Global warming has long become one of the hottest topics for scientists, politicians and mass media. While it is posed as a serious threat to humanity, there are many experts who believe that the idea of global warming is being promoted in order to avoid addressing more significant issues or even benefiting from it. Arkady Tishkov, deputy director of the Institute of Geography, Russian Academy of Sciences, claims that any climate change is cyclical and humankind’s contributes very little to it.
Good afternoon, Mr. Tishkov. We all remember the unusually hot summer of 2010 when virtually half of Russia was engulfed in wildfires.What does this year have in store for us? Will we see a repeat of that apocalyptic scenario?
There is no reason to expect major problems like those we experienced last summer. But summer 2011 will be hot. Supposing the scale of mismanagement in Russia’s agriculture and forestry sector has remained unchanged, we should expect numerous grass fires, potentially spreading to forests and communities. Last year showed us that most fires started in abandoned fields, and that initial grass fires eventually escalated into forest fires.
But it is quite obvious that global warming is underway, and that this process is irreversible. Temperatures are rising world over, and it’s very convenient to blame everything on mismanagement. Is that being done in order to avoid addressing more serious problems?
I am talking about the fact that not all Russian regions were hit by the fires. There were no fires in areas where agricultural development was managed correctly. But here, to an extent, you have a point: whatever we do, both the number of fires and their intensity will increase. Although territory affected by fires was not at its highest in 2010, European Russia, forest steppes and steppes, which had never seen wildfires before, burned. That is why attention was drawn in particular to the large number of fires.
Does this mean that humankind is doomed, and that our actions have led to irreversible climate change?
No. Any climate change is cyclical. Humankind’s influence on nature boils down to the fact that it has created the conditions for more dramatic climate change. We should primarily fear dramatic changes in climate. Neither people nor the economy will be able to adapt to these changes in time. The state loses tens of billions of rubles each year because the economy and humans are unable to quickly adapt and adjust to these changes in climate. For example, fires have become more frequent, and the number of other catastrophic phenomena increases by 6% annually. Although recent developments in Japan bear little relation to climate change, given the effects of the earthquake, tsunami, and industrial disaster, we can speak of a natural catastrophe.
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