Summary: The oxygen-rich habitable layer of the Black Sea has declined over the last few decades from a depth of 140m to a depth of only 90m. The oxic layer does not mix with the layers below. All theories as to why the decline has occurred are speculative, but some believe that the increase in H2S2 at greater depth may be implicated (though this is unsubstantiated).
Your summary is quite inaccurate. As the article explains, the change in thickness of the oxygen-rich layer is well-explained by global warming and the addition of nutrients from farming. The H2S2 increase is also explained, except the causes of its precise depth are not.
In discussing the changes in the Black Sea, it should be noted that Russia is heavily invested in fossil fuel production, and that Putin denies the reality of anthropocentric global climate change. This leads me to the possibility that the purpose of your comment is to divert criticism of Russia. Of course, that idea might be mistaken, and you honestly just misunderstood the article.
I do not think Russia must be solely responsible for what's going on there.
Russian government and Putin himself does recognize artificial nature of climate change, as was shown in his speech on Climate Change Conference in 2015. Truth is that Russia did not make big contribution to it in last 25 years (yes, there's huge oil and gas industry, but most of it is being exported, so it's a responsibility of consumers to use it in emission-neutral way). Current emissions are more than 25% below 1990 levels - can you say such thing about America, China or India? And this happens not only due to reduced output, but also because of some investment in more environmentally friendly manufacturing (yes, Russia has ecological standards and they are enforced - unfortunately, not fully because of corruption). There exist government-sponsored programmes to invest in green energy (e.g. new manufacturing facilities for solar panels), close the top polluters (like BTsBK) and reduce car emissions. It's not that easy to transform such a big economy and fix all the issues of Soviet planning, so it will take time to change and become as green as e.g. Germany (I doubt it's even possible to start something costly like Energiewende in Russia at this moment).
The reason Russia produces so much in the way of fossil fuels is that Putin decided when he was a doctoral student in economics back in the 1990's that the Russian economy should focus through about 2150 on increasing the extraction of natural resources.
Do not take seriously doctoral dissertations of anyone in Russian government but few people with academic background. They are written not to make scientific contribution, but to get "d.something.n." prefix (doctor of some sciences) and a line in CV. They have nothing to do with their real position or policy they enact or implement. Actually, some dissertations may be even written by other people (see Dissernet data mining project to reveal corruption in this field).
In Russia the only policy you can know for sure is the codified policy. Public statements cannot be treated seriously until they are codified, because very often they are made as means of information warfare, messages to specific groups of special interests. Look at the laws, court decisions, government orders etc. Sometimes you can figure out what's really going on only retrospectively, by looking at statistics and filtered stream of the news.
The reason I included this link is because Putin in his governance of Russia has followed the general economic strategy he presents in his doctoral dissertation, and so the document helps us understand the reasoning behind his decisions.
As to codified policy, Putin is an authoritarian ruler in a country with little rule of law, and so he does what he wants, no matter what the laws happen to say.
ivan_gammel, I strongly suspect that you are quite aware of all of this, and are attempting to mislead readers as to what Putin is up to and why.
Let me make one more comment. Putin believes that the road to becoming an advance industrial power is first spend a half a century focused on natural resource extraction, and only then turn to developing advanced industry. I think he is here trying to emulate his interpretation of the economic history of the UK and the US.
But this mistaken, and in two ways. First, in the US and the UK mineral extraction and industrial development proceeded in parallel, not sequentially. Secondly, more recently countries have industrialized by focusing on industry directly, and especially exports, as in the cases of Japan, China, and South Korea.
I think part of the problem here is that Putin greatly mistrusts industrialization that is successful enough to compete on global markets, because it requires independent commercial enterprises, and he is an authoritarian who wants to retain control of the economy, and this is much easier when you are focused on natural resource commodities.
In any case, the whole matter of Putin and his economic views just illustrates the general problem that Russians have never figured out how things work in the modern world, and are always trying to do things in ways that are still half back in the authoritarian, agrarian ways of their past. As a result they get off on paths that succeed for a few decades, but eventually stall out.
It's so sad, Russia could be such an amazing nation if it could just get on the right track.
There's something else here, too. For thousands of years, national wealth and power were largely based in natural resources such as agricultural land and gold mines. In the industrial revolution, new natural resources, especially fossil fuels, were added, but wealth and power shifted mainly to manufactured goods. That is why you can have great industrial powers like Japan, China, and South Korea that are relatively poor in natural sources. And it is why Russia, even though it has natural resources far beyond any other nation, is about 10th in the size of its economy.
