by David Suzuki, PhD
Our little planet never ceases to amaze me. We keep kicking the stuffing out of her and she keeps finding a way to bounce back.
Look at the Aral Sea. Six years ago, I was there to film an episode of The Nature of Things. It was a sobering reminder of what happens when poor planning and mismanagement combine with blind ideology and a failure to respect biological limits.
Once, the Aral Sea was the world's fourth-largest inland body of water, teeming with fish and popular for recreation. But in the 1950s, the Soviet Union decided that the great plains around the sea were ideal for growing cotton on a massive scale, so it constructed a number of dams along the two main rivers feeding the sea - the Amu Darya and the Syr Darya. Water from those dams was diverted into a vast series of canals and used to irrigate crops.
Cut off from its water supply, the sea began to die. By the time of my visit, waters had receded so much that some fishing towns were more than 100 kilometres from the sea. In between was a scorched seabed, littered with the rusting hulks of ships. The sea itself had become saturated with poisonous runoff from the cotton fields and most of its fish species had died off.
Human health suffered the most, as dust storms whipped up pesticides and other toxins from the dry seabed. Tens of thousands of people fled the region. Those that stayed suffered from the world's highest incidence of tuberculosis and a host of other chronic illnesses. One pediatrician told me that nearly 90 per cent of the area's children suffered from serious ailments, including chronic bronchitis, infections and skin lesions.
But there is hope. Recently, the North Aral Sea has been showing signs of improvement, thanks to a rescue mission funded through the World Bank. After years of rehabilitation, including the construction of new dams, dykes and sluices to repair previous damage, the Syr Darya River now flows freely and the amount of water reaching the sea has doubled.
For the North Aral's main port city, Aralsk, the project has been a lifesaver. When sea levels started to fall decades ago, more than half of the population left and residents found eventually themselves 80 kilometres from the water's edge. Today, the water has risen to within 15 kilometres of the city and fish have even started to return, providing a source of food and income once more.
Although it will be a long time before we can say the Aral has truly returned to its former glory, the recent improvements show that if we make an effort to change our ways, the planet is capable of healing itself. With enough political will, we can move mountains.
But does this mean we don't really have to worry about environmental problems since we can just fix them later? Not at all. In addition to the direct human health impacts of poor environmental planning, some of the changes we're making to the planet will affect us for centuries. Greenhouse gases like carbon dioxide, for example, can stay in the atmosphere for hundreds of years.
Even if we stop churning them out today, the climate will continue to heat up.
With some issues, like climate change, we simply cannot afford to take a wait-and-see approach. That's why former Prime Minister Brian Mulroney recently urged Prime Minister Harper to start making serious cuts to greenhouse gas emissions. We simply cannot afford to experiment with the only atmosphere we have.
Our planet may have a remarkable capacity to heal, but there's only so much she can take.
Originally published on April 28, 2006.
Dr. David Takayoshi Suzuki is distinguished Canadian geneticist who has attained prominence as a science broadcaster and an environmental activist. He is also a co-founder of the David Suzuki Foundation.
