The Little Ice Age : How Climate Made History 1300-1850
The Little Ice Age : How Climate Made History 1300-1850 – Review
No book is perfect nor is the story it presents, but I rated Fagan’s The Little Ice Age a 4 for its timeliness, subject matter interest, and the aspect of his research. All extremely enlightening but not new to me or any other geologist. A slight weakness or irritant is his certainity in the first half of the book in which he overuses, sometimes 3-4 times per page, the phrase “at least”. At least x-number of people failed or the temps were “at least” such and such. No “estimates are” or “approximately” such and such really happened. The arranging chapter was very good despite some classic nonsence such as by 1850, “individual activity that actually altered the globale environment”. Again he starts with a “may have” and then in a few lines switches to a definitive without documentation. Now, do I believe in global warming? Yes, this one originally started 13k to 12k years ago. If it had not there would still be continental glaciers including the Great Lakes and south into portions of Ohio, etc. Are humans eventually causing it? Hardly, we have only had about 1000 years to make any impact 1/13-1/12 the time physical forces have had. To say somehow they abruptly stopped or we eventually stopped them to take over the process once we originally appeared on the scene is a stretch. Are there problems with global warming? Yes and The Little Ice Age does a great job a documenting what these could and very likely will be, especially in those countries even involved in essentially subsistence farming with limited infrastructure for slowly moving goods. Some coastal areas and islands will experience some damage, but it is only a problem because we humans currently occupy those niches – its really happened in the past and will happen in the future. More than anything else The Little Ice Age points out that it is not so much hot or arid conditions that pose a problem but that ‘cold’ kills. Industrialized countries can adapt to producing food under drought conditions – we do it today. But all the irrigation in the world gained’t help food production if international temperatures plunge significantly for an fully extended period. When that time goes will we therefore make parallel arguments that we humans must be the culprits and that we have the moral right to now tamper with physical phenomena to prevent the cold?