I find this city fascinating for some reason. It's something about the fact that it's so harsh, but humans are still able to live there. Here's a YouTube video of it that makes it look almost artistic:
I think Norilsk is undeniably artistic, in both the idea of the city, and in its unique aesthetics.
So, I think you picked a bad example.
Edit: the above may not be reliable - a different source puts the Philippines at the top. But anyway.
It is not just nickel. Rather it is the entire mine->produce chain for most of the minerals has largely been "outsourced" to countries that we think are incredibly polluted.
Also at the massive cost to the surrounding environment.
I guess Inuits live in the extreme cold as well, but their entire world population is smaller than the city of Norilsk.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Akademik_Lomonosov
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_floating_nuclear_power...
People have lived in such places for millennia, before "burning copious amounts of hydrocarbons" was a thing...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inuit
Not to mention the whole of human population passing through an ice age:
And why would we know how you "interpreted it" if it wasn't spelt out? And what would be the limits to accept other places as being "like Norilsk"?
Cold cities only (e.g. not a cold village)? Cold places in Russia? Cold industrial cities only? Cities that get dark in the artic for months? Would similarly cold places elsewhere count? Does it have to get to -40 celcius or a city that gets to -20 will do?
The "most reasonable interpretation of a comment" of what we were already discussing in this thread is that we weren't talking about Norilsk lookalikes, but about whether people could live in such adverse settlements before or are "only able to live there while burning copious amounts of hydrocarbons to stay warm and/or generate electricity".
That was literally the claim that started the subthread.
>Assuming I've never heard of the Inuit or whatever is offensively patronizing and violates the HN recommendation to respond to the most reasonable interpretation of a comment.
It's not that difficult to not have heard of the Inuit, or to have heard of them but believe they lived if other conditions, or whatever.
The "outrage" is rude, and probably violates the same HN recommendation it invokes (if not others too). The parent replied very calmly to a question.
HN is global and has people of all places and all ages, including people who know little or nothing about Alaska and the Inuit. And people don't know all kind of basic things if they're not in their interests. Heck, many people can't place basic countries on the map, much less know about the Inuit. Just because someone is a programmer, and reads HN, is no guarantee.
Assuming you didn't mean global warming here, there was never much of environment there humans could damage.
There’s a lot of ways humans can ruin the environment even without global warming.