The problem with Putin is his mind is still partly back in the pre-industrial era, and so he only half gets this. He knows Russia has to industrialize, but he still sees natural resources as being much more important than they really are, and so he is simply on the wrong economic track.
A key case here is petroleum. It accounts for half the Russian government's tax revenues, and it is central to Putin's plans and investments. But thanks to the renewable energy revolution, based on manufactured technologies like PV cells and giant wind turbines, in half a century petroleum will be largely replaced, and so worth very little. But Putin doesn't get this, which is why so little effort is being put into renewables.
First of all, Russia is already post-industrial state and it experienced multiple industrialization waves in its history - from colonization of Urals (there were the biggest manufactures in the world in XVIII century and there's a special term for that amazing period of history of Urals region - Mountain Manufacturing Civilization introduced by Russian writer and historian Alexey Ivanov), to industrialization in late XIX century (with such projects as Trans-Siberian railway and production shifting to European part of Russia), to industrialization by Stalin in 1930s and finally industrial expansion of 1950-1980s. It's all in the past now, not least because Russia lost most of its industry in competition with China and hi-tech manufacturing to the West. Indeed, Russia is a petrostate now, but it still has large industrial capacity, to name some in which there's some good progress - aerospace (how many nations are capable of creating new civil and military aircraft designs?), arms, automotive (very hot sector with big investments and non-stop race on building new plants). It's not feasible and already too late to compete with China or emerging economies like Vietnam in light industries or consumer electronics, but some targeted efforts to join global manufacturing chains are already paying (e.g. did you know that sapphire glass for Apple products is made in Russia?)
Putin's mistake is not that it applies XVI century resource extraction approach to finally get industrial economy (which is not true because of above), but that it applies command-administrative methods of XX century to build post-industrial economy. He is more interested in playing war games, than writing economic strategies - this job is left to his advisers, and there's ongoing competition to fill that position between liberals like A.Kudrin and communists like S.Glazyev. These bureaucratic battles did not produce any document that could be fully implemented, so significant progress could be visible in only some technical fields, which are far from politics (hence very smart Central Bank, Federal Tax Service or Ministry of Informatization and Communications).
I generally agree with your analysis. I would just add that Putin applies a command-economy approach because he is an authoritarian, and authoritarianism goes with agrarian society, whereas industrial societies do best, over the long term, if they are democratic. And this is true of Russian society as a whole. It looks at the world through the war-orientation of agrarian societies, rather than the more international peace and mutual economic-benefits that fits with liberalism and modern technology.
A post-industrial state is one which was dominantly industrial, and has moved on to some other primary basis for its economy, usually because it is engaged in international trade and its comparative advantage is no longer in manufacturing but some other area.
Usually, this shift in comparative advantage is reflected in industrial work moving overseas to competitors whose comparative advantage is in that kind of work.
So, the two sentences you quote as a supposed contradiction actually support each other, rather than contradicting each other.
> A post-industrial state is one which was dominantly industrial, and has moved on to some other primary basis for its economy, usually because it is engaged in international trade and its comparative advantage is no longer in manufacturing but some other area.
In case of Russia it wasn't so, they still struggle to get back to Soviet level of industrialization after USSR fell apart.
> In case of Russia it wasn't so, they still struggle to get back to Soviet level of industrialization after USSR fell apart.
The US keeps struggling to maintain or restore its previous level of industrialization, too, even though its unmistakeably a post-industrial state; there's a lot of emotional attachment to industrialization as a source of economic output that lingers even in post-industrial states, so struggling to restore it is a common response to dissatisfactory economic experiences even in post-industrial states. If Russia were struggling to get back to Soviet-era aggregate or per-capita economic output, that would be a difference -- and there certainly was a time, throughout much of the 1990s, where that was the case. But its not now (though Russia has seen a precipitous output drop since the peak in 2012, so it might be a thing again in not too long.)
(Russia may be in a situation now -- especially with the recent drop -- where living conditions for the masses are as bad or worse than in the late Soviet era, but that's orthogonal to the economy being post-industrial, and more about the distributional features of the economy than anything else.)
