While the U.S. remains embroiled in a mind-boggling feud over
whether climate change is real, Russia has warmed up to the
scientific evidence. “Everyone is talking about climate change
now,” President Dmitri A. Medvedev told the Russian Security
Council this month. “Unfortunately, what is happening now in our
central regions is evidence of this global climate change,
because we have never in our history faced such weather
conditions in the past.” Russia’s leaders have usually played
the role of obstructionists in global talks about climate change
because they thought that combatting it would harm their
economic growth (where have we heard that before?) and because
they believed that they would benefit from a warming planet. The
vast stretch of frozen-over Siberia, they believed, would turn
into a pleasant region of moderate temperature, ripe for
agriculture and development. But this summer changed their
minds. The costs of climate change have been horrendous. Russia
has suffered a devastating drought, and the