In other news, today's prize for most blatant promotion of disingenuous theory based on bad historical/scientific analogy goes to this article:
Climate change was once boost, not threat to civilization: scientist
LONDON (AFP) - Severe climate change thousands of years ago may have been a boost to civilization rather than the danger it appears to pose today, a British scientist said.
Between 4,000 and 6,000 years ago, natural fluctuations in the Earth's orbit weakened the monsoon rains and brought a more arid climate, the University of East Anglia's Nick Brooks told a science festival in Norwich, eastern England.
The seeds for the civilizations in Egypt, Iraq, South Asia, China and northern South America were sown when hunter-gatherer people then gravitated to the remaining water sources and settled in stable communities, he said Thursday.
His view contradicts that of many experts who believe civilization resulted from a transition from a harsh, unpredictable climate during the last ice age, to a more clement and stable environment 10,000 years ago.
Taking the theory at face value, the massive climate change provoked by the giant asteroid that wiped out the dinosaurs(just a theory as well) was also beneficial, because it eventually led to the further development of mammalian species. So, following that line of thinking, wouldn't we all benefit by a a friendly visit from a giant asteroid or more cataclismic events?
The article also fails to point out the fact that what took place 6,000 years ago was 'natural' climate change, not change induced by humans. Now, I will not get into the argument regarding what makes a natural event "natural", as I am aware that humans are not alien entities on the planet, but the article is written in such a way that suggests: "Hey, climate change is actually good so, don't worry about the scaremongers and hysterics, had it not been for it we wouldn't have the Great Pyramid of Giza, who knows how far we will go if we pursue our current ways."
I could'nt stop thinking that no serious scientist would promote such a hare-brained idea, unless he worked for a think tank paid for by a fossil-fuels company, and then I found an article about the same speech, but written by Reuters instead of Agence France Presse.
Climate change forged first civilizations: scientist
NORWICH (Reuters) - The earliest civilizations were not a product of favorable conditions but rather a last resort in the face of dramatic shifts in the weather, a climate scientist said on Thursday.
Flying in the face of accepted theory that settled societies emerged from the development of static farming in good climatic conditions that produced food surpluses and allowed specialization, Nick Brooks said the opposite was true.
"Civilization did not arise as the result of a benign environment which allowed humanity to indulge a preference for living in complex, urban civilized societies," he told the annual meeting of the British Association for the Advancement of Science.
Pretty similar no? but here is the last line in the Reuters article:
And he warned against drawing comparisons with the global warming that is predicted to raise average temperatures by around three degrees this century, noting that the temperature rise was well above that which forced the societal change 5,000 years ago.
It's not only what you read...but also where you read it.
5 comments:
Aprovecha y chequeate la nueva cinta de Mike Judge titulada Idiocracy. Cualquier similaridad con la realidad actual es pura coincidencia
So, does that mean we will all be developing new abilities? But without the promicin, of course!
Ah, you assume that because the work suggests that climate change in the past may have played a role in the development of civilisation, it is saying that climate change is good. This is a very simplistic interpretation, and says more about the ideological stance of the person doing the interpretation. Read the paper on which the press coverage was based at http://www.cru.uea.ac.uk/~e118/publications/publications.html (second paper down) and then see what you think. As usual with climate change, those keen to debate it discard the science and base their conclusions only on ideology, projecting their world views onto misinterpretations of research results. The paper does not argue that climate change is a good thing, and why should it? Why would anyone conclude that a warming of 2 or 3 degrees Celsius by 2100 is likely to be beneficial, on the basis that a slight cooling, of much less than 1 degree, between 6000 and 4000 years ago, might have stimulated the development of civilisation? Civilisation that was associated with increased violence and inequality, the emergence of autocratic rule bolstered by religious and political ideology, and an increase in hard labour. A good thing? The author of this paper believes that climate change will probably be disastrous this century. More consideration of material before you comment on it please!
Anonymous,
Mayhaps I did not explain myself clearly, but that was the whole point of the post: Selective interpretation or research data. My beef is not with the paper's author, or the paper itself, but with the AFP editors, who, as you rightly mentioned, are "projecting their world views onto misinterpretations of research results."
Say, John Q. Public only reads the AFP article, he will be led to think that climate change is a good thing, or a politician who would quote the paper selectively.
Thank you for the comment.
I meant to say:"of research data"
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