Sophie Pinkham (MARS-REERS ’12; Ph.D. Slavic ’19) reviews Thane Gustafson’s Klimat: Russia in the Age of Climate Change for the New York Review of Books (June 23, 2022).

Russia is warming 2.5 times as fast as the world on average, and the Arctic is warming even faster. The cliché, avidly promoted by Moscow, is that the country will be a relative winner in climate change, benefiting from a melting and accessible Arctic shipping route, longer growing seasons, and the expansion of farmland into newly thawed areas. Gustafson counters, with a dry but persuasive marshaling of facts, that in the redistribution of wealth and power that will result from climate change, Russia is doomed. After reading Klimat, Russia’s attack on Ukraine begins to look like the convulsion of a dying state.

Forest Fires in Siberia via Wikimedia