Fuel efficiency is increased by new investments and technical developments. Russia is still struggling and will continue to struggle to catch up with modernization. I remember in the 1980s that New York City had in many building these huge immensely hot old unadjustable radiators. But the West has money to modernize and refurbish.

I would not say that the Russian ATTITUDE is like, it is their technology. When you go for your next holiday to a third world capital pay attention to the level of pollution in the air. It is quite unlike the much cleaner air we have in Western capitals. Simply the quality of the petrol is better, it is also more expensive to produce.

In Eastern Europe many household still burn wood and coal and diesel in the cities, that is the worst combination for our sensitive Western lungs.

"Only puny secrets need protection. Big discoveries are protected by public incredulity." MMcL

Year 2007 has become the warmest in 150 years of hydro-meteorological survey in Russia, said Roman Vilfand, chief of the country's Hydro-Meteorological Center.
"For Russia, one may say it with the 99-percent certainty, it will be the warmest year in nearly 150 years of instrumental observation," Vilfand announced Thursday during the news conference dedicated to hydro-meteorological results.

According to Vilfand, 2007 will be one of five, or perhaps, one of three warmest years in the world history. "It shows the climate warming obviously continuous," Vilfand pointed out.

Russia had quite a lot of so-called hazardous weather conditions past year. The storm in the Kerch Strait that happened early November caused the greatest damage, the chief meteorologist said, specifying that the overall losses blamed on the dangerous weather were not so hefty as in 2006.

January of 2007 was very warm, Vilfand went on, but the temperature sank to -250C in February.

Vilfand also emphasized that the fact that Alexander Bedritsky, who heads the Federal Hydrometeorology and Environment Monitoring Service (Rosgidromet) was reelected as the chief of World Meteorological Organization manifests acknowledgement of Russia's achievements in forecasting the weather and hazardous events related to it.

QUESTION: Mr President, you know that in America, being `green', ecologically-minded, is the new religion, and the chief hierarch is former Vice-President Al Gore. I have two questions in this respect. How do you view the `green movement' as it is developing in Russia, and what is your policy in this area? And the second part of my question: in America and the West there is a need to use alternative energy sources so as to reduce dependence on fuels such as oil.

VLADIMIR PUTIN: Regarding the ecology movement, I very much support it and share their ideas very much.

Protecting nature, protecting the environment in which we live is one of the priorities for all of humankind. People who devote their time and their lives to this work unquestionably deserve our support. It is also clear that we cannot stop human development. There will always be a conflict between development and environmental protection. It is important that humanity realise the dramatic nature of the events taking place and channel development in such a way as to cause minimal damage to nature, or try to find ways of excluding all such damage.

Modern technology can help us to achieve this. It is easier to resolve these problems today than it was even 15 years ago, because in a situation of confrontation between two rival blocs such as we had back then, confrontation that threatened total mutual destruction, people were not much concerned with what happened to the environment during this competition, which was a struggle of life or death.

But today we have left this situation behind and there is no need to destroy the environment in the way we did previously. Today we therefore have a unique political opportunity to look after what God has given all of humankind.

Our eco-system is very vulnerable. It is amazing that the Earth still survives today. Our planet evolved through a combination of billions of circumstances and continues to exist thanks to the fact these billions of circumstances somehow interact and work together. Our planet, which is in constant movement through what is essentially the hostile environment of outer space, is faced with the constant threat of destruction. It could be hit by large cosmic bodies. We have a very thin ozone layer and our atmosphere in general is really quite thin. There is a very fine line beyond which damage becomes irreversible, and we might not even notice that we have crossed this line.

In this respect we must always remember this and always strive to minimise the possible negative consequences for the environment. But what I do not like is that people sometimes use environmental issues as an instrument in competition, particularly in economic competition, in order to stifle competition. This undermines trust in the environmental protection organisations and their work.

This is the negative side of the question. But overall, we must strive to come up with rules of behaviour that would protect the environment for humankind in the long term.

... obviously they have some work to do here.


"Pretending that you already know the answer when you don't is not actually very helpful." ~Migeru.

