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> "So in the middle of the Cold War, the Soviet Union found itself trying to pit its land and resource advantage against the continental United States' more tem

> "So in the middle of the Cold War, the Soviet Union found itself trying to pit its land and resource advantage against the continental United States' more temperate climate. With space and the atom having been harnessed, why not the world's oceans? Why not the weather itself?" Soviets always wanted a warm water port and to warm the Arctic for trade routes and making Russia more able to have an advantage on their land which is 63% frozen. > It's important to note that Borisov wasn't a mad scientist or anything of that sort, and his work was of interest to the Soviet government, which was already funding a wide range of research looking to warm the Arctic. It was all aimed at solving a simple problem: Russia is too damn cold. > You might laugh, but while Soviet Russia was blessed with the largest land mass of any nation on Earth, much of it resource rich, putting that land to use was stunningly difficult. Currently about 63 percent of Russia is buried under permafrost, and as the CIA World Factbook notes, even today it is a significant barrier to development of Siberia. It wouldn't have been good for climate for everyone else, even Russia long term. It also seems climate change and global warming Russia thinks benefits them at least then, maybe now as well. [1] That is an interesting idea considering the oil/gas export leads to that and all that permafrost which would cause massive carbon releases. [1] https://www.aljazeera.com/features/2022/3/28/what-is-behind-russias-interest-in-a-warming-arctic https://www.aljazeera.com/features/2022/3/28/what-is-behind-...

