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Earth Power

Will Russia Be Devastated by Climate Change? (nybooks.com) 141

Thane Gustafson is a longtime specialist on Russian energy — and even before Russia invaded Ukraine, he'd pulled together some startling predictions for his new book. The New York Review of Books looks at Klimat: Russia in the Age of Climate Change: About two thirds of Russia is covered in permafrost, a mixture of sand and ice that, until recently, remained frozen year-round. As permafrost melts, walls built on it fracture, buildings sink, railways warp, roads buckle, and pipelines break. Anthrax from long-frozen reindeer corpses has thawed and infected modern herds. Sinkholes have opened in the melting ground, swallowing up whole buildings. Ice roads over frozen water, once the only way to travel in some remote regions, are available for ever-shorter periods. The Arctic coast is eroding rapidly, imperiling structures built close to the water.... As burning, dying, clear-cut forests become carbon producers rather than carbon sinks, they make the problem of climate change even worse. The same is true of melting permafrost, which releases methane, another potent greenhouse gas.

In Klimat, Gustafson maintains that Russia's agricultural exports and revenues will continue to increase until the end of this decade, with global warming of one degree Celsius improving Russian agricultural productivity. But in the 2030s and 2040s the rate of increase will diminish, because of harm to Russian crops caused by drought, heat waves, and torrential rain. Some of these difficulties may be counteracted by rising prices, as climate change compromises the world's food supply, but Russia will also hit the limit of its supply of arable land. Two thirds of European Russia, the country's most fertile agricultural area, is already too dry. Thawed permafrost, meanwhile, is sandy and infertile, and will not make good farmland. Russia will require more resources to produce the same amount of food. More aggressive tactics to increase production (e.g., heavy use xof fertilizer) will ultimately cause acidification and erosion....

[T]he long-term future of the Russian oil industry, like that of the Russian economy, looked dismal even before the new sanctions. West Siberia, long the country's primary source of oil, is running low. The extraction of Arctic oil is already well underway, but it is expensive and relies in part on foreign technology that was sanctioned even before the invasion of Ukraine.... As time goes on, Gustafson argues, the Russian oil industry will be more and more dependent on government tax breaks. A dwindling supply will lose value in a global market that is shifting to renewable energy. In Gustafson's account, most of the factors that will determine the future of Russia's oil exports lie outside its control: exhaustion of its most accessible oilfields, increasing difficulty and expense in reaching remaining sources, damage to oil infrastructure caused by climate change, and reduction in demand from the EU and later from Asia. But Russia's choices have had some effect. Its invasion of Ukraine has vastly accelerated the timeline for this squeeze by prompting new sanctions and informal boycotts...

As Russia's income declines, so will its ability to placate its population with cheap household gas and generous welfare policies. This will likely lead to social destabilization, exacerbated by the disruption and suffering caused by climate change and a weakening economy. The Russian war on Ukraine, meanwhile, has resulted in the emigration not only of opposition politicians and journalists but also of professionals, especially younger ones, who have skills marketable elsewhere in the world — for instance, IT specialists, who find it easy to work from safer, freer cities like Bishkek or Tbilisi. The scientists, activists, and businesspeople who might help Russia cope with climate change are also among those likely to emigrate.

Klimat's time horizon of 2050 is short, but Putin's is even shorter: he is now almost seventy years old. After him will come the deluge, the wildfires, the droughts, the collapse.

"Russia will be one of the countries most affected by climate change..." according to the book's description on the Harvard University Press website.

"Lucid and thought-provoking, Klimat shows how climate change is poised to alter the global order, potentially toppling even great powers from their perches."
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Will Russia Be Devastated by Climate Change?

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  • This is Bullshit (Score:5, Insightful)

    by jwhyche ( 6192 ) on Sunday June 05, 2022 @11:49AM (#62594858) Homepage

    What kind of bullshit question is this? Time people got this in their heads, this isn't a Russia issue. This isn't a China issue. This isn't a US issue. This all our issues. If Russia is fucked we are all fucked

    We are all in this boat together boys and girls. You may not like the man sitting beside you but guess what? Mother nature doesn't fucking care. We all swim or sink.

