gagarin 1917

1920

1924

1939

1941

1945

1947

1953

1960

became the first human in space. Other in-

1991

Nikolai Voznesensky

Vladimir Lenin

Vyacheslav Molotov

Joseph Stalin

Nikolai Bulganin Georgy Malenkov

Nikita Khrushchev

novations and advances include a satellite

Mikhail Gorbachevz

that took the first pictures of the dark side of the moon, the first satellites to take pictures

Time line of events precedding, during, and after the selected projects of study. Including leader during the time and other notable figures.

Image from: Graphic Engine, accessed Nov 16,

of Venus, and the first orbit around Earth.

The technology of the Cold War

was both intimidating and awe-inspiring.

The nuclear development could wipe out whole countries, and the unusable items became household appliances that people used to ease everyday life. This interest in space and astronomy allowed massive fundings to support utopian projects found in this study such as the “Ring of Potassium”.

SSP (The Soviet Space program) official photo

Ring of Potassium

Russian atmospheric scientist and

engineers dreamed of ways to control the climate whether it be rain, snow, fog, or hail.

They believed that they were “Merely on the threshold of the conquest of nature”. Radical projects involving Russians obsession with astronomy, climate, and science were present throughout the 1950’s.

In 1958 Russian engineers Gor-

dosky and Cherenkov proposed a project that would create ring of metallic potassium around the earth, similar to the one circulating Saturn. The ring would be put around Earth’s polar orbit to diffuse light reaching Earth and reflect additional solar energy to Earth thus melting most of the permafrost in the Russian hemisphere as well as Canada and Alaska. Nikolai Rusin and Liya Flit describes the ring in their 1960 book titled “ Man versus climate”, “Shaped like a flat washer whose lower boundary would be 1.200 kilometers from the surface of Earth, with its upper boundary line at an altitude Ring of Potassium Illustration Man vs. Nature

of 10,00 kilometers”. The ring theoretically would be made up of metallic potassium particles a thousand times large than air molecules which will disperse light 1000 times more effectively. This will reduce the solar radiation while increasing the amount of diffusion and will gain a diffuse of light by 12 percent. Consequently the summers will become warmer and seasons will not be much different from each other, permafrost would disappear. Ice of Alaska and Antarctica will melt and temperature will be as warm as Moscow.

“the associated producers [can] govern the human metabolism with nature in a rational

Marxism

way, bring it under their collective control

Unity of humankind and nature

instead of being dominated by it as a blind power”.1

“From the standpoint of higher

economic forms of society, private owner-

ship of the globe by single individuals will

tween humanity and the environment must

appear quite as absurd as private ownership

again become “a regulative law of social pro-

of one man by another. Even a whole soci-

duction”. He declared that the “conscious

ety, a nation, or even all simultaneously ex-

and rational treatment of the land as eter-

isting societies taken together, are not own-

nal communal property” is “the inalienable

ers of the globe. They are only its possessors

condition for the existence and reproduc-

… they must hand it down to succeeding Karl Marx Credit: Harvard Art Mueseum

tion of the chain of human generations”,

generations in an improved condition.”

i.e., sustainable development.2

Contrary to the repeated asser-

tions by some environmental movement

nature “requires something more than mere

well aware of and respectful of humanity’s

knowledge. It requires a complete revolu-

interconnectedness with the environment,

tion in our hitherto existing mode of pro-

and they recognised that it was essential for

duction, and simultaneously a revolution in

socialism to be ecologically sustainable.

our whole contemporary social order.”3

At the beginning of Chapter 7

of Volume I of Capital, Marx provides an important analysis of the labour process: “Labour is, first of all, a process between man and nature, a process by which man, through his own actions, mediates, regulates and controls the metabolism between himself and nature. He confronts the materials of nature as a force of nature.”

To simultaneously put an end to

the capitalist plunder of the environment and the working people, to “systematically restore” the “metabolism”, Marx urged a social revolution that would abolish private ownership. Marx wrote in Capital that only

Engels in the Dialectics of Nature

agreed. To “regulate” our relationship with

theorists, Marx and Engels were personally

This symbiotic relationship be-

“Man lives from nature — i.e., nature is his body — and he must maintain a continuing dialogue with it if he is not to die. To say that man’s physical and mental life is linked to nature simply means that nature is linked to itself, for man is a part of nature. And that we, with flesh, blood, and brain, belong to nature, and exist in its midst, and that all our mastery of it consists in the fact that we have the advantage over all other beings of being able to know and correctly apply its laws.”