pm90 4y ago
Their population never boomed like it did in the US post WW2, possibly because of the massive loss of lives in the war. I feel like all that development would be pretty useless if there were no people to actually do anything.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- vlovich123 4y ago
  That + killing/imprisoning a lot of your own population + creating an economic climate where it was hard to sustain your family + creating a political climate favoring emigration?
  - vkazanov 4y ago
    Huh? The population was booming in the post-war USSR as well: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_the_Soviet_Union https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_the_Soviet_Uni... Compare with the US: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_the_United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_the_United_Sta... And population growth in the pre-WW1 Russian Empire was even higher, despite having regular food shortage and hunger period. In general, pre-industrial agrarian societies tend to have much higher birth rates than industrial and post-industrial ones. For some strange reason the US nowadays is comparable in the percentage of prisoners in USSR in worst Gulag years: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_United_States_incarceration_rate_with_other_countries https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_United_States_in... I don't have an explanation here, TBH. The US is a rich and socially advanced country. In comparison to Europe this feels very wrong.
    - pell 4y ago
      >For some strange reason the US nowadays is comparable in the percentage of prisoners in USSR in worst Gulag years: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_United_States_in https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_United_States_in... I don't have an explanation here, TBH. The US is a rich and socially advanced country. In comparison to Europe this feels very wrong. The US justice system is very broken. No matter where one stands politically (e.g. be more lenient or be tougher on crime), the current system is suffering from bureaucracy, ineffectiveness, ineptitude and slowness. It's caught in an endless feedback loop.
  - watwut 4y ago
    To add to what other person responded, birth rates fell down after communism fell. They were higher during USSR times then now. Not just in Russia, but everywhere in post communist world.
  - pranavjoneja 4y ago
    not totally clear if this is the point you’re trying to make, but the US today fits that description exactly > killing/imprisoning a lot of your own population the US has the highest incarceration rate in the world > creating an economic climate where it was hard to sustain your family the cost of housing has far outgrown the median household income and in many places you need 2+ income earners to sustain a household meaning nobody has time to raise children
- kgeist 4y ago
  >Their population never boomed like it did in the US post WW2, possibly because of the massive loss of lives in the war Checked the censuses: USSR: 170,467,186 (1939) 208,826,650 (1959) USA: 132,164,569 (1940) 179,323,175 (1960) USSR: +38 mln USA: +47 mln I'd say it's pretty comparable, if you also consider that 26 mln Soviets were killed in WW2
  - idlehand 4y ago
    26 million, mostly in prime working and childbearing age - so a larger effect on future population size than the number itself implies.
    - watwut 4y ago
      > mostly in prime working and childbearing age You have seen that in stats or just assume? Because civilian causalities in WWII outnumber military ones. Old people, kids and sick people are extremely vulnerable during wars and die a lot. Especially in WWII. First, obviously holocaust - most victims were from Eastern Europe and old, sick, kids had even lower chance to survive then physically strong people (not that it was high there, but). Second, German army was cleansing Eastern Europe for German settlement. That meant whole villages routinely burned out to ground. Third, famines and such, cause military extracts resources from people.
  - piokoch 4y ago
    26 millions Soviets were not killed in WW2, as Soviet Union (and Russia today) adding to the WW2 kills victims of Soviet Gulag system (about 2 millions) and 6-10 millions Ukrainians starved to death during Holodomor genocide. BTW: WW2 losses are still exorbitant, even if we subtract those 10 millions, but no longer that "impressive" (Poland lost 6 millions people, which was almost 20% of the population, killed by Germans and Russians - till 1941 Hitler and Stalin were best pals).
    - kgeist 4y ago
      >6-10 millions Ukrainians starved to death during Holodomor genocide Ukraine's Holodomor happened in 1932-1933, and the census I mentioned is from 1939-1959. If you are implying that they were hiding Ukrainian losses in the 1930's and secretly added it to WW2 kill count then it's not quite true, censuses in 1926 and 1937 registered a drop in Ukrainian population from 31 mln to 26 mln. The results of the 1937 census were declassified only in 1990 and the revised number (26 mln) was estimated in the 1990's after the collapse of USSR and on the basis of declassified documents in Soviet archives. >adding to the WW2 kills victims of Soviet Gulag system (about 2 millions) Documents from the Soviet archives number the total deaths of prisoners in the Gulag from 1941 to 1945 at 621,637 (Evdokimov, 1995)
snek_case 4y ago
Slightly worrying notion but, if Russia believes that global warming benefits them, they might keep on extracting and burning fossil fuels long after everyone else has transitioned to renewables.
- michaelmrose 4y ago
  Indeed it might but its need for it is finite and renewables as more resources are sunk into improving them may eventually make doing so increasingly economically disadvantageous. As more of the world moves on it becomes easier to encourage different behavior as well as Russia ceases to have anything else anyone needs.
  - GekkePrutser 4y ago
    For most of this time we didn't know it was bad though.
- pm90 4y ago
  Unlikely. Fossil fuel extraction is expensive. It makes sense economically only because theres a lot of demand for it globally and companies can net huge profits. Without that kind of global demand, fossil fuel extraction will be limited to keeping the existing facilities open until they dry up. For a preview of the future of oil, we just need to look at what happened to coal.
  - ElectricalUnion 4y ago
    > For a preview of the future of oil, we just need to look at what happened to coal. So people turning nuclear power off and burning lots of coal and gas to compensate?
  - closedloop129 4y ago
    Is there a cheap way to create fertilizers without hydrocarbons? Otherwise there will be demand for them as long as they are available. In other words, it's very likely that we will use all available fossil fuels.
divbzero 4y ago
> It also seems climate change and global warming Russia thinks benefits them at least then, maybe now as well. That is curious idea. I wonder how the risks of thawing permafrost play into the equation. The thaw leads to newly available biomass, digested by microbes to release carbon dioxide and methane, and leaving a considerably altered environment including depressions filled with water [2]. Would those risks be outweighed by overall gains of a warmer Siberia? [2]: https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2022/01/17/the-great-siberian-thaw https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2022/01/17/the-great-sibe...
sebastianconcpt 4y ago
Then why not doing more things where coldness becomes an asset instead going against nature? Geo-engineering should be made illegal. Their "bugs" would scorch the Earth. No geo-engineer knows what's he/she is doing. Any implementation there is a guarantee of having massive unintended consequences that are irreversible.
- jillesvangurp 4y ago
  We'll need to do some serious geo engineering on purpose to reverse all the geo engineering we've been doing by accident. Current efforts are all about stopping the problem from getting worse. We reducing the pace at which co2 emissions grow. But they are still growing, not shrinking. But the point is that, unless we do some geo engineering, those levels are not coming down by themselves any time soon.
  - sebastianconcpt 4y ago
    Malthusian fabulations of the over-inflated egos of technologists wildly overestimating their understanding of Nature itself.
- throwaway4aday 4y ago
  For the purposes of human life, extreme cold is never an asset. It is an absence of energy and will always require energy input to accomplish anything in such a climate.
  - sebastianconcpt 4y ago
    Some technologies benefit from cold. The challenge is in making them ROI positive.
    - throwaway4aday 4y ago
      That's cool but you don't need to use half the landmass of a country for those technologies. You'd be further ahead paying the cost for cooling in exchange for having that land used for agriculture, cities, and more easily accessed resources.

