[Tell It Right]

I agree wholeheartedly with ClearCase_guy. Short version: life sucks during the centuries long cooling periods and life is great during the warming periods like our Current Warm Period. We should be grateful instead of getting into all this spiritual bondage causing us to fret over the invisible climate apocalypse, instead of being happy that we live in a truly great time to be alive.

We have scarce written records in North America before the Europeans got here. All we have for written records here are the past 5 centuries, which includes the Little Ice Age and the Current Warm Period. And the western most part of the U.S. was sparsely populated during the Little Ice Age.

But we have plenty of recorded history in much the rest of the world for the past 3,000 years. And that backs up ClearCase_guy's statement. During the Little Ice Age, Sub-saharan Africa had not just years of droughts, but decades. It was during the Dark Age cooling period that the Huns' rain patterns were unlivable, forcing them to move south into the land of the Gothic tribes, which forced the Goths to move south and takeover what was left of the Roman Empire and keep moving south to force my ancestors, the Anglos out of modern day Germany. It was during the Little Ice Age that many indigenous American tribes fought each over in part to take over each other's land to eek out more food (though there were other motivations too, like revenge wars in the northeast).

[Vigilanteman]

Correct. During the last great period of global warming (1000-1350 or so), the Vikings settled Greenland and had dairy farms up to 3000 head of cattle.

During the current cycle, lobster has become plentiful and affordable.

In Hannibal's time (250 BC), savanna was on what is now the northern edge of the Sahara desert. That's where he got his elephants and points northward to the Mediterranean coast were rich croplands.

[Openurmind]

Me too, ClearCase guy and yourself have it right.