*I wondered what would give with Medvedev and Putin, when they had to report for work every day with wet towels over their faces.
*Well, they've become climate believers. At least, Medvedev has. No word on how they plan to reconcile that with the fact that their regime survives by shipping oil. But, well, when the streets of your capital are full of smoke, you might wake up to the idea that you need oxygen rather more than you need rubles.
http://eng.kremlin.ru/transcripts/724
(...)
"Concluding the first part of this discussion, I want to say that this is, of course, a severe trial for our country, a great trial indeed. But at the same time, we are not alone in facing these hardships, for other countries too have gone through such trials and, despite all the difficulties, have managed to cope with the situation.
"I am sure that we will do the same. Although the possibility of developments taking a negative turn in some places remains, we have already got the situation under control. Overall, we need to learn our lessons from what has happened, and from the unprecedented heat wave that we have faced this summer.
"None of us can say what the next summer will be like. The forecasts vary greatly. 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. This means that we need to change the way we work, change the methods that we used in the past...."
(((More:)))
http://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/2010-08/10/russia-wildfires
(((The Climate Crisis and Chernobyl, together at last in a cloud of airborne mayhem:)))
"The fires have approached the Red Forest, an area that suffered the worst of Chernobyl's fallout in 1986, with the soil still heavily contaminated by cesium-137 and strontium-90.
"Similarly, the Mayak nuclear fuel reprocessing facility in Chelyabinsk Oblast is also threatened by the flames, as is a nuclear research center in Sarov, which was formerly known as the secret town Arzamas-16. If any of the structures succumb, then radionuclides could be spread widely afield, generating new zones of radioactive pollution and displacing the population of those areas.
"Severe health risk
"The effects of the smoke on public health could also be severe. In central Moscow, pollutants have reached 6.6 times the normal level for carbon monoxide, and 2.8 times that of suspended particulate matter. Deaths in the city have doubled, hitting about 700 people per day, and at least 53 people (and possibly hundreds) have been killed directly by the fires in other parts of the country...."