In many ways Russia still has a 19th century world view. There is probably no place on earth where more people still believe in a heroic vision of man conquering nature. Some have seen the Russian Weltanschauung as being that of an even earlier era. After this summer's opéra bouffe at the Arctic where the Russians used a mini-submarine to plant a Russian flag under the North Pole, newly accessible as summer sea ice disappears, Canadian Foreign Minister Peter McKay declared in a statement reminiscent of one of my favorite Eddie Izzard routines:

   

"Look, this isn't the 15th century. You can't go around the world and plant flags and say, 'We're claiming this territory,"

In many ways this is a ridiculous paragraph. Despite what the Canadian minister said, Russia never "claimed" the North Pole as its sovereign territory. The flag was planted by the first human who have ever reached the place - compare, for example, Americans planting US flag on the Moon. Despite the fact that the ice in Arctic disappears, it was pretty much present on the Pole, which is one of the reason the submersion and concurrent resurfacing is such a technical feat.

Also, when I heard about this idiocy from Canada, I wondered whether they used the same language in reaction to

1988 - The Danish Arctic Ocean patrol cutter HDMS Tulugaq arrived at the island, built a cairn and placed a flagpole and Danish flag on the island

Some thinking aloud:

It appears the economy is the number one priority right now.  And there is an argument to be made that keeping people from starving to death and living in chaos is a legitimate priority.  However, the money to do that is coming from non-renewable, carbon spewing natural resources.  A bit of a deal with the devil at the moment.

Russia's not being imperialist.  That's simply unfounded.  A flag under the North Pole?  Who cares.  I suggest that any hesitancy (might be a polite way of putting it) to fight global warming is most probably rooted in a combination of ignorance of the subject and other more tangible and immediate priorities, rather than megalomania or something.

It's taken us how long to come around to the idea?  We still can't get the US to take a firm stand.  So good luck convincing an equally proud, "sovereign," religious and ... well, stubborn nation - and one that is A LOT COLDER - to cooperate with us to fight global warming.  

Actually, we've spent the last almost Century treating Russia like dirt.  That they don't want to listen to us might say as much or more about us than it does about them...

Remind me who spent the better part of the 20the Century lecturing Russia on the inherent superiority of our wasteful, consumerist, materialist, capitalist culture.  So they took our advice, followed in our footsteps, and now we are shocked and appalled by their shiny new wasteful, consumerist, materialist, capitalist culture.  Let's all give ourselves a pat on the backs.

Why I'm not 100% forlorn about Russia's economic policies (I use the term even though I have no clue what they are....):

Russia has a strong and remarkable history of scientific innovation.  They are not risk adverse to coming up with new ways of making stuff work.  And they are adaptable.

They embrace the whole nuclear energy thing.

Energy efficiency.  It saves money.  Putin doesn't have a record of favoring ideology over financial incentives...

Though I don't know that they'd ever self-identify as environmentalists, they love their nature, and have a pretty significant cultural bond with it.  It might be the same in Europe, but it's not so much in the States.  I feel we see a forest and envision a new Walmart, whereas they look at one ans envision a good mushroom hunt.  Ok, those are stereotypes, but I'm not aware of a bizarre urge to pave everything in sight over there.  It's been heading in that direction, but I'm not convinced of its staying power.  So yes, nature, environment.  I think anyone who has lived there understands who is at the mercy of whom in the battle between nature and humans.  

Why I'm not 100% hopeful about Russia's economic policies (I use the term even though I have no clue what they are....):

Still waiting for that economy to diversify...

"Pretending that you already know the answer when you don't is not actually very helpful." ~Migeru.

After this summer's opéra bouffe at the Arctic where the Russians used a mini-submarine to plant a Russian flag under the North Pole, newly accessible as summer sea ice disappears

Of course, all we have to prove they did it are the tv pics they released of the event... Oh wait !!

Russian state broadcaster Rossiya had enhanced footage of the Arktika expedition with sequences taken by MIR submersibles for the 1997 film Titanic, as an illustration of the submarines in action, in which the Finnish-built bathyscaphes had explored the wrecked liner on the Atlantic seabed, London's Daily Telegraph reported on August 11.[15] The same images were rebroadcast by Reuters, which mistook them as actual footage of part of the expedition.

A Finnish 13-year-old, Waltteri Seretin, of Kemi, 450 miles (724,2 kilometres) north of Helsinki, had recognized the submersibles used in the voyage to the bottom of the sea as appearing in sequences director James Cameron's Oscar-winning drama