—Karl Marx, Economic and Philosophical Manuscripts of 1844

The Great Stalin Plan

Bering Strait

Iin the early 1920s and reached

Today we fear climate change, we

its zenith in 1948 with the “Great Stalin

fear a warm melted arctic, we fear global

Plan for the Transformation of Nature,” the

warming. The Soviets did not, they dreamt

world’s first state-directed effort to reverse

of it. At the height of the Cold War, the So-

human-induced climate change.

viet Union was trying to pit its land against the United States more temperate climate,

“Let’s Remake Nature According to Stalin’s Plan” and shows Stalin explaining the Great Stalin Plan to a pair of workers. Behind Stalin, the forests described in the plan are already in place, surrounding the collective farm fields. Credit: Viktor Semenovich Ivanov, 1949.

Charles Ziegler, in Environmental

but with 65 percent of the land in perma-

Policy in the USSR, writes that, like many

frost they needed a solution. Could it be the

Soviet initiatives that “display a seemingly

climate? The Soviet then found itself engag-

boundless confidence in the inventive ca-

ing in a war with climate, pitching human

pacities of humankind to overcome inherent

versus the frozen Earth and wind and the

limitations of the physical environment,”

Cold War was fueling the funds.

the Great Stalin Plan was a “Grandiose attempt to improve on the natural environ-

ment.”1 Likewise, Philip Pryde’s Conser-

century Soviet geoengineers have been

vation in the Soviet Union con- tends that “the ‘Great Plan’ clearly reflected the view of man as the master and perfector of his natural environment, rather than as an in-

What Mankind needs is a war against cold rather than a ‘cold’ war.” - P.M. Borisov

Since the beginning of the 19th

ambitiously proposing mega projects that would alter the cold reality. One of the most ambitious one was by Soviet scientist Petr Mikhailovich Borisov, a dam spanning

tegral and inter- dependent component of

the 75 kilometer Bering Strait that will

it” and that the plan “may be considered as

pump cold Arctic water into the pacific,

indicative of Stalin’s basically domineering

while pulling warmer Atlantic water into

attitude towards natural resource exploita-

the Arctic basin melting the Arctic Ocean

tion and conservation.

forever.

This idea was not exclusive to the

Soviet Union, he proposed that it was a joint venture not only with the United States( President John F. Kennedy was to have been considered joining the soviets on the idea) but also with Canada, Japan, and Northern Europe, he believed that all of them would benefit from the warmer climate. He also believed that this would propose diplomacy between the nations. According to Borisov “We Are Sowing Life!”, shows a Soviet soldier giving instructions to a worker about the planting of new forests. The bottom panel, captioned “They Are Sowing Death!”, shows a cigar-smoking capitalist dictating to a general where new military bases should be built. Credit: Mikhail Cheremnykh, 1949.

4

“We Are Sowing Life!”, shows a Soviet soldier giving instructions to a worker about the planting of new forests. The bottom panel, captioned “They Are Sowing Death!”, shows a cigar-smoking capitalist dictating to a general where new military bases should be built. Credit: Mikhail Cheremnykh, 1949.

he mentions that,

“When this warming up occurs,

“For until we know a law of nature, it, ex-

and the ice of the cold war melts, broad vis-

isting and acting independently and out-

tas for teamwork in warming up the eternal

side our mind, makes us slaves of “blind

ice of the Arctic Ocean will open too. How

necessity.” But once we come to know this

close together the common struggle for

law, which acts independently of our will

such a great humanitarian cause as discov-

and our mind, we become the masters of

ering for mankind new powerful sources of

nature. The mastery of nature manifested

warmth and life will bring our peoples.”

in human practice is a result of an objectively correct reflection within the human

The project was a radical version of

head of the phenomena and processes of

remaking the world. The temperature of the

nature, and is proof of the fact that this

air and water would be uniformly higher,

reflection is objective, absolute, and eter-

the sharp contrast between north and south would disappear and the polar ice would melt. These were beliefs that stemmed from the idea that “ If we want to improve our planet and make it more suitable for life, we

Bering Strait, Flow map Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, Jack Cook

