Modifying the weather. Case of man-made desert

Description

By building roads, watering crops, and grazing cattle, we are constantly changing the climate. We may also modify the weather by cloud seeding, though there is no scientifically accepted proof that rain or snow would not have occurred naturally in cases where seeding appears to have been successful. This program shows how migration in the Sahel has altered regional climate; examines the tomorrow-be-damned policy of water usage in Arizona; and investigates the drastic miscarriage of good intentions in Central Asia, where efforts to irrigate the desert turned into the worst climatic disaster in the history of the Soviet Union: the drying up of the Aral Sea, once the world's fourth-largest lake. The program details how this catastrophe happened and reveals its consequences for the population, the physical geography, and the climate of the area.

Runtime

26 min

Series

Subjects

Genre

Date of Publication

[2006], c1990

Database

Films on Demand

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