Permafrost Melting Puts Infrastructure in Russian North and Public Health Throughout the Country at Risk, Experts Say

Paul Goble

            Staunton, June 28 – The melting of the permafrost layer in the Russian north is now proceeding so quickly that Moscow will have to spend 172 billion rubles (2.6 billion US dollars) a year even to patch up the buildings, highways, rail lines and oil and gas pipelines every year for as far forward as anyone can see.

            And such spending will not prevent the collapse of cities in the region, ever more frequent oil and gas spills, and what is most alarming the continuing release of methane which will only accelerate global warming more generally and dangerous microbes which may spark new pandemics.

            Indeed, experts say that as serious as the destruction of physical infrastructure in the Russian North now is, the release of methane and such microbes almost certainly is more threatening over the longer term. The first will make it impossible to maintain populations and oil and gas production; the second will threaten human life generally.

            And these experts add that those in Moscow who are suggesting there is a silver lining to this process in that supposedly Russians will be able to raise food in the northern portions of the country for the first time are wrong, these experts say, because agriculture depends not only on temperatures but on quality of the soil – and that will not be adequate in most places.

            The Russian government at least is beginning to monitor the melting of the permafrost effectively, but its budget for address the problems this process creates is far too small. It will only allow for repairing infrastructure that is damaged and does not address at all replacing it or coping with the release of methane and microbes.

            As a result, what many in Russia and even more in the West view as a sideshow to the global warming crisis is likely to take center stage in the next few years, and the longer the powers that be put off addressing the larger issues, the more likely they will be beyond the capacity of either Moscow or the world community as a whole to address.

            These conclusions are offered by two new surveys of the situation which suggest things are deteriorating far more rapidly than all but the most alarmist had suggested earlier. Heavily footnoted, they are available at russian.eurasianet.org/россия-таяние-вечной-мерзлоты-чревато-триллионными-убытками and thebarentsobserver.com/ru/klimaticheskiy-krizis/2021/06/arktike-grozit-kollaps-bolee-40-procentov-zdaniy-na-severe-rossii).