“When this warming up occurs, and the ice of the cold war melts, broad vistas for teamwork in warming up the eternal ice of the Arctic Ocean will open too.” - P.M. Borisov

must alter its climate. Just as today we plan the construction of new cities, creation of new seeds, conquest of space, so in the future we shall have to plan improvements in the climate.” Rusin and Flit

It was considered a possibility that

the project could have been started if Borisov would of been closer to Stalin. However, we may still see the results of a thawed ArcBering Strait, Flow map Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, Jack Cook

tic, however. Russia’s permafrost may shrink by as much as 30 percent by mid-century, which tracks with all the other estimates that the Arctic will be ice-free at least part of the year by 2050. So while Borisov’s plan to melt the Arctic with a giant dam may have been impossible, humans have still found a way.

Bering Strait iluustration of proposed dam June 1956 issue of Popular Mechanics

nal truth.”

Vladmir Lenin (Ibid. pp. 192-3.)

Aral Sea

Canals : Modifying the Atmosphere

In the 1960’s the Soviet engineers

still hung on the ideology of Stalins war on

nature, embarked on one of the worlds larg-

the Great Fergana Canal zthrough the early

est projects of all time. The expedition led by

1960s when the Karakum Canal was com-

Mitrofan Davydov & under the Soviet gov-

pleted, large amounts of water was diverted

ernment was determined to make the entire

from the Syr Darya and Amu Darya, the

region a large-scale independent cotton or

two rivers running into the Aral Sea, to ir-

“white gold” exporter. Part of the Soviets

rigate the expanding cotton fields of Soviet

elaborate program was to consolidate and

Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan. The mentali-

reclaim plots to increase the size of irrigated

ty behind these projects was exemplified in a

fields.

speech by its first secretary, Usman Iusupov,

From 1939 with the opening of

in 1939. Iusupov stated,

The government decided the two

rivers that fed the Aral Sea, the Amu Darya

in the south and the Syr Darya in the north-

that the Amu Darya, abounding in water, de-

east, would be diverted away to irrigate the

posits it without benefit into the Aral Sea while

desert, in an attempt to grow agriculture

our Samarkand and Bukhara oblast lands are

Motivations for this monoculture were in-

insufficiently irrigated. Our task is to bridle

fluenced by political means; not only did the

the Syr Darya and Amu Darya, firmly grasp

Soviet want to erase dependence on foreign

them in our hands, and make their water serve

cotton, but it also sought to demonstrate

the interests of socialism, the growth of the ma-

its ability, through hard work, to “develop

terial level of the population, and the develop-

a glittering southern showcase of socialism”.

ment of the country.”

“We cannot be content with the fact

This temporarily succeeded, and in 1988 Top : The location of the Former Soviet Central Asia in Eurasia (the outline of the United States is shown for size comparison). Numbers indicate: 1. Kazakstan, 2. Uzbekistan, 3. Kyrgyzstan, 4. Tajikistan, 5.

Turkmenistan, 6. Aral Sea (Source: U.S. Dept. of State. “The New States of Central Asia,” INR/GE, 2351, 1993) Bottom: Central Asia Map Credit: MapCruzin

Uzbekistan was the world’s largest exporter

The Karakum Canal has been the

of cotton.

single most important factor contributing to the diminution of inflow to the Aral in

The Aral Sea now represents one

recent decades. The largest and longest irri-

of the Soviet Union’s worst environmental

gation canal in the Soviet Union, it stretches

catastrophes. With the Sea having shrunk

1300 km westward from the Amu Dar’ya

to one- fifth of its former size, the fishing

into the Kara-Kum Desert. All of the water

industry once supported by the Aral has been destroyed over the past 20 years. The shrinking of the Aral Sea has also compromised public health. The salty, exposed bed of the lake is prone to dust storms, which further salination and mix with toxic pesticide runoffs

Map of Aral Sea and Khanat of Khiva Credit: Yakov Khanikoff(1818-62) at 1851

sent along the Karakum Canal is lost to the Aral.

1

Dry Air

Prior to 1960, these oases sur-

rounded by desert not only possessed great ecological value because of the richness of

2

their flora and fauna but provided a natural feed base for livestock, spawning grounds for commercial fish, reeds harvested for in-

3

Turkemistan

dustry, and opportunities for commercial hunting and trapping. Deltaic environ-

Kazakstan

Aral Sea

ments deteriorated as river flow diminished and sea level fell, leading to the drying or entrenchment of distributary and even main

1

channels, the cessation of spring inundation of floodplains, and the shrinking or disap-

2

pearance of lakes.