Here is the wikipedia explanation of the term "post-industrial"
"In sociology, the post-industrial society is the stage of society's development when the service sector generates more wealth than the manufacturing sector of the economy"
It's just one side of the big picture. If the economy had never recovered, that would be the only cause. However, it surpassed 1990 levels long time ago and in last 25 years there was investment in industrial capacity too (steel, cement, electricity). And there are 3 times more cars now on the streets which are the biggest source of emissions in cities like Moscow, but Russia - the biggest automotive market in Europe btw - is gradually applying European emission standards (currently Euro-5, one step behind EU). There is industrial policy in place which favors environmentally friendly manufacturing and mining and it works better than in China (e.g. just few days ago the Supreme Court confirmed the position of Ministry of Environment to deny construction of large copper mine near Chelyabinsk, which could bring thousands of jobs, because it could harm the quality of water).
Yeah, I would agree with that being the primary reason. I left out my reasoning for why it dropped since I didn't want to go looking up citations earlier this afternoon.
OECD report on standards: http://www.oecd.org/env/outreach/38118149.pdf
See "Key findings" section - it summarizes the current progress and remaining issues with environmental policy. No wonder, most of them are deeply rooted in overall political climate and related to corruption, but, still, there's some progress and majority of ordinary people and in the government is really concerned with ecology and climate change.
There are many more sources in Russian, but it's hard to get a coherent view from them and harsh critics means more that people have very good understanding how it should be and push for more to be done, rather than that government ignores environmental issues like in some countries of South-East Asia, for example.
Russia is behind the US and China because it has a far smaller population and economy.
Furthermore, the US and China are strongly promoting renewable energy to replace fossil fuels. Russia is doing almost nothing along these lines (think of all the renewable energy stories you see here at HN. None of them are about Russia).
By the way, American conservatives are completely opposed to Putin and Russia (except for Donald Trump, who is very friendly). But in this issue they are in complete agreement.
The link you've provided is an example of primitive and one-sided picture of Russia painted by some Western media, that does not even show any signs of fact-checking (interviewing few people from opposition and not asking for comments from Ministry of Environment - is that the way media work in USA or UK?). Please, note that I'm not a Putin's fan and never voted for him or his cronies. I'm writing this comment to help, because you were fed with BS and here's the advice: do not trust even well-known and respected media, when they are writing about "the rest of the world". They simply don't care to write the truth, because they will not be caught and sued.
That wikipedia article actually says just the opposite. According to it the hydro power was almost all built in the Soviet era, the wind is small agricultural units also built long ago with no large, modern installations, and there is virtually no solar power.
So what? Germany moved from 6% to 30% of renewable energy in 15 years, because they had policy and they invested. Russia started 10 years later. Every section of that article mentions investment projects in that kind of renewable energy that became possible only in recent years for economical reasons. And the investments in solar are not limited just to building of plants - government wants to build a manufacturing industry for them, which to me is the clear sign of interest and commitment.
No, the article, talks about government intentions and plants that are being built, but almost nothing has been completed, and so at present there is virtually no solar energy in Russia, and virtually no new wind energy.
The problem here is that what the article talks about are government plans in an authoritarian regime, and as we all know from the history of Russia and many other authoritarian nations, it is quite common for such plans to never be actually carried out.
You know, you yourself said you don't like Putin, but you seem to trust the stories his tightly-controlled media put out on what Russia is doing about the environment and renewable energy. It seems to me that is rather contradictory.
I agree that plans tend to change, but there exist completed projects and there exists legislation in this field (it's almost impossible at this moment to pass a law that is disapproved by regime, so if anything exists it means there's very strong support of it). It's not that I trust state media, but it's always possible to verify what they've reported. Here are couple stories:
1. Energy efficiency: state corporation Rusnano (investment fund for supporting high tech manufacturing and research in nanotechnology and related fields) invested in manufacturing of LED lighting http://en.rusnano.com/portfolio/companies/optogan
Meanwhile, Ministry of Energy gradually implements ban for manufacturing of 60W and higher light bulbs (100W already banned) and prohibition of use of such bulbs in state and municipal offices.
@ivan_gammel, I would like to ask you some questions.
To start, I said we don't see links here at HN about renewable energy in Russia because nothing is going on. You replied that lots is, and the reason we don't see stories is because the US and UK media is biased against Russia.
But HN also publishes many links on renewable energy from scientific and technology industry sources. Are you saying that they are likewise biased?
And how did that come about, like did the Obama administration send out a letter ordering all of them to never publish any such stories, and they all agreed? and none of the writers every published a complaint about this on the internet, even anonymously?
