[00:00.00]Dust Storms
[00:02.86]More than 17,700 square miles
[00:06.98]are now a wasteland of sand and salt.
[00:10.90]The wind lifts up the salt and the dust and
[00:14.54]there are terrible dust storms.
[00:17.36]Everybody complains about these conditions.
[00:21.80]Hope for the Future
[00:23.90]In the 1990s,
[00:25.89]the Aral Sea continued to get smaller.
[00:29.67]Then, in 1994,
[00:32.88]five countries around the Aral Sea
[00:36.41]agreed to do something to stop the problem.
[00:39.64]They agreed to use less water for farming.
[00:48.23]Exercise 2.1
[00:50.11]Work it out
[00:52.54]Everybody thought it was okay, I guess.
[00:56.07]Nobody saw the problem at first.
[00:59.13]Can they do anything to save the Aral Sea?
[01:03.50]I hope they do something soon.
[01:07.89]Now there's nothing but salt and sand.
[01:12.97]Everybody complains about it.
[01:16.79]These countries promised to do something
[01:20.03]to stop the problem.
[01:22.91]But are they really doing anything about it?
[01:30.11]Exercise 2.3
[01:32.18]So what is life like near the Aral Sea?
[01:35.71]It is very hard.
[01:37.81]Before, there were fishing villages
[01:40.29]but now there isn't anything.
[01:42.72]Why is that?
[01:44.07]Because everybody left.
[01:45.89]There are no fish in the lake and so
[01:48.87]there is nothing to do there.
[01:51.11]Also,everything is affected by the dust storms
[01:54.76]It's hard for the people there.
[01:57.21]But the government is trying to do something
[01:59.67]about it,right?
[02:00.82]That's right.
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