Without future, there is no past

I love this: “Scientists and astrologists predict terrible future for Russia”. Which, if you read the article (not recommended), means: “Unstable economic and political situation and hot summers with forest fires.”

So... terrible future, not to be confused with the similar present? I don’t think one needs to be a scientist or an astrologist to say: “In the nearest future, things in Russia will stay just as bad and might very likely get worse.” One just needs to know basic history.

From here:

Russian forests constitute 22 percent of the world's total woodlands, an area larger than the continental United States. "Our planet has two lungs — the Amazon rain forest and the Siberian taiga," said Vladimir Gandzha of Russia's Nature Protection Society, the nation's oldest environmental group. "The latter is blazing now."

A top government official accused illegal loggers of starting some of the Siberian fires to conceal the traces of their work. "They set it all afire — and covered it all up," Deputy Prime Minister Viktor Zubkov was quoted by the Itar-Tass news agency as saying.

Brilliant. I am surprised he didn’t mention the "agents of the Western regimes". Whose fault is it that Soviet agricultural system failed? Foreign capitalists and lazy peasants, of course.

Some background on the Russian forest fires and their causes: 2010.