And how did the government get them to agree, did it tell them if they didn't go along, they would get a bullet in the head from a CIA agent?
And is this ban just for the US, or is it world wide? And when the many experts who are well aware these innumerable Russian renewable energy projects you claim exist complained, what did the editors say? "I'm sorry, but I can't comment on that issue?" And how did the government keep these experts from complaining online, like on their blogs? Did they threaten them too?
For those who would like to counter outrageous comments like ivan_gammel's, note what I am doing, namely working out in some detail the practicalities of what would be needed for the claim to be true. It usually then becomes clear it makes no sense.
Now for the questions, ivan_gammel.
First, when you made your claim, did you first work out the practicalities to see if it made any sense?
Second, now that I have done that, do you see how it sounds like a wacky conspiracy theory?
Finally, do you now agree that the claim doesn't make sense, and that the real reason we see no links at HN about Russian renewable energy projects is there aren't any, or at least very few? or do you still claim there are lots of these projects, and we don't see them here because of media bias?
Oh, and one more thing. The US media claims Putin is pretty awful, and you agree. So how did it come out they got it right on that, but get it all wrong on Russian renewable energy projects?
Cool story, but I've never been talking about any conspiracy. If something does not appear in media or HN, it does not mean it's not happening. It's just not too sexy to discuss, because there's no way how the imperfect and definitely not exemplary environmental policy of a fading piece of former empire can be interesting to anyone. And its too complicated to explain to readers, why this shadow of grey does matter - it's much easier to paint black and white picture with bad Putin and good "Tolstoevsky". It's hardly normal to write an article criticizing someone without asking for his comment. With your link it's exactly what's happened. It's clearly a bias, but I don't believe in conspiracies and my only explanation is that the topic is uninteresting and journalist is too lazy to get his job properly done. And, unfortunately, this is happening quite often on such dull topics, where media do not do proper fact-checking and align the available information either to black or to white. I don't blame them - readers don't care, but if you care, you have not to rely on single article with a political statement and opinions of few people from opposition.
By the way, for some reason you have chosen about "renewable energy projects", but I've not been mentioning them alone (yes, they exist, but not as big as in many other places in the world and HN is not an industrial news bulletin to mention them). Environmentally friendly industrial policy consists not only of them and energy sector is not the only source of emissions.
"Tolstovesky"?? Never heard of that word, and Google is no help. Perhaps you could explain what it means.
You claim the media is uninterested in energy policy in Russia, but the scientific and technological media is very interested in such things, and HN is read mainly by techno-geeks who are also, and so we have lots and lots of links to articles from such sources.That includes global surveys that include Russia, and tech innovations from countries all over the world. And these stories includes complex nuances and try to be objective. So if anything was actually happening in Russia, you would see it here. But you don't and if this is not due to a conspiracy, then you need to come up with another explanation, and you can't.
As to why I am focusing on renewable energy, it is because you yourself linked to a wikipedia article on that very topic that, as I explain below, says very clearly that very little is going on in that area in Russia.
As to asking for replies, I ask that partly to make sure I have understood you properly.
"Tolstoevsky" is the new project of Russian artist Dmitry Vrubel, who now lives in Berlin (and created the most famous his work "My God, Help Me to Survive This Deadly Love" on Berlin Wall), based on surnames of Russian writers Tolstoy and Dostoevsky. I've used this word just as a metaphor of slices of Russian culture known and popular on the West - the White part of picture of Russia, that usually consists of bad rulers and good people.
Regarding the media, the lack of news in English is surprising a bit, because I see here and there that something indeed is going on and can confirm it by examples of projects I'm aware of (and likely there are more that I'm not). I can see the simplification bias in general media, which can be explained by lack of interest to post-Soviet Russia (and I've seen publications explaining this with reduced financing of research of Russia in USA - one of the reasons why events in Ukraine were a big surprise for US government). As for scientific and technological media, one of the reasons can be the obscurity of Russian science and inexperience of the government in PR. I cannot find any traces of Buribay solar plant launch in non-Russian or-non solar energy media - how exactly could that happen? I can suggest only that such events and their coverage is not sexy enough for HN/Wired/whatever to be remembered or even discussed. And this project is not small, behind it are very strong businesses like Renova and Rusnano. Can you offer any other explanation beyond "nothing is happening"?
Ok, I now see that there are some positive things going on in Russia, but that is because the last day you finally started posting some links that actually proved it.