Uzbekistan 3

Turkemistan

4

Kazakstan

minish as area decreases, pushing the water

China

5

Evaporative losses significantly di-

balance system toward equilibrium.

Native plant communities have

degraded and disappeared. Tugay forests, composed of dense stands of phreatophytes

Iran

mixed with shrubs and tall grasses fringing delta arms and channels to a depth of several

Afghanistan

kilometers, have particularly suffered.

Uzbekistan

dried out seabed that contained sulfates,

Legend

4

Aral Sea Basin Mountain Regions (+2000m)

5

phosphates, chlorinated hydrocarbons and

Irrigated Land

other toxic substances found in fertilizers

Irrigation Canals

and pesticides across a wide swathe of terri-

List of Irrigation Canals

3

Dust storms carried soil from the

1.Karakalpakstan Canal (7.9) 2.Dashoguz Canal (5.5) 3.Karakun Canal (11) 4. Amu-Bukhara Canal (5.2) 5.Karshi (4.19)

tory. Soaring rates of cancer, liver ailments, and other diseases were recorded in Uzbekistan’s Karakalpak Autonomous Republic.

The rate of infant mortality in Karakalpak -- 60/1000 live births in the late 1980s -was the highest in the Soviet Union.

The Aral drying affects tempera-

Celsius, and the average October tempera-

ture and moisture conditions in an adjacent

ture decreased 0.7 to 1.5 degrees Celsius.

stripe estimated to be 50 to 80 km wide on

This is the result of ignorance and a lack of

its north, east, and west shores and 200 to

understanding of ecological changes.

300 km wide to the south and southwest.

With contraction, the sea’s influence on

climate has substantially diminished. Sum-

was near zero, and the sea continues to rap-

mers have become warmer, winters cooler,

idly shrink and salinize.

spring frosts later, and fall frosts earlier, the growing season has shortened, humidity has Left: Landsat Sattelite image Aral Sea 1977, 1998, 2010 Credit: USGS Bottom:http://i1.wp.com/geography-today.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/03/aral-sea-desert6.jpg Right : 9 MODIS images show extent of Aral Sea from 2000 to 2013.

Credit: NASA

lowered. The most noticeable changes have occurred in the Amu Dar’ya Delta.The average May temperature rose 3 to 3.2 degrees

River inflow by the mid-1980s

Total Landscapes

The receding of the Aral Sea has

left behind a large amount of salt. While groundwater evaporation further increased the amount of salt from the exposed sea bed.

The strong north-easte winds now pick up the sand, salt, and dust, creating strong dust storms. Due to strong winds and flat topography of the area, the dust is distributed in areas far beyond the region - the dust from the Aral Sea region can be found as far as 500km away from the original source.

This phenomena in Uzbekistan is

affecting something so vast as earth’s climate.

The shrinking sea and salty dust storms have already changed the climate in the region to the point of an unlikely return to the stability once present in the area. With the shrinking sea there is not enough surface area to disrupt frigid north winds. Nor does the sea contribute the moisture it once did to the snowfall in mountains of neighboring and more distant regions. In addition to the temperature steadily increasing the dust and salt storms are coating the mountain glaciers Bottom: Sand storms in the Aral Sea http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Newsroom/NewImages/Images/ ISS015-E-07874_lrg.jpg

nearby and causing a decrease in the overall volume of ice. The degree of melting is over twelve times the rate of the pre-cotton growing era and as there is less moisture in the air to replace the melting snow the glaciers continues to diminish. As the glaciers continue to melt, it will be hard to return to the seasonal stability the area once was.

Cotton usually needs a warm climate to grow, which is why the Soviet Union decid-

The Cotton Landscape ed that Central Asia would be ideal as a hub for cotton production. But cotton is a very thirsty crop and growing it in the arid fields of the semi-desert region requires reliable flows of water.

While cotton is a thirsty crop, it is

not the reason it is taking up all the water in the region; the reason is inefficient water use, which is rampant in the region’s cotton fields. In some sites at least half the water being transported by irrigation canals simply seeps through the sand. Half of the water that remains is indiscriminately poured onto already waterlogged fields that either have insufficient drainage networks or lack them all together. This allows the excess water to evaporate from the land or seep into low-lying regions.

