Quote:
One of the difficulties in identifying the causes of the Little Ice Age is the lack of consensus on what constitutes "normal" climate. While some scholars regard the LIA as an unusual period caused by a combination of global and regional changes, other scientists see glaciation as the norm for the Earth and the Medieval Warm Period (as well as the Holocene interglacial period) as the anomalies requiring explanation (Fagan).
Your reference, so you must agree with it.

Thermometers have existed for something like 400 years, prior to their invention and some sort of uniformity in scale we have only indicators such as crops and their yields along with records of people dying from starvation and exposure.

As to what constitutes a "normal climate", well we know that Antarctica was rather near its present positon prior to the K-T extinction. The dinosaurs and amphibians living there had oversized eyes to allow sight during extended period os twilight/darkness. We know there was no continental galciation during the 140 million years they roamed the planet. Recent estimates have placed ocean temperatures in the neighborhood of 104 degrees F. in the tropics judging from types of life found in fossil records.

If we are to use the material submitted by the alarmists as truth (as you would have us do), then we must eventually find the remains of the petroleum industry the dinosaurs used to power their civilization.

When Saddam set fire to the Quwaiti oil fields at the end of the Gulf War, the alarmists began screaming that this alone would cause unprecidented monsoon rains over the Indian sub-continent that would kill millions. As I seem to recall the following monsoon season was slightly dryer than normal.

Do you recall last year's hurricane forecast from the alarmists? Do you recall the hurricanes?

Char, in Biblical times false prophets were stoned (with a different meaning ours may be too). I think the least we could do for them today is just ignore them. When they make themselves into large enough pests, perhaps a few rocks would be in order.

Now for the record, I don't doubt that we are getting warmer ever so slightly. The sun is a variable star that currently is increasing its output. We are (in geological terms) just emerging from the last Ice Age. We are about 100-150 years out of the Little Ice Age. We don't even know what constitutes normal for extended climatological periods--the best we can actually do is say climate fluctuates.



President Reagan summed it up nicely, "Some people go through their entire lives wondering if they made a difference, Marines don't have that problem!!!"