whatever coastline they lose from rising seas is made up tenfold by the land that opens up when permafrost recedes. They will gain the largest continuous farmland on earth on fertile virgin soil.
"Putin is upping crop production in an effort to become, as he
said, “the world’s largest supplier of healthy, ecologically clean and high-quality food.” This year, Russia surpassed the United States as the world’s biggest
exporter of wheat. Russian farming is
booming. Plutocrats are snatching up arable land. In the years ahead, global warming could bolster Russian agricultural supremacy."
Rising temperatures will thaw Russia’s icy reaches. Melting permafrost will damage infrastructure and release noxious methane gas, but it will also expand arable land. A
2011 study found global warming could add more than 400,000 square miles of potential farmland, an area more than twice the size of California. That fact has
investors looking to Siberia with dollar signs in their eyes.