I tend to believe negative views of Russia because its government is, overall, so awful, so it would seem to me unlikely it would be doing anything positive in that area. And there is also the matter of the Putin direct quotes on global climate change.
Which leads me to ask you, what is the media in Russia, which says what Putin tells it to say, saying about global climate change nowadays?
Media landscape in Russia is as complicated as everywhere, so I usually try to reconstruct the full picture from publications in business media - Kommersant (neutral, oldest quasi-independent media holding), Vedomosti (originally started by Financial Times, but sold to Russian investors, has light opposition flavor), Expert (in last 5 or 6 years got strong pro-Putin bias, but because of target audience is not filled with propaganda). All TV and radio stations in Russia do not worth any attention because of their strong bias. I also try to verify the interesting publication by reading official press releases and local newspapers (when some new project is completed, it may not receive major federal coverage, but it will be a notable event for locals or professional media). I do read state media sometimes, because they do not publish 100% lie (and even opinions quite often make sense), but I usually double-check their facts. It's not normal way to read news today, but I've been working as architect of media sentiment analysis software for some very high-profile customers (not Russian) in 2000s and have some analytical habits since that time.
Interesting answer, but I see I should have been more specific in my question. I want to know what the TV and radio stations are saying about global climate change. That is because they are puppets of the Putin government, and so I assume that whatever they are saying about GCC is what the Putin government believes, or at least wants the public to believe.
It's hard to find examples for electronic media, but here's the biggest mainstream tabloid with strong pro-Putin position, explaining why climate change is not a myth, how it damages Russian nature and economy and how Russia can benefit (sic!) from joining global efforts on preventing it:
http://www.kp.ru/daily/26521.5/3537467/
That's good to know, so it seems the government is getting serious about climate change.
That said, your information in other comments says the government has been doing some things in this area, but so far it seems to be only 5% or 10% of what the US and China are doing, much less what is needed to avoid catastrophe. Maybe Putin's government is now getting more serious and will step things up.
Ok, that lead to a further question I would like to ask you. To start, it seems to me that there are three main possibilities for Russia and renewable energy. One is that it will charge ahead at a rapid pace, the second is that it will move ahead but slowly, and the third is that it will halt new production and installations entirely.
From what I understand (which may be mistaken), the odds of the first are very low, like 1%, the third are maybe 20%, and so the most likely is the second.
You know a lot more about what is going on in Russia than I do, Ivan, so let me ask you, do you agree with my assessment, or is yours different, and if so, what are your reasons?
Ok, looks like you have no idea about what are you talking about.
First of all, no one cares about "a lot more land becomes arable", because even existing arable land is not fully used - there's already a lot of it, which allowed after transition to market economy after collapse of Soviet Union to increase agricultural production significantly and there are still unused thousands of square kilometers on Far East.
60% of Russian territory is a permafrost zone. Global warming dramatically changes the geology of this area, which has a lot of complications for construction and may severely damage existing infrastructure (including oil and gas pipes). This is well-known and recognized danger here.
Then, immigration. There's already water crisis in Middle Asia, which with population growth and rising Islamism in countries like Uzbekistan and Tajikistan is a huge problem for Russian security. Remember, we have open borders and visa-free travel with them. Plus millions of Chinese guest workers on Far East (and that's even bigger security issue, because on Chinese side of the border situation with ecology is much worse). Immigration is a real concern for Russia itself and any global factors that affect everything are not really useful.
According to a Reuter's article, "Putin told an international climate conference that warmer temperatures would mean Russians "spend less on fur coats" while "agricultural specialists say our grain production will increase, and thank God for that".
Are you saying that Putin's true beliefs are quite different, and that he has long believed that anthropogenic climate change is occurring, and it is a threat to Russia? And if so, do you have any evidence from more than a couple years back?
Let me add that Obama has long be quite concerned about GCC, and he has made this quite clear in numerous public speeches for many years. He has done this because he wants the US public and the world to know where he stands.
If Putin was likewise concerned, then you would expect him to make this similarly clear, and it would be easy to come up with quotes over many years on the web.
It fits his actions, and so I assume he really believes it and is acting on it. As I said above, he is an authoritarian leader, and so what the government actually does may be very different than the laws and policies it presents to the public.
Exactly. And if the rest of the world goes to hell in the process, so be it. In fact, Russia has a basically win-lose, zero-sum of international relations, so I am guessing this sort of outcome would make Putin very happy.
