Two million square miles of permafrost—an area two-thirds the size of the United States has now thawed since the beginning of the 20th century. And all that thawing permafrost is costing the Russian oil and gas industry billions of dollars to repair damaged pipelines and infrastructure as global warming changes the face of western Siberia.

The energy program head of Greenpeace in Russia, Vladimir Chuprov, after interviewing experts at Gazprom, concluded, “For Russia, the biggest threat of the permafrost melt is to oil and gas company infrastructure.” (from Carbon-Based)

Thawing permafrost presents even more of a threat: it could release frozen methane deposits and causing runaway global warming, mass-extinctions, and huge amounts of economic damage to global infrastructure and economic well being. In addition to Gazprom’s, that is.

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Still in the mood for International Tiger Day? Enjoy a photo gallery of gorgeous tigers - and 10 fascinating tiger facts.

One day hardly seems like enough for endangered tigers. To celebrate International Tiger Day a bit longer, here is a gallery of gorgeous tiger photos - and ten fascinating tiger facts. Enjoy!

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International Tiger Day - a global event to raise awareness for tiger conservation - is celebrated around the world on the last Sunday in September.

It was in Russia that International Tiger Day was started nine years ago by The Phoenix Fund, a non-governmental organization founded by Russian and U.S. conservationists.

The first International Tiger Day began as a modest parade in Vladivostok, consisting of a few dozen school children and parents with faces painted like tigers.

Since then, the celebration has grown to become an annual city holiday with over 3,000 participants!

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A 14-month old endangered Amur tiger has been released into the Ussuriisky Nature Reserve.

After six months of care and rehabilitation, a critically endangered Amur tiger (Panthera tigris altaica) has been returned to the wild in the Ussuriisky Nature Reserve.

The orphaned tiger was found in March, weak and emaciated at just 17 kg, when it showed up in the village of Avangard.

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A new report by Maplecroft, a world leader in global risk assesment, lists the countries at the greatest and the least risk of climate change problems.

The new study examined 166 countries in total. With climate change, it is hard to guess who will be hit the worst, but here is one scientific attempt at ranking the countries’ vulnerability to climate change.

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The U.S position on Climate Change is overshadowing all other discussions in the lead up to Copenhagen, even at a conference I recently attended in Melbourne Australia - the 5th Australia-New Zealand Climate Change & Business Conference, August 24-26th. The Australian position requires global consensus for a greenhouse gas emissions target by 25% with a successful Post 2012 Agreement in place, but only 5% if that is not concluded. It all depends on what the U.S does in Copenhagen according to their minister Penny Wong.

The European Union is the only group that will continue with strong commitments independent of the U.S position with a 20% reduction of greenhouse gases on 1990 levels by 2020 and 30% if a global agreement is concluded.

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Researchers have determined that killer whale groups form “superpods” to create and maintain social bonds with other whales.

Just like people, killer whales (Orcinus orca) get together to maintain social ties. Although the whales usually live in small pods of 20 or so, they also go in search of other pods, forming aggregate groups of  approximately 100. These aquatic gatherings last from a few hours to nearly half a day, according to BBC Earth News.

Scientists from the Far East Russia Orca project observed the killer whales engaging in social behaviors with other pods, such as synchronized swimming and “rubbing flippers”, while in these larger groups. They also noticed that the whales’ sexual activity increased while in the “superpods” - indicating that these gatherings give the whales an opportunities to check out potential mates. Pairing with a whale from another pod likely increases genetic diversity throughout the whale population.

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In her hour-long appearance on Meet The Press last weekend, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton made much of the threat that North Korea poses not only as a potentially unpredictable nuclear weapons deployment state, but also as a proliferation agent. Similarly, the question of possible repurposing of civil nuclear technology has been a talking point in US policy on Iran, and that question specifically has been a bone of contention in the triangular posturing between the US, Iran and Russia.

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President Obama seems to understand that if the US expects Iran and North Korea to give up their intentions to develop nuclear weapons, we can’t act as hypocrites hoarding our own nuclear arsenal.  Russia and the United States currently own “90 percent of the world’s nuclear weapons“.  In addition, Obama recognizes the need for Russian support on this front; however, Russia is opposed to the US plan to build a missile defense system in Eastern Europe. President Obama told reporters it is “entirely legitimate for our discussions to talk not only about offensive weapon systems, but also defensive weapon systems”. Obama has stated the missile defense system designed to block Iranian missiles, not Russian, and refuses to compromise.

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“Western gray whale cows with their calves feed near the shore, but the industrial noise resulting from oil and gas development activities is pushing them out of the area.” - Doug Norlen, Pacific Environment

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Russia is planning to build floating and submersible nuclear reactors to power oil drilling platforms which it intends to use to extract the untouched oil and gas reverses of the Arctic.