Turkmenistan and Kazakhstan,

is filled by the runoff of decrepit irrigation projects and waterlogged fields. Smaller lakes can be found near the irrigated fields, many of them permanent enough to have been given names by the locals. Most of the world’s irrigation networks include complex drainage systems to remove unwanted water and chemicals from fields, however the Soviet planners never had to the time, will or resource to buil these systems. This failure has resulted in the growth of heavily polluted brine lakes appearing in the desert landscape just as the waters of the Aral Sea receded miles from their former shores. Shockingly in all, less than 10 percent of the water taken from the Aral Sea Basin is of direct benefit

to cotton crops. The rest disappears through

As soil water decreases, transpiration falls

the sandy soil or evaporates.

below evaporative demand because the drying soil is unable to transmit water to the

Successful cultivation of cotton

requires a long frost-free period, plenty of

roots fast enough to meet the demand at the leaf surface.

sunshine, and a moderate rainfall, usually from 600 to 1,200 mm (24 to 47 in). Soils

usually need to be fairly heavy, although the

business amounts to 60 percent of exports

level of nutrients does not need to be ex-

and employs 40 percent of the workforce –

ceptional. In general, these conditions are

as well as consuming 90 percent of its water.

met within the seasonally dry tropics and

This means that the region is so dependant

subtropics in the Northern and Southern

on the cotton fields that the chance to re-

hemispheres, but a large proportion of the

turn the aral sea to its original state might be

cotton grown today is cultivated in areas

challenge both politically and economically.

with less rainfall that obtain the water from irrigation.

Since cotton is somewhat salt and

drought tolerant, this makes it an attractive crop for arid and semiarid regions. As water resources get tighter around the world, economies that rely on it face difficulties and conflict, as well as potential environmental problems.The dryer and hotter the climate is, the more water the plant must transpire to keep cool and produce biomass.

While climate (i.e., the level of

air temperature, humidity, cloudiness or radiation, and wind speed) determines the demand for water (called evaporative demand), soil water dictates how much water can be supplied to the plant roots to meet the evaporative demand.

In Uzbekistan today, the cotton

Landscape Atmosphere

The shrinking of the sea has also

affected the overall climate of the surrounding region in both temperature and humidity. The shrinking of the sea directly accounts for 50% to 66% –this proportion varies with pressure and seasons and remains high– of the warming trend. In the period from 1960 to 2000, the average monthly air temperature has increased by 2°C to 6°C in the summer above and around the Sea. The resuls are shorter and hotter summers, longer and colder winters, and a decrease in precipitations.

The most noticeable changes have

occurred in the Amu Dar’ya Delta. At Kungrad, now located about 100 km south of the Aral, comparison of the period 1935 to 1960 with that of 1960 to 1981 indicates that relative humidity diminished substantially, the average May temperature rose 3 to 3.2 degrees Celsius, and the average October temperature decreased 0.7 to 1.5 degrees Celsius (l3). The growing season in the northern Amu Dar’ya Delta has been reduced an average of 10 days, forcing some cotton plantations to switch to rice growing.

By 1993 the Aral Sea had lost an estimated

Sensorial Maps

60% of its volume, in the process breaking

Kazakhstan is known for its topo-

ment selected is the north section. The re-

graphical variation. Most of the country

ceding shoreline has left the former port of

lies at between 200 and 300 meters above

Aral’sk more than seventy kilometers from

sea level, but Kazakhstan’s Caspian shore

the water’s edge. The depletion of this large

includes some of the lowest elevations on

body of water has increased temperature

Earth.

variations in the region, which in turn have

into three unconnected segments, the seg-

had an impact on agriculture.

Portions of water body which flow

through Kazakhstan and all of Kazakhstan’s

rivers and streams are part of landlocked systems. Many rivers, streams, and lakes Title in Russian. (Touristic Map of Kazakhstan, USSR) General Directorate of Surveying and Cartography of the Soviet Ministry.

