Why Vladimir Putin Suddenly Believes in Global Warming | Hacker News Reader

Why Vladimir Putin Suddenly Believes in Global Warming

bloomberg.com

45 pointsmontalbano13 comments

Answer: Melting permafrost is causing the physical foundations of oil-and-gas infrastructure to be undermined and weakened.

Also, at least one of the graphs gave 'load bearing capacity' numbers but no units, so that was useless.

Thank you for this summary,

But I have also read commentary that says Russia favours warming climates since it increases its living conditions; Russia is a very cold place. Is that complete baloney?

The article discussed that; Putin was initially fine with global warming. It's only now that some downsides of permafrost melting have come up that Putin is having second thoughts.

What the general opinion of the Russian population is on global warming, I do not know.

There is a bar chart with percentages that are >100% which causes me to ask some questions about the data and how it was processed...

Actually, the chart shows load bearing capacity relative to the 1980s capacity (which they've assigned a value of 100). It is not a percentage, but a ratio. Values >100 just indicate that the load bearing capacity has increased since the 1980s, which is possible.

The title is misleading: The Russian Federation had signed the Paris climate accord in 2016, and has only failed to ratify it. So, it's not "disbelief" but "dragging of feet".

It is annoying that a lot of US media has this kind of a anti-Russian vitriol in its phrasing and lacks basic professionalism in reporting.

(caveat: I couldn't read the full article because there's a paywall.)

Alternative explanation: Putin has zero plans to move a finger towards the commitments. The accord is after all - an accord - utterly unenforceable. The political equivalent of "I promise to guarantee to at least think about possibly trying to begin considering doing something about this issue".

For the Western media this is great anti-Trump ammo: "Even Russia is signing the accord, impeach! Riot!". To the Pro-Putin media this is great: "Putin's leadership in tackling this global catastrophe". Domestically, he can point at this every time a Russian is affected by the environment.

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Russians are definitely interested in self-preservation. That's the most basic of human instincts.

If that instinct was strong enough to push climate change policy I think we would be farther along policy and action wise. It doesn't seem to be.

OTOH, I feel that the kleptocracy in Russia is one of the few that can work towards long term results. For example, in India, leaders work on a standard 5 year electoral cycle, and thus have to show results in that time - which leads to very short-termist thinking on their part, which might be very damaging to Indian interests in the long-term.

I imagine that the Russian rulers do not have to worry about the 4/5/6 year electoral cycles, because they know that they can rig the results and come back to power, and so they can decisions that will bear fruit over the long term instead.

If you can rig the election, why do you need to choose anything?

The kleptocracy has shown largely short term thinking as it is.

Caring will do nothing now. It is almost certainly too late to stop the permafrost from melting.

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