Siberian biodiversity

This monograph is a tribute to the quality of work done in and through Tomsk State University. It is also appropriate to commemorate the October Revolution in this way. One hundred years ago, the world was shocked by the hideous force of anarchy, the intense desire by the dispossessed for vengeance and the arrogant pretensions of communism. These combined to wreck a state and a self-belief which had in 1913 – only a few years before 1917 – rejoiced in 300 years of the Romanov dynasty. The October Revolution overthrew the Provisional Government. In a vast empire, everyone was disturbed, everything was questioned, and very much was destroyed. By 1921, there was famine and cannibalism [1,2].

Yet, the Russian Revolution also affirmed very much. The value of freedom was increased as the rights of the individual were devalued [3,4]. The long-exploited women of Russia became active and often very successful. The extension (on limited terms) of education where once there had been ignorance brought new areas of science into being. This monograph offers some of the fruits of those cataclysms.

Zhores Medvedev notes that awareness of environmental problems began in the time of Khrushchev [5], identifying the building of a cellulose pulp mill on Lake Baikal as dangerous: bacteria in treatment pools for organic wastes could not work in Siberian winters [5, p. 91]. Zhores Medvedev also describes the Cheliabinsk catastrophe [5, pp. 93–95], noting with prescience that ‘If the Russian government does not often understand the language of reason, it does understand the language of a catastrophic emergency.’ Chernobyl amplified this point.

The authors of these papers grew up in the shadows of Lenin and Stalin, passed through the ambiguities of glasnost and perestroika under Gorbachev, and have now entered a world of unpredictable change. Their work reflects knowledge of global warming and the risks of methane release as permafrost melts, and climate changes adversely affect many countries [6]. This monograph is one of several collections of work from Tomsk which have shown the real situation – as opposed to Trump’s fantasies [7–9].

Russia repudiated the idiocy of Lysenko. America has not yet repudiated the idiocy of climate change denial. Roy Medvedev relates Lysenko to the cult of personality – the fraudulent glorification of Stalin by himself, through terror [10]. In contrast to Russia’s repudiation of Stalin, the West is now gripped by the great folly of America in allowing Trump to become its leader with his predisposition to degrade environmental protection, ignore the reality of global warming, and pretend that climate change is a hoax. This primitive outlook embarrasses the West.

Stephen Hawking has said to BBC News, 2 July 2017 [11] words which these papers support:

We are close to the tipping point where global warming becomes irreversible. Trump’s action could push the Earth over the brink, to become like Venus, with a temperature of two hundred and fifty degrees, and raining sulphuric acid… Climate change is one of the great dangers we face, and it’s one we can prevent if we act now. By denying the evidence for climate change, and pulling out of the Paris Climate Agreement, Donald Trump will cause avoidable environmental damage to our beautiful planet, endangering the natural world, for us and our children.

Hawking makes shrewd additional points:

I fear evolution has inbuilt greed and aggression to the human genome. There is no sign of conflict lessening, and the development of militarised technology and weapons of mass destruction could make that disastrous. The best hope for the survival of the human race might be independent colonies in space.

The factor of human aggression is often conspicuous in international relations, and efforts to modify behaviour are not proportionate to the risks which follow from such matters as the self-isolated North Koreans’ desire to be dominant, or the continued rivalry between Pakistan and India, or territorial claims by China (the Spratly and Paracel islands) or claims for autonomy (Catalonia; apparent revival of the Biafra idea in Nigeria).

Hawking deplores Brexit, which he believes will do irreparable damage to British research. ‘Science is a cooperative effort, so the impact will be wholly bad, and will leave British science isolated and inward looking’. The irresponsible David Cameron by holding a referendum on an ill-presented question of British membership of the European Union has discredited British politicians, wasted energies, and brought about conditions of confusion in many matters. The rigid but incredible view of Theresa May that it is ‘the will of the British people’ to leave the European Union is a further fantasy of vast destructive power. These signs of negligence and poor judgement merge with the confusion of Trump and weaken any international effort to effect a transition from fossil fuels, to conserve biodiversity, to adhere to the Paris agreement (2015). Illusions and evasions endanger reality.

The papers here are to do with the land area of Siberia – not the seas – and there is more botany than animal studies, and nothing of reptiles. The biological diversity of Siberia is nevertheless apparent. The exploitation of niches, the relations among species, and the interdependence are obvious. Mammals are surely higher than mosses, mires and mosquitoes.

The consequences of the Russian Revolution included a cutting off from the outside world. Since the Soviet Union ended, 26 December 1991, the intellectual approach of Russian knowledge to that of others and the outside world’s discovery of Russia’s scientific and technological achievements has been a troubled relationship [5,10]. Yet there are men and women within Russia and outside who can continue efforts to converse and share understanding and go beyond defensive postures. As the world studies the absurd contortions of Donald Trump and the absurd contortions of Great Britain in regard to the European Union, one must hope for courageous dissent. The world needs the status quo ante.

Undoubtedly, international research projects, conferences and academic exchanges can make human beings wiser and more co-operative and can alert us to possibilities of rectifying the trends to resource depletion and global warming which have been recognized – except for the irrational, unscientific denials by Trump and similar persons. The world needs to uphold learning. Science offers reason in place of unreason. But science needs humane values as a matrix for application and indeed for inquiry. Just as Lysenko was a dangerous idiot, so is modern man if he trusts in ‘the technical fix’ and pretends that value-free consumerism is adequate.

These papers accept the implications of global warming and seek to conserve resources. Biodiversity means what these papers manifest. The authors – many of them women – honour Mother Russia. Slava!

Michael Brett-Crowther
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