    • Agreed. Not just because no man is an island, but it's pretty easy to guess what may happen when nuclear-capable countries begin to destabilize.
      • You mean, the world becomes a safer place? The USSR didn't just destabilize, it collapsed, and nothing much happened. A bit more unregulated weapons-grade nuclear material in the world - but none of the terrorist nukes or dirty bombs fear-mongering pundits worried about ever emerged. And Russia was so diminished as a result of losing their empire that they no longer posed nearly so severe a military threat to the world.

        MAD kept them from becoming a target, but they had enough problems to deal with at hom

        • by ghoul ( 157158 )
          Russia went up against a military which had its own anti aircraft industry - most Missiles in the USSR were manufactured in Ukraine; its own tank industry, its own aircraft manufacturing and a regular army bigger than the one Russia invaded with. (When an invader is supposed to have a 3 to one advantage)

          This is not US invading Iraq. This is US invading France with a single Marine division level of difficulty. For comparison US sent 500000 soldiers to invade Iraq a third rate power while Russia sent 17000
          • Except Russia's biggest enemy, at least in the early stages of the invasion, seems to have been their own incompetence and poor logistics. Ukraine has made a surprisingly good showing, but Russia's has been appallingly poor. I've heard that a lot of it likely has to do with rampant corruption in the military - skipping maintenance, selling equipment and supplies, etc. So that the hardware, supplies, and general readiness on the books vastly exceeded the reality.

            One of the most compelling explanations I've

            • by ghoul ( 157158 )
              Russian corruption is what MSM has been talking about. Repeating that homily adds nothing to the discussion. What is surprising is that Ukraine was not equally or more corrupt. The last 6 Presidents of Ukraine on both sides of the political spectrum have been corrupt. They are fighting a surprisingly good insurgency as well as propaganda war. Makes me think there are Green Berets on the ground. This is what they are trained for - to be embedded with local forces and guide them in fighting an insurgency. Bi
              • Seems to me it adds quite a bit when it actually explains the problems. Massive corruption at the top is kind of the whole point of an autocracy, and having that corruption extending downwards through well-funded institutions that were mostly unused for decades is hardly surprising.

                As for Ukraine - it's really hard to establish anything near as severe a level of corruption when you have a functional democracy - even if everyone is still corrupt, throwing the bums out on a regular basis so that the new guys

    • The relevance is obvious, it explains why Russia is having this spasm. Russia is literally doomed. Without reforming the Soviet Union they are 100% going to wind up an also-ran when climate change hits in full.

    • "One-half of Canada's land surface is underlain by permafrost."

      https://open.canada.ca/data/en... [canada.ca]

      https://pulitzercenter.org/pro... [pulitzercenter.org]

      https://dggs.alaska.gov/hazard... [alaska.gov]

  • by quonset ( 4839537 ) on Sunday June 05, 2022 @11:51AM (#62594862)

    "Do we care? Do we care what happens to Russia?"

    In 30 days Russia squandered 30 years of work. On top of which, no one with any sense in the West will do business with the country for years, if not decades, to come. The people will revert back to what existed in the 50s in the country.

    Climate change and its attendent effects will certainly exacerbate this condition. Look for charlatans to pop up promoting nonsense cures for the numerous plagues which will sweep over the land from the microbes released from their slumber. Don't be surprised if you hear stories of entire villages wiped out from some new ailment.

    The only ones who will have relative safety will be those in the cities where there is some modicum of modern medicine and hygenic conditions. However, with the likes of Vlad and his cabal doing their best to rob the people blind, don't expect much in the way of a concerted effort to minimize the risks. The oligarchs will be too busy continuing with their plundering so they can build their massive mansions which are as cheaply made [bbc.com] as their tanks.

    • by rsilvergun ( 571051 ) on Sunday June 05, 2022 @12:03PM (#62594882)
      but I could barely stop a right wing dictator from coming to power here in the states. Hell, we just found out that Georgia Republicans were trying to seize voting machines and that Trump's people were going to have armed contractors do the same. And none of that is registering with voters in the slightest. If Trump's alive (he is over 70) he'll be the nominee, and DeSantis and Abbott are both trying to be the next Trump and install themselves as El Presidente for Life.

