The BBC have put out a viral video claiming that the ‘fast fashion’ industry is responsible for the draining of the Aral Sea. The clip explains that the river feeding the sea was diverted grow cotton, which is used by much of the fashion industry.

What the BBC doesn’t tell you is that the rivers feeding it were diverted by the Soviet government in the 1950s and 1960s to feed their cotton and other irrigation projects, which were failing as a result of communism closing the country off to global markets. To imply that the rivers were diverted by capitalists to feed global markets is literally the opposite of the truth…

In fact, since the fall of the Soviet Union, the sea has started growing again. The BBC could not have been more wrong.