Ancient Greece's 'global warming'

American Thinker ^ | May 08, 2009 | Ben-Peter Terpstra

[neverdem]

In Heaven + Earth (Global Warming: The Missing Science), Ian Plimer, Professor of Mining Geology at The University of Adelaide, Australia, asks us to embrace big-picture science views; for to recognize our limits is a sign of maturity. "Climate science lacks scientific discipline," says the pro-amalgamation Professor, and in order to see more clearly we need to adopt an interdisciplinary approach. This requires humbleness.

In Chapter 2: History, Plimer travels back in time, thousands of years, in fact, to debunk Gore's catastrophic global warming myths. I particularly like his research on the ancient Greeks. For Plato (427-347 BC) advanced the position that global warming occurs at regular intervals in Timaeus, and his famous pupil Aristotle (382-322 BC), referred to climate changes in Meteorologica.

Plimer's research points are fascinating:

"Theophrastus (374-287 BC), in turn a student of Aristotle, followed the tradition with De ventis and observed that Crete's mountains had previously produced fruit and grain whereas at the time he wrote, the winters were more severe and had more snow falls. In De causis plantarum, Theophrastus also noted that the Greek city of Larissus once had plentiful olive trees but falling temperatures killed them." 

It wasn't Plato's Hummer, after all.

The Holocene Warming a (11,600-8,500bp). The Egyptian Cooling (8,500-8,000bp). The Holocene Warming b (8,000-5,600bp). The Akkadian Cooling (5,600-3,500AD). The Minoan Warming (3,500-3,200bp). The Bronze Age Cooling (3,200-2,500bp). The Roman Warming (500BC-535AD). The Dark Ages (535-900AD). The Medieval Warming (900AD-1300 AD). The Little Ice Age (1300AD-1850AD). Recall that the Greeks survived the warmings without air-conditioners.  "History," writes Plimer, "cannot be rewritten just because it does not fit a computer model with a pre-ordained conclusion." 

We‘re not the "special generation," and we don't have special powers to control the earth's temperature through special one-world government plans and cap-and-trade tax scams.  Indeed, the ancients, from the Egyptians to the Greeks, these "enlightened pagans," as I call them, were far more level-headed than today's tree-first Democrats.

There are many reasons why civilisations rise and fall, and in my view, thousands of stories to be told. But let's be real because certain patterns stand out more than others, from droughts and floods, to broken sexual norms and dangerously low-birth rates.

Back to the ancient Greeks though: "Greek mythology makes reference to deforestation, flooding, siltation of irrigation channels, salination and the collapse of the Sumerian city-states. Written records dating back 5000 years ago describe declining crop yields and decreasing production of wheat relative to the most salt-tolerant barley. Patches of soil turned white, suggesting salt accumulation on the surface of agricultural lands. The drier conditions made it impossible to flush salt from fields."

To my way of thinking, history undermines bad science and supports good science. Again, the Woodstock generation's thirst for specialness is way beyond narcissism. Plimer too recognizes:

"The Mycenaean civilisation fell at the expense of the rise of the Assyrian, Phoenician and Greek civilisations. Records from Troy show that it was cold, with famine around 1259 to 1241 BC and no recovery until 800 BC."

However, I wonder if celebrities and pop scientists are capable of humbling themselves and seeing themselves as small-bit actors, specks of sand, in a larger play, spanning thousands of years, where cool periods and warm periods, visit us.

One day, the Hollywood generation (and I'm singling out limousine lefties here), will thank their lucky stars, or whatever they worship, that they missed the cold Dark Ages, for it was "a terrible time to be around." Just read about the weather of Constantinople by Procopius, or similar observations made from a more southern city by one John of Ephesus. Plimer adds:

"Around 540 AD, trees almost stopped growing. Flooded bog oaks and timber from this time have very narrow growth rings. This was a global event because it is also recorded in tree rings from Ireland, England, Siberia, North America and South America. Snow fell in Mediterranean Europe and coastal China and there were savage storms in Scandinavia and South America."

Obviously, there are, little warming periods within cold periods, and vice versa. And what should one make of the ancient Olympics, and especially athletic nudity, which was introduced (or popularised) in 720 BC, according to some historians? "Usually said to have commenced in 776 BC, they were a minor carnival at first," writes the historian, Geoffrey Blainey.  Were athletes punishing themselves in freezing temperatures, or sun tanning?

