History: Cold is Horrifically Bad for Humanity
By Gregory Wrightstone
Before climate science became politicized, historians called warm periods “climate optima” because Earth’s ecosystems and humanity benefited from the blessed warmth. Conversely, during cold periods, the human condition declined. There is a strong correlation between the rise and fall of temperature and the fortunes of great civilizations.
After centuries of beneficial warmth during the Roman Warm Period (250 B.C. to A.D. 450), the human condition declined as cooling temperatures led to what is known as the Dark Ages (A.D. 450 to 850).
If you do an internet search for “worst year ever,” you will find that the overwhelming consensus is the year A.D. 536. The worst of the Dark Ages cold centered on that year and was probably associated with a giant volcanic eruption of unknown origin in the previous year.
The awful nature of the Dark Ages cold is particularly well documented in Europe. There, the population declined to levels not seen since the last cold era, which took place 1,000 years earlier. Entire areas were depopulated. In the year 784, one-third of the population perished, according to estimates.
The above material was drawn from the soon-to-be-published book, A Very Convenient Warming – How Modest Warming and More CO2 are Benefiting Humanity.
Gregory Wrightstone is a geologist; executive director of the CO2 Coalition, Arlington, VA; and author of Inconvenient Facts: The Science That Al Gore Doesn’t Want You to Know.