1988

Contour Map

Also the salt- and pesticide-laden

soil that the wind is known to carry as far away as the Himalaya Mountains and the

are seasonal, evaporating in summer. This

Pacific Ocean. The topography as shown

allows the evaporated water bodis to create

here has encouraged the north eastern winds

microclimates within the site. Water either

to blow through the relatively lowlands into

flows into isolated bodies of water such as

the mountains as mentioned.

the Caspian Sea or simply disappear into the steppes and deserts of central and southern

Deposition of this heavily saline soil with

Kazakhstan.

help of the winds have landed on nearby fields which essentially sterilizes them. Stud-

Total Irrigated Land

ies show that salts, pesticides, and residues

20,660 km2 (2011)

of chemical fertilizers which are collected on the irrigated fields as shown on the map are Water Evaporation map

also adversely affecting human life around the former Aral Sea, which has a medium to low density as shown in the large map; this causes infant mortality in the region approaches 10% compared with the 1991 national rate of 2.7%.

The steppes of central Kazakshtan (Akmola Province), as seen from a train approaching Astana from the north. The picture taken about 30 min before reaching Astana station., Vmenkov

Hill Shade Map

Bibliography Chapter 1: Cultural, technological and environmental contexts http://russiatrek.org/blog/art/propaganda-posters-of-soviet-space-program-part-2/ Lucian Boia, The Weather in the Imagination James Rodger Fleming, Fixing the sky N.Rusin, L. Flit, Man Versus Climate

Chapter 2: Designers’ claims related to atmosphere, “airscape,” weather or climate Derek Mead, The Soviet Scientist Who Dreamed of Melting the Arctic with a 55 Mile Dam Stephen Brain, “The Great Stalin Plan for the Transformation of Nature,” http://www.jasondmacleod.com/marx-capitalism-globalization-climate-change-revolutionary-ideas-climate-change-mitigation/ http://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2009/12/ etnb-d22.html Macro-engineering Seawater in Unique Environments: Arid Lowlands and Water Bodies Rehabilitation Viorel Badescu Richard Cathcart http://climateandcapitalism. com/2009/03/02/karl-marx-ecologist/ P.M. Borisov, “Can we Control the Arctic Climate?”, Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, March, 1969, pp. 43-48.

Eli Kintisch, Hack the planet : science’s best hope-- or worst nightmare-- for averting climate catastrophe

Chapter 3: Taxonomies-Typological investigation and resulting effects/ affects Peter O. Zavialov, Physical Oceanography of the Dying Aral Sea Petr T., Ismukhanov K., Kamilov B., Pulatkhon D. & Umarov P.D. ,Irrigation Systems and Their Fisheries in the Aral Sea Basin, Central Asia Igor Zinn, “The impact of political ideology on creeping environmental changes in the Aral Sea basin,” chap. 8 inCreeping Environmental Problems and Sustainable Development in the Aral Sea Basin, ed. Michael Glantz (West Nyack, NY: Cambridge University Press, 1999).

L. A. Alibekov and S. L. Alibekova, “The Socioeconomic Consequences of Desertification in Central Asia.” Herald of the Russian Academy of Sciences. 77. no. 3 (2007): 420-425.

Phillip Micklin, “The Aral Sea Disaster,” Annual Review of Earth and Planetary Sciences. 35. (2007): 47-72.

Philip Micklin, “Desiccation of the Aral Sea: A Water Management Disaster in the Soviet Union.” Science. 241. no. 4870 (1988): 1170-1176.

Chapter 4: “Total-Landscapes” – Relational drawings Ososkova, Tatyana, N. Gorelkin, and Victor Chub, “Water Resources of Central Asia and Adaptation Measures for Climate Change.” Environmental Monitoring and Assessment, Springer Netherlands, 2004.

O’Hara, L. S., et, “Exposure to airborn dust contaminated with pesticide in the Aral Sea region.” Lancet. 355, 627-628, 2000.

Molosnova, T.I., O.I. Subbotina, and S.N. Chanysheva. “Climatic Impacts of Anthropogenic Activity in Aral Sea Region.”

Gidrometeoizdat, Moscow 1987. p.119 (in Russian).

Ibragimov, N., et al. “Water Use efficiency of irrigated cotton in Uzbekistan under drip and furrow.” Agricultural Water Management. 90(1-2):112-120. Elsevier B.V, 2007. http://www.sciencedirect.com

Chapter 5: Bio-mapping / sensory-maps Glantz, Michael H. “Aral Sea Basin: A Sea Dies, a Sea Also Rises” Ambio. Stockholm: Jun 2007. Vol. 36, Iss. 4; p. 323. http://www.columbia.edu/~tmt2120/introduction.htm http://www.rusnature.info/ http://www.turkcebilgi.com/harita/kazakistan/harita-kazakistan