Studio8 - Uniting the Arts

Ripple in still water
When there is no pebble tossed
Nor wind to blow

http://arts.ucsc.edu/gdead/agdl/ripple.html

I think you're the first to call someone a ripple rouser

It is no exaggeration to say that the case of the Aral Sea is
one of the greatest environmental catastrophes ever recorded.
Humans have made use of the waters of the Aral basin for thousands
of years, borrowing from its two major rivers: the Amu Darya, which
flows into the Aral Sea from the south; and the Syr Darya, which
reaches the sea at its north end. As the twentieth century began,
irrigated agriculture in the basin was still being conducted at a
sustainable level.
After the Russian Empire was replaced by the Soviet Union,
this began to change. Traditional agricultural practices were
destroyed by collectivization, and Soviet planners sought products
that could be exported for hard currency. They placed cotton high
on their list, calling it `white gold,' and the Soviet Union became
a net exporter of cotton in 1937. Change accelerated in the
1950s, as Central Asian irrigated agriculture was expanded and
mechanized. The Kara Kum Canal opened in 1956, diverting large
amounts of water from the Amu Darya into the desert of
Turkmenistan, and millions of hectares of land came under
irrigation after 1960.
http://www1.american.edu/ted/aral.htm