THE VINE AUGUST 5, 2010
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Now and again you hear Russian officials sound pretty blithe about global warming. In 2003, Vladimir Putin joked that a little extra heat would help Russians "save on fur coats and other warm things." More recently, a spokesman in the Natural Resources Ministry put it this way: "We are not panicking. Global warming is not as catastrophic for us as it might be for some other countries. If anything, we'll be better off." But in light of the ongoing Russian grain catastrophe, I wonder if that's still the case:
Russia's prime minister, Vladimir Putin, has announced a ban on grain exports after millions of hectares of crops perished in the worst drought in more than a century.
High temperatures, lack of rain and wildfires have devastated more than a third of cultivable land in Russia, the world's fourth largest grain exporter.
News of the ban pushed wheat prices to a 23-month high on commodities markets and raised concerns about a boost in food prices worldwide.
As always, the precise way to link this to climate trends is like so: It's hard to say whether this specific drought is a direct result of man-made global warming or a weird blip. What we do know, however, is that as we keep pumping greenhouse gases into the air, the planet will keep heating up, and scenes like this one are going to become more and more frequent. And the results don't look pretty.
Update: Here's Russian President Dmitri Medvedev striking a very different note on climate these days:
Everyone is talking about climate change now. Unfortunately, what is happening now in our central regions is evidence of this global climate change, because we have never in our history faced such weather conditions in the past,” he says. “This means that we need to change the way we work, change the methods that we used in the past.
6 comments
I won't live long enough to enjoy winning the bet, but I think that will be winning. Oh, the bet? That civilization will collapse by the end of this century. New Republic will probably go first, even though I am a paid print subscriber. Oh, darn.
- skahn
August 6, 2010 at 8:41am
Sometimes I feel grumpy and uncharitable toward climate change deniers, and I think, "serves them right". But, sadly, the costs are not confined to those who should have known better.
- JEFF FREY
August 6, 2010 at 3:10pm
Vladimir Putin is not a well educated person. His intelligence is the sly cunning of the professional policeman. No wonder George W. Bush thought he had a soul.
- orray2
August 7, 2010 at 8:57am
Too bad Medvedev can't really, well, do anything without Putin's approval.
- cspencef
August 9, 2010 at 12:54pm
Jeff, The grumpy, uncharitable attitude is the only consolation we will have, so don't give it up just yet. In my judgment, it is very unlikely that the world is going to do anything serious in response to climate change and we will continue to see things get worse in years to come. For now, I have to be polite - all it takes is one snowstorm and these people think they have a "get out of jail" card for life. All of Russia can burn to a crisp, and then one snowstorm is all it takes to reassure them. It's like these people who cheered "Drill baby drill" in 2008, and then have the nerve to come on tv and moan about what happened to their lives on the Gulf (and to argue against the moratorium, go figure). Someday soon, I intend to wring such satisfaction as I may from laughing at all these bobos - these redneck tea party republicans - and from being quite grumpy and uncharitable in the process. It would be easier to change the climate than it is to change the minds of these people - as we watch the thermometer rise, I am afraid that "I told you so" is going to be our only consolation. Neil
- purcellneil
August 9, 2010 at 3:13pm
Neil, I agree -- snowstorms too often are adduced in the way you say. People need to be educated as to the amount of energy that needs to be stored up for such atmospheric events to occur. Then they will see that simply because snow is associated with lower temperature, it's occurrence need not be seen as some sort of 'cancellation' of global warming. The stored energy in the atmosphere can be manifested in many ways -- heat is just one way. All sorts of storms, even snowstorms, can represent a surplus of energy in the atmosphere. We have plenty of very good scientists who could demonstrate this in ways understandable to the general public. In light of what you say they should get busy doing so. Keith
- topic_m
August 11, 2010 at 3:11pm