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Comment by chasing | Hacker News Reader

Russia.

A very significant part of Russia is permafrost. As climate gets warm, more of permafrost land is melting. It's not really clear the consequences of this process. It releases trapped CO2, it changes ecosystems, it transforms solid land into a swamp.

I'm not claiming that you're not correct. Cold climate requires spending truly enormous energy and resources to heat people, to build warm houses, to craft warm clothes. Cold climate harvests very lesser amounts of wheat and other plants and animals. This is extremely big part of equation.

There's a fun youtuber called vagabond, who train hops around Russia and Europe. He had a video showing buildings build on permafrost. They lift the buildings up off the ground so none of the heating heat touches the ground and weakens the foundations. I fully expect if the permafrost goes soggy, most of the settled north will just sink into the bog.

Swamp is still easier to work with than ground which is frozen solid.

If someone is wondering why: much of Siberian land is difficult to develop due to permafrost. 65% of Russian territory, which comes up to 11.1 km2, is permafrost. Almost all of it is owned by the state/military and they probably couldn't give less of a fuck about any negative consequences.

Also known as the country who is vehemently for global warming

this comment ignores massive detriment -- forest fire alone will cause unsolveable damage.

However, they should gain access to warm-water ports, which seems to be a huge upgrade in terms of economy and geopolitics. (1)

1 - https://youtu.be/v3C_5bsdQWg

I live in Wisconsin, a northern US state that you'd think would benefit from warmer temperatures. But we've spent all summer under the smoke of Canadian wildfires, and we're also experiencing drought conditions, which is obviously not good for farming.

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