I have a question for you, but first let me say why I think Putin has a win-lose, zero sum of international relations.
To start, Putin grew up and had his career in the old communist Soviet Union, and has made clear he thought it was absolutely wonderful. Now the USSR was a superpower, with 350 million people, the world's second largest economy, a military equal to that of the US, and it controlled Eastern Europe through communist puppet governments.
Then in 1989-91, the Eastern European nations threw out the communist governments and broke away, communism was abandoned, all the non-Russian republics broke away from the USSR, and the military declined drastically. Now Russia has only 145 million people, much less territory, no solid allies except Bylarus, a military about one-fifth the strength of the US, and it's economy is ranked 10th in size.
Putin has made clear that he wants to get back to superpower status, and to do that he has to take back a lot of territory, either through incorporation into Russia or as allies. He can't do that with the Central Asian former Soviet republics, partly because they are semi-allies of China. So he is trying to expand westward, and doesn't care at all that most of the population of the Eastern European nations want to stay aligned with the West.
And to do this he uses various means such as military threats, sending in military forces, trying to undermine democratic governments through supporting extreme left and right wing parties, and a massive internet trolling campaign.
Well, that is my view. What is your view? Where do you think Putin is trying to go in the long term, and what sort of means do you think he uses?
Disclosure: I'm a Russian nationalist and I'm biased but honest.
Putin had a chance to take most of Ukraine back or at least try to do it. This is late '14, Ukrainians taking hold on separatist "people's republics" of Donetsk and Lugansk.
They use artillery against populated areas, lots of civian casualties. The memory of Odessa massacre is still vivid. He has broad support back home to end it all. He has grassroot support in Kharkov and Odessa regions (connect them on the map and see how much of Ukraine is left). He's still holding arguably legitimate Ukrainian president for god's sake!
Ukraine army was still weak and disoriented, he had a chance of dealing a massive blow and overrunning most of the country, and he blew it!
Now, fast forward two years. Can we seriously talk about Putin expanding into Eastern Europe proper if he's unable to take Russian-speaking parts of Ukraine? How he would ever do that? Belarus wipes its feet with Putin, EU sanctions against it are all lifted. Kazakhstan improves ties with China and gets wary of Putin too. In the end he sublimates the inability to tackle Ukraine in his petty TV war in Syria.
Yes, he does use military threats, sending in military forces, trying to undermine democratic governments through supporting extreme left and right wing parties, and a massive internet trolling campaign. No, that won't get him very far, considering he's old and didn't have balls to take a bite at Ukraine. Perhaps he never wanted to. Of course he's bitter about Russia's decline, but he likes his little throne and oligarch friends and doesn't want to risk all that.
Summary: We can only talk about Putin expanding into Eastern Europe when he figures out Ukraine. Not earlier.
I basically agree with your comment. Let me just add that I get the impression that Putin didn't go ahead and try to grab the rest of Ukraine was he was afraid NATO and the US would intervene. In addition a lot of the Russian public was unhappy with the military deaths, and much of his limited military got diverted to Syria.
The broader picture, as you indicate, is yes, he is imperialistic and nasty, but he hasn't gotten very far and probably won't in the future if the West stays united against him. Oh, and that is one reason he has this massive online troll campaign, it is to confuse and weaken the West.
Lets remember this whole discussion started because I said that Putin has a zero-sum, win-lose view of international relations, and people said my view was just speculation, so I elaborated it, and you are giving further confirmation.
Let me add that Putin's win-lose approach to the rest of the world is in part because he is a Russian, and as a consequence of Russian history he sees the world as a constant struggle of nations where you either defeat your enemies or are defeated yourself. This means it is best to strike first and grab as much land and power as possible.
Just as in economics, Russia has never figured out that in the modern, especially post-WWII and nuclear world, things have moved to a considerably more secure and win-win sort of situation. So Putin and the Russians have this wacky belief that the US is out to conquer Russia and turn it into a colony, whereas actually the US would just like to have reasonably peaceful relations.
It's what recent history teaches to Russia.
People kind of expected that peaceful end of the cold war is a good thing, but it turned out that USA & Western Europe won and Russia lost. And now US politics has audacity to poke in russians' faces with this "fact". It was win-lose.
After that, on 2000-s, Russia sought to enter WTO, even join NATO, and streighten ties with EU. But it mostly got humiliation and shown the door. It wasn't win-win.
