The headline sounded almost positive.
“Putin Convinced Climate Change Now A Threat” (Aug. 24, London Free Press)
I read farther.
“The climate is changing. This year we have come to understand this when we faced events that resulted in fires,” Mr. Putin told climate scientists working at the Samoilovsky island station, opened in 1998 to study the melting Siberian permafrost. (Link to online article Globe and Mail)
I realized that Putin only admits the climate is changing and, I suppose, he has to appear as if he’s concerned in some small way after a “two-month heatwave, Russia’s worst on record, killed 54 people in forest fires, destroyed a quarter of the grain crop and shaved at least $14-billion off the economy.”
However, I learned he is “still waiting for an answer whether global climate change was the result of human activity or “the Earth living its own life and breathing””.
Though his country has suffered this year due to climate change, he doesn’t sound like the kind of person who will lead his country toward positive changes of behaviour.
However, in the next 10 years or so, if Putin regularly revisits that particular station, he may learn first hand that behavioural change is strongly needed.
What’s so special about that particular site?
Stay tuned.
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