Virtually every English language textbook ever written contains a chapter, or at least an exercise, on global warming and the environment. Students are inevitably indifferent to this as a subject; like most people, they are opposed to global warming in theory but completely unwilling to alter their developing country "economic bubble" yuppiescum consumer lifestyles one iota.
But yesterday one of my brighter students pointed something out to me; Russia will not really be affected by global warming. Russia has a lot of coastline, but very little of it is inhabited or built up, and there's (obviously) a tremendous amount of uninhabited land away from the coasts. If the climate gets warmer, that's hardly a problem -- arctic areas will become more habitable and the growing seasons will be longer.
If (when) the North Pole melts, Russia will also be in a good position to claim and take advantage of the shipping lanes that will be thusly opened. Resources unreachable in frozen areas of Siberia will also be exploitable.
So yeah! Russia, your global warming sanctuary.
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