An environmental disaster without equal.
Well for starters, the USSR drained the Aral Sea to farm cotton...Can you explain? You mean nuclear related? China very recently was seen as somewhat of a pollution disaster until some recent measures they took.
Well for starters, the USSR drained the Aral Sea to farm cotton...
Their economic bottom line, in so far as the USSR actually had one, was almost entirely dependant on their fossil fuel industry, as was most of their power generation.
Environmental protections essentially didn't exist in the USSR.
Imagine modern day Russia but bigger, and with fewer environmental regulations.Is that much different than present day Russia which still remains a non-insignificant power.
Well, I can't speak for the plants/trees (I'm not the Lorax), but IIRC the fall of the USSR led to a major rise in poaching and illegal logging, with animals like the Saiga Antelope and the Siberian Tiger suffering the consequences.Imagine modern day Russia but bigger, and with fewer environmental regulations.
What makes you think a surviving USSR would be more hostile to environmental regulations than modern Russia is?Imagine modern day Russia but bigger, and with fewer environmental regulations.
A possible reason could be that it's an even bigger producer/exporter of fossil fuels than OTL Russia, since IIRC Turkmenistan in particular at least has a TON of natural gas, to the point where it's almost free there. I could be wrong though.What makes you think a surviving USSR would be more hostile to environmental regulations than modern Russia is?
Because it historically had none and actively suppressed its environmental movement. Russia meanwhile has environmental regulations, they just aren't enforced due to endemic corruption and the difficulty of policing such a vast frontier.What makes you think a surviving USSR would be more hostile to environmental regulations than modern Russia is?
They aren't in the top 96 oil producers in the world, but four other Central Asian "stan" countries are, so you may just be mistaken about which one.A possible reason could be that it's an even bigger producer/exporter of fossil fuels than OTL Russia, since IIRC Turkmenistan in particular at least has a TON of natural gas, to the point where it's almost free there. I could be wrong though.
I think you are painting with way too broad a brush. I'd love to see your sources on the USSR standing against all environmental movements. In the early 1930s that seems true, most were forcibly closed at the height of Stalin's terror. What about the All-Russia Society for the Protection of Nature? A group founded in 1924 that survived Stalin's early '30s purges and continued to exist the whole length of the Soviet Union. We are talking about the same country over the course of a century from the USSR's founding to now. Environmentalism emerged as a major force in the US in the '60s and '70s, with periods of waxing and waning power and opposition since then.Because it historically had none and actively suppressed its environmental movement. Russia meanwhile has environmental regulations, they just aren't enforced due to endemic corruption and the difficulty of policing such a vast frontier.
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Another factor would be if the Cold War is also still a thing. Modern day Russia isn't above occasionally entertaining climate accelerationist fantasies. A hardline USSR deciding that it wants to BBQ America and win the Cold War by default would be ... scary but not impossible.
I said natural gas, not oil.They aren't in the top 96 oil producers in the world, but three other Central Asian "stan" countries are, so you may just be mistaken about which one.
This shows in 2019, Russia produced 10,800,000 barrels of oil a day (3rd most in the world). Kazakhstan produced 1,595,199 (16th in the world), Uzbekistan produced 52,913 (50th in the world), Kyrgyzstan produced 1,000 (88th in the world), and Tajikistan produced 180 (95th in the world).
I didn't say it had no environmentalism I said it had no (effective) environmental regulations. Soviet environmental sciences were actually pretty advanced, rather they had difficulties getting regulations passed that couldn't be negated by an economic planner's say so. And it was only with glastnost* that Soviet environmentalism transformed from an academic movement into a mass movement.Just saying "USSR had no environmentalism" is absurd, and to pretend that Russia's environmental regulations would only have spawned from the Russian Federation. Boris Yeltsin and Vladimir Putin aren't hardcore environmentalists and neither of them spearheaded anything on that front that would make their government exceptional.
But how much influence did it have in the halls of power?What about the All-Russia Society for the Protection of Nature? A group founded in 1924 that survived Stalin's early '30s purges and continued to exist the whole length of the Soviet Union.
Wow, thanks for linking that source! Looking at World Totals, Russia and the former Soviet Central Asian countries collectively have over 30.6% of the world's natural gas reserves. That's almost twice as much as Iran, who has the second most in the world with 17.8%. They would also have about 6.675% of the world's oil, putting them in 6th globally between Iraq and Kuwait.
From what I read on that society I mentioned, they seemed to spend most their time lobbying for protections and trying to catch poachers and loggers, and sometimes the officials who they bribed to do so. Seems like they were seen as harmless by the state and that implies a lack of power. My info comes from here and here.I didn't say it had no environmentalism I said it had no (effective) environmental regulations. Soviet environmental sciences were actually pretty advanced, rather they had difficulties getting regulations passed that couldn't be negated by an economic planner's say so. And it was only with glastnost* that Soviet environmentalism transformed from an academic movement into a mass movement.
Yeltsin was desperate enough for foreign cash and legitimacy to sign OECD minimum recommendations into law. As for Putin, he throws the occasional bone to the environmental movement that emerged during glastnost, and occasionally uses environmental regulations as a club with which to beat the oligarchs he's on bad terms with.
But how much influence did it have in the halls of power?
*and Glastnost is arguably what killed the USSR so ¯\_(ツ)_/¯