MOSCOW – Canada and Russia, the two former Cold War enemies, have recently found that they have far more shared interests than conflicts.
In a joint press conference in the Siberian city of Novosibirsk Monday evening, Russian president Dmitry Medvedev announced to an enthusiastic crowd of 8000, “Percy Shelley once asked ‘If winter comes, can spring be far behind?’. I am proud to announce that Russia, standing side by side with its partner Canada, shall forever eliminate winter from the face of the planet. The days of shovelling in a blizzard are over!”
Canadian prime minister Stephen Harper furthered promised that the two countries “have pledged to increase global temperatures 5°F by 2020 and a further 8°F by 2030” to wild applause, in the so-called Novosibirsk Protocol.
As part of the plan, Canada and Russia are both increasing the amount of carbon dioxide released into the atmosphere as fast as possible. In Canada, a construction project to build the world’s largest hockey rink purely out of wood involves cutting down at least half the number of trees in Canada.
Russia has passed a bill raising the number of factories in the country by 800% each, with of the proposed factories having no use other than expelling carbon dioxide into the air. To further boost carbon dioxide emissions, Russia has lowered the oil price by half and has introduced a law prohibiting families from driving less than 300 miles per week.
Medvedev said that his actions “not only drive up global temperature, but also create jobs in a variety of carbon-emitting sectors”.
Reactions from both countries have been overwhelmingly positive. Fireworks were set off in major cities and spontaneous celebrations across the region featured people of all color, sex and religion. In Calgary, Canada, where Januarys typically hovered around -5°F, people are excited by this development. Jarno Ojala excitedly said, “I am definitely voting for Mr. Harper in the next election. Defeating winter will possibly the greatest achievement of mankind”.
Richard Walker, a geography professor at University of California, Berkeley, told Tiger Magazine that despite being the two largest countries on Earth, 10% of Russian land and only 5% of Canadian land are arable, severely limiting the two countries’ potential. Even a small increase of temperature can have a large impact and encourage settlement in Northern Canada and Siberia.
However, not everyone is happy with the announcement. In fact, the protocol offers little benefit to almost every other country in the world. Global warming will have a harmful effect to India, Saudi Arabia, among other countries, which already have horribly hot summers.
The United Nations has threatened to expel both countries and the United States declared that it will possibly take military action if Canada and Russia does not stop their actions. Nonetheless, the two countries continue undaunted.
Even some Russian officials have expressed disapproval of this new treaty. Yuri Baluyevsky, former Chief of the General Staff of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation, argued that by raising Russian temperatures, Russia loses it’s so called “General Winter”, which he claimed was responsible for Napoleon and Hitler’s failed invasion of Russia.
In addition, a coalition of ski resort, teens who shovel snow for a living, igloo building factories and polar bears formed a protest party that aims to repeal the protocol. Despite the opposition, Harper confidentially said, “the protestors will soon see the errors of their ways when they are surfing in the Arctic Ocean mid-January”.
-YC ’15