"Whether competing as runners, throwers, wrestlers or chariots-drivers, the Greek athletes originally wore clothes but eventually nearly all preferred to be naked in the thronged arena," not to be confused with the thong arena. Did, natural warmings popularise the early Olympics? Little wonder, then, that Gore, the debate closer, ignores Greece's history.

[SunkenCiv]

Thanks!

[coconutt2000]

I bet each time the climate started to change strange religions popped up with priests promising to “stop” the changes “if only” the people would turn over all their possessions, lives, and efforts to the “temple” as a sign of faith and submission to the will of the god(s).

Geez, sounds familiar...

[NELSON111]

BTTTFL

[SunkenCiv]

• The Dark Age Of Greece: Celestial Events in the Iliad by Immanuel Velikovsky

  ...It appears, however, that in the Iliad Homer telescoped into a few weeks events that took place in the space of several decades. At least some of the events may be placed in a chronological order with the help of ancient Israelite sources: namely, on the day when King Ahaz was interred the motion of the Earth was disturbed so that the Sun set before its appointed time; ...In Greek legendary tradition the first event took place in the days of the two brothers, Atreus and Thyestes, contesting the throne of Mycenae... The fixing of the event to the early spring of -687 is made on the strength of the information from Hebrew sources that the event took place on the night of Passover, during the second campaign of Sennacherib against Judah, the ninth campaign of his reign. The exact date for the last of this series of catastrophes is provided by the records of the astronomical observations of the Chinese... in the year -687, on the 23rd of March... Romulus was a contemporary of Hezekiah; and the 23rd of March was the most important day in the Roman cult of Mars... The siege of Troy under Agamemnon followed by less than one generation the natural disturbances of the days of his father Atreus, when this king of Mycenae competed with his brother Thyestes for the crown of the realm and the Sun was disrupted in its motion. Atreus and Thyestes, being contemporaries of Ahaz and Hezekiah, and Agamemnon, son of Atreus, a contemporary of the latter king of Jerusalem, it seems that the time in which the drama of the Iliad was set was the second half of the eighth century, and not later than -687; yet the poet condensed the events separated by decades into the tenth year of the Trojan siege, the time of the Iliad's action. Thus we come to realize that it was a rather late time; clearly Homer could not have lived before the events he described; and therefore Homer's time cannot be any earlier than the end of the eighth century. But more probably he wrote several decades after the Trojan War...

[SunkenCiv]

Note: this topic is from 5/08/2009. Thanks neverdem.

---

join or quit view topics view or post blog bookmark post new topic subscribe

---

[LadyDoc]

Professor Brian Fagan has a lot of books on how Climate change in history changed history. Right now, I'm reading the Great Warming, on how the see saw of climate from hot to cold to warm in 12000 bc encouraged men to evolve new ways to cope (i.e. plant crops).

He believes in global warming, and is worried about climate change today. When asked at a meeting what people should plan to do in the future when things got hotter, he sardonically said "move to Canada", because he figures no matter what we do the climate will change. My problem is that the problem is pollution, but the same ones who oppose global warming also oppose chemicals and GM crops.

China has a huge pollution problem, but what if the alternative is the massive famines in the past? Yet you might read how China "lowered their carbon output"...the naive think this was from lowering smoke from factories, but it wasn't: it was from changing how they grow rice.

So one quarter or so of China's carbon output is from decaying weeds producing methane in rice paddies. They lowered their carbon output by using "dry" preparation of rice fields. You use herbicides, only one irrigation to get rid of weeds and then use hybrid or GM rice that grows with less water. Voila, less rotting weeds, less carbon, and more rice.

a report on this here.

PDF here

[SunkenCiv]

Note: this topic is from 5/08/2009. A re-ping that seems apropos to me, only because we got our first snowfall overnight. Thanks neverdem.

[Monkey Face]

Interesting!

Thanks!

[bert]

Fantastic.... I always like to take history in very long perspective. By referencing the change noted by the Greeks the current Chicken Little scare is viewed in a better context

Algore is not Chicken Little but rather Quacky Lacky

[Tainan]

Thank you for that rice in China info.

[mbj]

Surely you must secretly be one of those pro-sun-god, anti-climate-change people!

;-)