Wed, 01 Mar 2006

Europe's chill linked to disease

Ah ha! Ancient global warming! Sure...whatever! The evidence is as flimsy for this as it is for the modern version: global warming. It's not that I doubt that we're undergoing a period of global warming, as I think the evidence is pretty clear that we are. It's the doubt I have about the human cause of it that gnaws at me. We simply do not have enough data to support the proposition that humans are a major cause of climate change - perhaps a contributory cause, but the prime mover? I don't think so.

In this case, I wonder how many volcanoes erupted in Indonesia (or other remote locales, like the NW US) around the same time frame, spewing their gases into the atmosphere? And how does this hypothesis explain the "Big Ice Age", which occurred before there were any humans in Europe, much less any agriculture anywhere?

This doesn't mean that I supported unlimited pollution by industrial operations (or factory farms). It means that I think trying to pin this tail on those particular donkeys may be counter-productive: it'll distract us from preparing for climate change while we argue about who caused it.

Europe's "Little Ice Age" may have been triggered by the 14th Century Black Death plague, according to a new study.

(link) [BBC News | News Front Page | World Edition]

/Agriculture | 1 writeback | permanent link

On 3/2/2006 08:50:41
Arwin wrote

Remember Silent Spring

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