pm90 4y ago

Their population never boomed like it did in the US post WW2, possibly because of the massive loss of lives in the war. I feel like all that development would be pretty useless if there were no people to actually do anything.

deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
vlovich123 4y ago
That + killing/imprisoning a lot of your own population + creating an economic climate where it was hard to sustain your family + creating a political climate favoring emigration?
- vkazanov 4y ago
  Huh? The population was booming in the post-war USSR as well: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_the_Soviet_Union https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_the_Soviet_Uni... Compare with the US: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_the_United_States https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_the_United_Sta... And population growth in the pre-WW1 Russian Empire was even higher, despite having regular food shortage and hunger period. In general, pre-industrial agrarian societies tend to have much higher birth rates than industrial and post-industrial ones. For some strange reason the US nowadays is comparable in the percentage of prisoners in USSR in worst Gulag years: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_United_States_incarceration_rate_with_other_countries https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_United_States_in... I don't have an explanation here, TBH. The US is a rich and socially advanced country. In comparison to Europe this feels very wrong.
  - pell 4y ago
    >For some strange reason the US nowadays is comparable in the percentage of prisoners in USSR in worst Gulag years: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_United_States_in https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comparison_of_United_States_in... I don't have an explanation here, TBH. The US is a rich and socially advanced country. In comparison to Europe this feels very wrong. The US justice system is very broken. No matter where one stands politically (e.g. be more lenient or be tougher on crime), the current system is suffering from bureaucracy, ineffectiveness, ineptitude and slowness. It's caught in an endless feedback loop.
- watwut 4y ago
  To add to what other person responded, birth rates fell down after communism fell. They were higher during USSR times then now. Not just in Russia, but everywhere in post communist world.
- pranavjoneja 4y ago
  not totally clear if this is the point you’re trying to make, but the US today fits that description exactly > killing/imprisoning a lot of your own population the US has the highest incarceration rate in the world > creating an economic climate where it was hard to sustain your family the cost of housing has far outgrown the median household income and in many places you need 2+ income earners to sustain a household meaning nobody has time to raise children
kgeist 4y ago
>Their population never boomed like it did in the US post WW2, possibly because of the massive loss of lives in the war Checked the censuses: USSR: 170,467,186 (1939) 208,826,650 (1959) USA: 132,164,569 (1940) 179,323,175 (1960) USSR: +38 mln USA: +47 mln I'd say it's pretty comparable, if you also consider that 26 mln Soviets were killed in WW2
- idlehand 4y ago
  26 million, mostly in prime working and childbearing age - so a larger effect on future population size than the number itself implies.
  - watwut 4y ago
    > mostly in prime working and childbearing age You have seen that in stats or just assume? Because civilian causalities in WWII outnumber military ones. Old people, kids and sick people are extremely vulnerable during wars and die a lot. Especially in WWII. First, obviously holocaust - most victims were from Eastern Europe and old, sick, kids had even lower chance to survive then physically strong people (not that it was high there, but). Second, German army was cleansing Eastern Europe for German settlement. That meant whole villages routinely burned out to ground. Third, famines and such, cause military extracts resources from people.
- piokoch 4y ago
  26 millions Soviets were not killed in WW2, as Soviet Union (and Russia today) adding to the WW2 kills victims of Soviet Gulag system (about 2 millions) and 6-10 millions Ukrainians starved to death during Holodomor genocide. BTW: WW2 losses are still exorbitant, even if we subtract those 10 millions, but no longer that "impressive" (Poland lost 6 millions people, which was almost 20% of the population, killed by Germans and Russians - till 1941 Hitler and Stalin were best pals).
  - kgeist 4y ago
    >6-10 millions Ukrainians starved to death during Holodomor genocide Ukraine's Holodomor happened in 1932-1933, and the census I mentioned is from 1939-1959. If you are implying that they were hiding Ukrainian losses in the 1930's and secretly added it to WW2 kill count then it's not quite true, censuses in 1926 and 1937 registered a drop in Ukrainian population from 31 mln to 26 mln. The results of the 1937 census were declassified only in 1990 and the revised number (26 mln) was estimated in the 1990's after the collapse of USSR and on the basis of declassified documents in Soviet archives. >adding to the WW2 kills victims of Soviet Gulag system (about 2 millions) Documents from the Soviet archives number the total deaths of prisoners in the Gulag from 1941 to 1945 at 621,637 (Evdokimov, 1995)