Now, it's quire easy to learn that win-win scenarios don't work and win-lose do, and you want to be on a right side of win-lose.
And I wold argue that win-win fails to perform in modern world. It's now more like lose-lose. Iraq? Syria (for all parties including Russia)? Lose-lose. Even international trade starts to show this character.
But after all that said, speculating on peoples' beliefs instead of facts is always opinionated.
As for criticizing Russia because it it is corrupt and authoritarian, free speech is just part of how the modern world works. I myself am very critical about the US in many ways.
You are right, a lot of the relations in the world today are win-lose. But Syria is hardly a modern democratic industrialized state. Or take the complicated case of China and Russia, which is cooperative in many ways, and hostile in others.
Putin, his whole life, has never been a win-win guy, from all I have read. Yeltsin was a mess. So I am dubious when I hear that Russia wanted to be friendly and cooperative, and the West repulsed him.
As far as the Russian people's beliefs go, I have read lots from experts on how they see the world.
Russia only became member of WTO very late, the process was hindered without end.
Russia briefly explored possibility of joining NATO but was met with cold stares and disengaged.
Russia opted for e.g. visa waiver with Schengen area (EU), but that got nowhere in ten years.
Regarding win-win guys, after a few years in early 90s it became impossible for a Russian to be one. It was vividly shown that "the night is dark and full of terrors".
From what I understand, it got in the WTO only recently because it took so long to enact the needed reforms to meet WTO standards. As far as NATO goes, I find my links on that topic more persuasive.
Guard-of-terra, let me ask you some questions. First, what do you think Putin's long term goals are, and how long do you think he has had them? Does he want to take Eastern Europe back, and has wanted this since it was lost back in 1989, or has he come to this goal only in the last few years, or would he be happy if it remained aligned with the West?
Also, what do you think the West's goals are? Do you think that ever since 1991 it has wanted to conquer Russia, or at least make it poor, weak, and subservient? Or do you think that starting in 1991 it wanted to Russia to be democratic, independent, and prosperous, and only later became hostile toward it as a response to Putin's rhetoric and actions? Or perhaps you have some third view.
WRT WTO: Everybody got there before Russia. Even the most peculiar and closed off economies. It shows that everybody were cut some slack but Russia was boned. That's what I'm talking about. Judging purely from results.
I think that Putin's long term goals is sitting on the throne and avoiding violence against himself and his buddies. Everything else is "nice to have".
Futhermore, there's two Eastern Europes that are no longer smart to compound (Russia is Eastern Europe too for that matter, makes it three):
- Non-USSR non-Russian-speaking ex-socialist countries, who're already consumed by EU.
- Ex-USSR mostly-Russian-speaking ex-communist republics, who are/were in CIS.
Baltic states are somewhat in-between.
I think that since 1991 the West did not care about Russia. They looted the corpse basically. And they didn't give a shit about Russia until the corpse in question began moving.
They definitely didn't lift too many fingers towards "Russia to be democratic, independent, and prosperous".
As for "poor, weak, and subservient", that's the default state of things on planet Earth (entropy?) so you don't need master plan to attain it.
So you are basically cynical about both Russia and the West. And the implication seems to be that there is no point in citizens in Russia or the West trying to make things better, because it is all hopeless. Have I got you right?
Nope, I definitely don't think so. Direct electronic democracy could be a step forward. Basic Income could be a step forward. Green energy could catch up finally.
(That's country level, right. My expectations on international politics are bearish)
Things becoming better are not impossible, but improbable. The outlook isn't bright. Too many things to be fixed and no popular will to do so. The situation with global Muslim migration (and disregard of social progress) is especially dangerous and can ruin everything quick.
You are partially correct: I scanned the article initially and wrote an inaccurate summary based on an inaccurate scan.
As you point out, there is consensus on the causes, first, excess nutrients from fertilization in the USSR, and second, decreased ventilation in the post-USSR period caused by climate change.
As to diverting criticism of Russia: BWA HA HA HA HA! That's funny. Little or nothing could provide greater proof of our not knowing each other. That's pretty funny. Wipes tear from eye.
As I stated, it was possible that you wrote the comment to divert criticism. I said that because Russia has a giant army of internet trolls who spend all day doing that sort of thing.
But I also said it was possible there was another cause, and I see now that is the case. My apologies.
>The link you are accessing has been blocked by the Barracuda Web Filter because it contains spyware. The name of the spyware is: Spyware.Exploit.BRTS.sciencebulletin.org