      I care, but I've got my own problems over here.
      • by gweihir ( 88907 )

        Indeed. Ultimately, this is the fault of the _population_, not the figure-heads they put in place. Not addressing or denying known problem always makes them worse.

        • money is power and the 1% have all the money. Money is power and they use it to distort our lives. Without that Vlad would be in power. Neither would 'ole Phony Stark or Bill Gates. We wouldn't have the Sheldon Primary (google it).

          It's ridiculous to ignore the power wielded by the ultra wealthy. It's tempting to do though because, like an eldritch or Lovecraftian monster, they're so far beyond our world and they so many horrible things and they're so old and powerful that it's terrifying to think about
          • by gweihir ( 88907 )

            That is why I said "ultimately". Seeing people get ultra wealthy and doing nothing about that starts the problem is at the start of the problem. There is always enough no-decency, no-honor scum that will do whatever it takes to amass wealth and power. A society that fails to stop them has at the very least partial responsibility for the effects from that as there is a direct causality.

            Of course, once society has failed and the ultra-wealthy exist, things get more complex. But the root causes of the problem

    • by ghoul ( 157158 )
      Western prosperity over the last 30 years have been built on importing cheap commodities from Russia, cheap labor from China (embedded in cheap imported goods). Well China is now developed enough that labor's no longer cheap and Russia is now cutting off cheap commodities. The damage to Western economies is much higher than that to Russia. Heck Russia Balance of Payments has improved since the sanctions. They now have more money which they can use to subsidize their citizens' living costs while Europe is l
  • Delusional Article (Score:2, Interesting)

    by SuperKendall ( 25149 )

    The entire summary is filled with nonsense, but this is maybe the worst of it:

    A dwindling supply will lose value in a global market that is shifting to renewable energy.

    Anyone who says this has no concept of how long it will take to replace traditional uses of oil and gas with renewables, Russia in fact will be profiting for well over a decade from massive oil and gas prices propelled by severe shortages across the globe.

    It totally ignores Russias role in fertilizer (which comes from oil/gas) and even uran

    • The reason why no sanctions against Russia have worked to date is exactly because these basic facts have been ignored.

      The reason why no sanctions against Russia have worked before is that not everyone has been on board. Now, everyone but China is on board, and Russia isn't dumb enough to think getting owned by China later is better than having a big percentage of their people starve now — as great a tragedy as that would be, they've done it before and they'll do it again. China's not going to help them for free.

      With a sufficient commitment to austerity (if it's good enough for the EU to recommend it for Greece, it's

      • by ghoul ( 157158 )
        Only 40 countries out of 200 have sanctions on Russia. All of those are either US treaty allies or have US troops stationed on their soil. So they are operating under duress. Noone besides the US , UK and Poland really cares if Russia takes Ukraine. Russia is doing fine as the other 160 countries comprise the majority of the world's population and almost half of the GDP. Thats enough demand for their oil, gas, fertilizers, wheat, cooking oil, palladium, platinum and noble gas exports. Western countries are
        • Only 40 countries out of 200 have sanctions on Russia. All of those are either US treaty allies or have US troops stationed on their soil. So they are operating under duress.

          It doesn't matter why, only who and what.

          Noone besides the US , UK and Poland really cares if Russia takes Ukraine.

          Everyone anywhere near the region except China cares.

          Western countries are hurting due to high energy prices

          Everyone is hurting due to a variety of energy considerations, including that we're still consuming fossil fuels — the source of most of Russia's income.

          BLM riots are nothing

          True

          compared to what will happen when white people start rioting

          You mean like at the BLM protests?

          over food and energy prices.

          Good, let them riot. Let white people destroy their own communities for a change.

  • Yes (Score:3, Insightful)

    by rsilvergun ( 571051 ) on Sunday June 05, 2022 @12:06PM (#62594890)
    Everyone will. It's fucking up the water cycle, causing massive droughts. We've been using irrigation to keep food production up. As it drops poorer countries like Russia (who just wrecked their economy with pointless failed imperialism) will have food shortages. We still make enough food (about 30-40% of everything we produce goes to waste) but the societal changes we'd need to make to get that food to people aren't gonna happen. Too many stupid people and they vote.

