Word: siberias
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Under 70 years of communist rule, Siberia became not only a place of punishment but also a punished place, and nuclear trauma was but one of the tortures visited on the land. Possibly the largest 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...
...perverse genius of the Soviet system was its ability to maximize the problems associated with modern industrial societies without producing many of the 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...
...expanse and the magnitudes of Siberia are mesmerizing. Officially Siberia is the territory east of the Ural Mountains and west of the Russian Far East, which includes the maritime provinces of Khabarovsk and Primorski on the Pacific coast; however, convention has labeled as Siberia all Russian lands east of the Urals--an area that covers more than 5 million sq. mi. Within these boundaries are nearly the entire lengths of four of the longest rivers on earth--the Yenisey, the Ob, the Lena and the Amur, which constitutes most of Siberia's border with China. Yakutia, now designated the Sakha...
...natural wonders of Siberia inspire the imagination of scientists and tourists; its vast riches beckon others. The taiga, the word used to describe the region's enormous forests, in particular has captured the attention of both foreigners and Russians. Japan, Korea and the U.S. covet the rich forests of southern Siberia. The Russian government sees its timber as a quick source of cash to prop up an economy that continues to flounder. Fearful of an economic collapse that might once again bring to power a hostile, nuclear-armed totalitarian regime, the U.S. is trying to promote the responsible exploitation...
Forests, however, are just one item in Siberia's bulging portfolio of natural resources. Soviet exploitation managed to poison and degrade 35,000 sq. mi. of the vast republic, but that only scratched the surface of its mineral wealth. Bob Logan, an economist at the University of Alaska, has made trips to Yakutia to study the region's economic prospects, which he describes as "staggering." As much as 20% of the territory is known to have oil and gas deposits that could make it the Saudi Arabia of the north. The area is one of the world's leading sources...