Dmitri Medvedev Gets It, Why Don't We?
So perhaps you’ve seen the reports of catastrophic fires in Russia. That’s the benefit of dramatic video of people racing desparately to escape the flames:
But what you probably missed, is that the fires have been fed by drought and heat, prompting even Russia’s President Dmitri Medvedev to note the link between climate change and national security.
According to Time:
on July 30, Russian President Dmitri Medvedev announced that in 14 regions of the country, “practically everything is burning. The weather is anomalously hot.” Then, as TV cameras zoomed in on the perspiration shining on his forehead, Medvedev announced, “What’s happening with the planet’s climate right now needs to be a wake-up call to all of us, meaning all heads of state, all heads of social organizations, in order to take a more energetic approach to countering the global changes to the climate.”
As Time goes on to note, that’s a far cry from a Russian President who has been skeptical of climate change in the past–but not entirely so. Readers of this blog know, for example, that Medvedev convened a meeting of his national security council earlier this year to discuss the risks of climate change.
More immediately, as the New York Times reports, this year’s heat and drought in Europe have done real damage to wheat crops across the continenet. Ukraine has even announced a ban on wheat exports.
I know that we should not confuse the weather for climate–the two are different. But the evidence of climate change is growing with every day. Yet here in Washington, we ignore the events in the world around us, and we ignore the science on which urgent decisions should be made.