    Russia is fucked. America is fucked. We're all fucked. Some more than others, but nobody's getting out of this unscathed except the older baby boomers who'll die before the shit hits the fan (and they know it, which is why they block any attempt to fix this mess).
    • by gweihir ( 88907 )

      Russia is fucked. America is fucked. We're all fucked. Some more than others, but nobody's getting out of this unscathed except the older baby boomers who'll die before the shit hits the fan (and they know it, which is why they block any attempt to fix this mess).

      That nicely sums it up. However nobody knows how that "death" thing really works. If reincarnation is the actual model, all those boomers may just be hard at work fucking themselves.

    • by hey! ( 33014 )

      The thing that best protects someone from the effects of climate change is wealth. When rising sea levels begin to inundate Bangladesh, they have to watch helplessly, but a city like Venice can build a six billion dollar tide gate system; that's only about 1/5 of the province's annual GDP.

      When Hurricane Sandy hit New York City, it caused 19 billion dollars of damage. Such an event would be financially catastrophic in a cities like Alexandria or Dakar, but it was barely a blip in NYC's economy, which is r

  • by groobly ( 6155920 ) on Sunday June 05, 2022 @12:11PM (#62594900)

    Global warming would be good for Russia, because among the other things mentioned by others, it would keep the Arctic Ocean free of ice all winter, allowing year-round Russian shipping.

    But, the best effect of global warming would be what is feared as the worst effect: a large die-off of the world human population. The Earth has way too many people, which is in fact the reason that so much GHG are being released into the atmosphere. World population is simply not sustainable.

    • Re: (Score:2, Interesting)

      by Kokuyo ( 549451 )

      I'm sorry... Yes climate change will impact us all demanding us to change uncomfortably rapidly and adapt to ever changing circumstances...

      However, a large dying off of the human population? I still doubt that very much and I have a hard time taking anyone seriously who delivers this argument. It just makes SO little sense to me...

      • by gweihir ( 88907 ) on Sunday June 05, 2022 @12:49PM (#62595008)

        However, a large dying off of the human population? I still doubt that very much and I have a hard time taking anyone seriously who delivers this argument. It just makes SO little sense to me...

        Have a look at the impact one little war in Ukraine has on food supply. Now imagine a similar effect, globally, and a lot worse. These are not "arguments". These are projections by actual experts.

      • by ahodgson ( 74077 )

        No food, no people. Look at the actual projections for what will happen to agriculture in a 3 degree world. Then explain how you feed 10 billion people.

      • by serafean ( 4896143 ) on Sunday June 05, 2022 @03:31PM (#62595328)

        > It just makes SO little sense to me...
        I understand this isn't possible to make come across without a slightly condescending tone (which believe me isn't there), but:
        please elaborate...

        What I know, and argument with:
        - 1st world grain exporter invaded the 4th
        - gas prices stopped fertilizer production plants in Europe and North America
        - Belarus + russia are big potash exporters. Both are under sanctions, hence no exports.
        - There are ongoing massive droughts in various bread baskets of the world.

        The numbers coming out of various analysis (UN, various think tanks...) range between 1-3 billion people starving within 5-10 years. That doesn't mean population die off. It only means we'll never reach 10 billion people.
        And when I look at various population pyramids, I see population decline coming up pretty much everywhere.

    • by gweihir ( 88907 )

      You do not profit from shipping if you have nothing to ship.

      But, the best effect of global warming would be what is feared as the worst effect: a large die-off of the world human population. The Earth has way too many people, which is in fact the reason that so much GHG are being released into the atmosphere. World population is simply not sustainable.

      That _is_ going to happen. Whether there will be a civilization to speak of after that or even a human race at all is up for debate.

    • But, the best effect of global warming would be what is feared as the worst effect: a large die-off of the world human population.

