Central Asia’s Environmental Catastrophe

Guest: Maya Peterson, Associate Professor of History at the University of California, Santa Cruz, and author of "Pipe Dreams: Water and Empire in Central Asia’s Aral Sea Basin" The Aral Sea was once the fourth-largest lake in the world. Now, most of it has receded into desert. In the Soviet Era, its tributaries were diverted for irrigation to produce more cotton, but the Sea was threatened at least a century before that. Here are lessons for arid lands around the world, including the American West.