A floating nuclear power plant is being constructed at the SevMash shipyard in Severodvins located in north-east of Russia.The reactors will provide power to drilling platforms of Gazprom, Russia’s leading oil & gas company. The reactors are described to be capable of storing the nuclear waste on board and would require maintenance once 12 to 14 years.

Environmentalists are up in arms against this move by Russia as such a move could spell doomsday for the pristine and untouched environment of the Arctic region.

Environmental Disaster

Just recently there were calls by environmentalists that the number of tourists visiting Antarctica need to be reduced as the fragile Antarctic ecosystem needed to be protected. Scientists have also raised concerns about the alien or non-native species arriving in Antarctic seas and affecting the balance of the region’s ecosystem. During his research, environmental scientist John Priscu found the adverse effects of the presence of humans, limited to researchers of various countries, on the frozen island.

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Despite evidence that increasing the seal hunt quota could bring the harp seal population down the dangerous levels, the Canadian government has approved a 55,000 seal increase to quota for the upcoming commercial seal hunt.

The increase brings the total to 338,000 young seals scheduled to be brutally killed. Canada’s Humane Society said the higher quota could bring the downfall of the species, much like times in the past when the population dropped two-thirds in a decade with an inflated quota.

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Weeks before the planned start to the hunting season, Russia’s natural resources minister announced a ban on hunting seals under 1 year old today. The move spares up to 35,000 seals.

“The bloody sight of the hunting of seals, the slaughter of these defenseless animals, which you cannot even call a real hunt, is banned in our country, just as well as in most developed countries, and this is a serious step to protect the biodiversity of the Russian Federation,” said minister Yuri Trutnev.

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The global economic downturn has caused a large paper and pulp mill on Lake Baikal in Russia to halt operation.

Baikal Pulp and Paper Mill started running in 1966.  For 43 years, despite the efforts of environmentalists, it dumped enormous quantities of toxin-laced wastewater into the pristine lake.

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Revealing that China’s current stockpiles have already exceeded the capacity of the first phase of facilities, which the government built over the last two years, China Shipping Group President Li Shaode urged the government to use foreign exchange reserves to finance floating storage capacity in the short term.

Li’s comments come after a string of recent oil- and gas-related events in China. Within the last few months, China has entered into natural gas supply agreements with Myanmar, Kazakhstan and Turkmenistan, and has already begun construction on needed pipelines. Just yesterday, China National Offshore Oil Company (CNOOC) signed a 25 year gas supply agreement with Qatar.

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The Kremlin’s order to ramp up renewable energy has set targets of 2.5% by 2015 and 4.5% by 2020. That translates into 45.2 billion kiloWatt hours of renewable energy production by 2020, based on the country’s current electricity production.

To reach these goals, the government will fund small hydro, tidal, geothermal, wind, solar and biomass energy facilities. Wind energy, for instance, is slated to expand from 12 MW (2005) to some 7000 MW by 2020.

Developing Russia’s economically recoverable renewable energy could cut some 990 million tons of CO2 emissions a year, according to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD). (PDF) To put that number in perspective, it would be the equivalent of preventing two-thirds of the CO2 emissions of the United States from entering the atmosphere. This estimate, as well as Russia’s renewable energy statistics, doesn’t take into account large hydroelectric projects, which already account for 21% of Russia’s total energy.

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Happy trash can makes police angry. Police arrest happy trash can. Twice.

These photos are from a Greenpeace campaign against plans to build a waste incineration plant was held in Zelenograd, Russia. The campaign, in addition to costumed antics, has collected around 90,000 signatures in opposition to the plan.

But the real story is these photos, just now starting to make their rounds online. The police first try to fit the man in the can into a police car, then next time they try to shove him in a bus. I’d cry police brutality, but first I’ll have to stop laughing.

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The occurrence of another battle between Russia and Ukraine over gas and the resulting restriction and even cutting off of supplies to some parts of Europe should give us cause for wider concern, even if the dispute, as seems likely, will be resolved in a matter of a week or so.

Britain currently derives only about 2% of its gas supplies from Russia, but as we all know, natural gas supplies from the North Sea are dwindling. Central Asia has gas supplies and pipelines are being built, but not only are we obviously talking about a fossil fuel here, we are also talking about our continuing reliance on energy supplies from other parts of the world, which may not be or remain friendly to us. At least one recent study, by Deloitte, indicates that even the oil industry is realising that things have to change to focus on renewables and it is becoming recognised that energy security is a serious concern.

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