snek_case 4y ago

Slightly worrying notion but, if Russia believes that global warming benefits them, they might keep on extracting and burning fossil fuels long after everyone else has transitioned to renewables.

michaelmrose 4y ago
Indeed it might but its need for it is finite and renewables as more resources are sunk into improving them may eventually make doing so increasingly economically disadvantageous. As more of the world moves on it becomes easier to encourage different behavior as well as Russia ceases to have anything else anyone needs.
- GekkePrutser 4y ago
  For most of this time we didn't know it was bad though.
pm90 4y ago
Unlikely. Fossil fuel extraction is expensive. It makes sense economically only because theres a lot of demand for it globally and companies can net huge profits. Without that kind of global demand, fossil fuel extraction will be limited to keeping the existing facilities open until they dry up. For a preview of the future of oil, we just need to look at what happened to coal.
- ElectricalUnion 4y ago
  > For a preview of the future of oil, we just need to look at what happened to coal. So people turning nuclear power off and burning lots of coal and gas to compensate?
- closedloop129 4y ago
  Is there a cheap way to create fertilizers without hydrocarbons? Otherwise there will be demand for them as long as they are available. In other words, it's very likely that we will use all available fossil fuels.

divbzero 4y ago

> It also seems climate change and global warming Russia thinks benefits them at least then, maybe now as well. That is curious idea. I wonder how the risks of thawing permafrost play into the equation. The thaw leads to newly available biomass, digested by microbes to release carbon dioxide and methane, and leaving a considerably altered environment including depressions filled with water [2]. Would those risks be outweighed by overall gains of a warmer Siberia? [2]: https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2022/01/17/the-great-siberian-thaw https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2022/01/17/the-great-sibe...

sebastianconcpt 4y ago

Then why not doing more things where coldness becomes an asset instead going against nature? Geo-engineering should be made illegal. Their "bugs" would scorch the Earth. No geo-engineer knows what's he/she is doing. Any implementation there is a guarantee of having massive unintended consequences that are irreversible.

jillesvangurp 4y ago
We'll need to do some serious geo engineering on purpose to reverse all the geo engineering we've been doing by accident. Current efforts are all about stopping the problem from getting worse. We reducing the pace at which co2 emissions grow. But they are still growing, not shrinking. But the point is that, unless we do some geo engineering, those levels are not coming down by themselves any time soon.
- sebastianconcpt 4y ago
  Malthusian fabulations of the over-inflated egos of technologists wildly overestimating their understanding of Nature itself.
throwaway4aday 4y ago
For the purposes of human life, extreme cold is never an asset. It is an absence of energy and will always require energy input to accomplish anything in such a climate.
- sebastianconcpt 4y ago
  Some technologies benefit from cold. The challenge is in making them ROI positive.
  - throwaway4aday 4y ago
    That's cool but you don't need to use half the landmass of a country for those technologies. You'd be further ahead paying the cost for cooling in exchange for having that land used for agriculture, cities, and more easily accessed resources.