Word: northerners
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Dates: during 1990-1999
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...single source of air pollution in the world is a complex of smelters in Norilsk in central Siberia; it pumps 2 million tons of sulfur, along with heavy metals and other poisons, into the air each year, contributing heavily to a noxious arctic haze that plagues residents of the northern latitudes as far away as Canada. Siberian industrial emissions contribute heavily to the threat of global warming, which in turn may come back to burn the region. Nearly two-thirds of the region lies atop permafrost. Climate models estimate that even a small temperature rise globally would be exaggerated...
...benefits. Perhaps never has so vast a territory been so despoiled so rapidly. Now the question is whether the capitalism of the new Russia will save Siberia and its reeling ecosystems or finish them off. The stakes could not be higher, involving the future of earth's grandest northern landscape and the political stability of a nuclear superpower...
While the liquidation of forests preoccupies Siberia's south, the northern regions are obsessed with the dream of better transportation links to the outside world. In giant Yakutia, officials speak of the benefits of a sea route across the top of the continent that will open their territories. They long to be free of extortionate transportation mafias that saddle the region with what may be the highest shipping costs in the world. The fees are so high that merchants in Cherski often find it more economical to import food products from Alaska than buy from elsewhere in Russia--and Alaska...
Since the northern sea route was opened to commercial foreign traffic in 1992, however, only one vessel has made the complete trip. Big insurers are loath to underwrite these ventures, given the severity of the northern weather and uncertainty over Russia's ability to keep the route open. Indeed, instead of charging minimal fees to grab market share, the Russian authority responsible for the sea route set the administration fees at $6 a ton, eating up most of the savings that might come from taking the route...
...spared the forced march of Soviet-style economic development. Because of its strategic location, it was sealed off from foreigners and most Russians for 65 years. With only 450,000 people, most of whom live in and around the capital, Petropavlovsk, the region is probably the largest pristine northern territory in the world. "We are aware that there are not many untouched places like Kamchatka in the world," says Boris Sinchenko, first vice governor of the Kamchatka region administration. "We have looked at what mining has done elsewhere, and we will not go the route of Magadan and Yakutia...