Why Russia loves global warming

While nobody's happy about rising sea levels and temperatures in hotter parts of the world, the warming of the Arctic is a different story. The melting of the sea ice during the summer months has at last made the dream of 15th-century explorers—the Northwest Passage—a reality. The new Arctic passage will dramatically reduce shipping times. But as The Economist points out, the shipping industry is not the only one that will benefit from climate change:  

The biggest beneficiary is likely to be Russia itself, which encircles almost half the Arctic Ocean. Currently uninhabitable areas will become more hospitable; currently inaccessible energy resources will become more exploitable.

According to the United States Geological Service, about one-quarter of the world’s undiscovered energy reserves may be in the Arctic. [...]

Russia has claimed half the Arctic Ocean, including the North Pole, as its territory. It submitted the claim under the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea, but had it rejected. The convention decrees that who owns what is determined partly by the extent of a country’s continental shelf, and Russia did not have enough geological data to back up its claim. Russia is now mapping energetically, as are America, Canada, Denmark and Norway, which also border the Arctic Ocean.

Ironically, major oil producers who have invested thousands of dollars promoting "research" suggesting that global warming is a hoax are also beneficiaries of melting Arctic ice. They may find, however, that the Arctic's treasures aren't quite as rich as originally thought.