      I couldn't disagree more. Invention requires brain power and there are limits to what education can bring out of average intellects. As population increases, the pool of intelligent people who can actually solve global problems also increases. Unfortunately, average intellects will rarely listen to intelligent people, that is, until they can see the actual crisis at hand. This increases the necessity of having a large pool of intelligent people, to solve problems when they're well past having simple sol

    • It's just not sustainable with political systems that were built in the 1900s.

      We already have the technology to stop using fossil fuels. We also have the technology to scale our population down at an acceptable rate. Although we don't need to because we already produce more than enough food but we throw out 30 or 40% of it because it's not economically viable and profitable enough to feed it to people.

      We need a large scale transformation of human technology and we have the tech to do that but right-
    • by ghoul ( 157158 )
      Nobody will die from global warming. People will migrate. Not enough guns in the world to prevent climate refugees from crossing borders. Plus Russia and Canada will have all that newly arable land. They will need settlers to cultivate the land.
    • by amorsen ( 7485 )

      But, the best effect of global warming would be what is feared as the worst effect: a large die-off of the world human population. The Earth has way too many people, which is in fact the reason that so much GHG are being released into the atmosphere. World population is simply not sustainable.

      Start with yourself please. One Western person dying saves at least 10 times the CO2 emission compared to someone from Africa dying. If global warming is to be solved by killing people, then it is vastly more efficient to just kill off Europe, US, and Australia.

  • by Eunomion ( 8640039 ) on Sunday June 05, 2022 @03:50PM (#62595370)
    Russia as it exists today...that paragon of functionality and efficiency (ha)...is only viable as a state at all because of the massive and constant influx of external wealth due to its energy commodities. Prices of those commodities will experience rollercoaster swings as demand for them declines with the shift to sustainable energy and transportation, sometimes appearing to temporarily help the Russian economy, but generally being negative.

    As external revenues dry up and Russia has to become internally sustainable, the infrastructure needed to support that internal economy will simply collapse and beat a headlong retreat away from the Eastern 2/3 of the country. That's before taking into account the chaos of climate change, which will disrupt even the ability of some otherwise stable sub-regions to sustain themselves. Climate change may temporarily improve crop yields in some areas, but it's doubtful the yield improvement would even significantly defray the cost of hardening infrastructure against unfamiliar weather conditions...something they probably will just not do, and as a result, will instead abandon much of the land.

    The cost, scale, and disruption of internal displacement is likely high. And, let's remember, these costs will be incurred in an environment where Russia is no longer viable as an energy exporter, so they won't be able to tap into anyone else's excesses to defray any of it.

    The loss of its Asian territories to regional dictators aligned with Beijing is likely, and (unfortunately) I doubt they would lose them without a lot of pointless fighting that exacerbates all of the hardships already mentioned. Given what they've been willing to do in Europe in full view of the world, we can also expect much grimmer behavior than mere war also being perpetrated against peoples the Russians traditionally consider "less than", but it would only hasten and solidify the regional break from Russian rule.

    I doubt the world would be sympathetic after all the poison (both literal and figurative) and chaos Russia has spewed out in this century, so the scale of foreign aid is unlikely to be significant relative to any of the costs. So, the prognosis is grim: What we think of as Russia ceases to exist in this century, and is replaced by a bitterly impoverished (even by current standards) rump state in Europe dominated by its neighbors (we can expect some of the less ethical among them to go on revanchist land-grab sprees against the weakened rump state), and one or a few low-population countries in its former Eastern territories, some similar to the "-stans" and some more like Mongolia.
    • by ghoul ( 157158 )
      Russia has what everyone wants in a warming world - cold. They will be fine
      • It's not that simple. In a warming world, the boreal forest climates will mostly fall into two camps: Uninhabitable swamps, or barren rocky deserts with extreme winds. Siberia, the Canadian shield, and Alaska are not going to become temperate, they're going to become wind-swept lunar hellscapes and insect-apocalypse nightmare bogs.
        • by ghoul ( 157158 )
          This is your opinion. There are not many like it because its flat out wrong. The science doesnt support your fantasy.
          • Strange how your idea of "the science" contradicts the peer-reviewed journals I read. Fun fact, you can read peer-reviewed journals through a local public library. It's almost like scientists want to educate people rather than being the selfish elite portrayed in Qanon conspiracy theories.

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