When I originally read about this study from Penn State I thought this is obviously just another case of academics using the climate change milk train to get funding for a study-which it probably is. But once I read it and gave it some more thought it is apparent that far from promoting the alarmist view of climate change, it actually goes a long way in discrediting it.
Consider just the lead of the story:
Penn State researchers find links between climate change and political, human impacts in ancient MayaIn just that one sentence the foundation for the alarmist view of man made climate change is seriously undermined. To begin with it is obviously not the position of proponents of man made climate change that mankind was responsible for climate change when the Mayan Empire existed and flourished. Yet here we are right off the top admitting that what can only be natural climate change had an impact on humans.
What kind of climate change did this "international team of archaeologists and earth science researchers" discover that so disrupted ancient mankind?
Unusually high amounts of rainfall favored an increase in food production and an explosion in the population between AD 450 and 660. This led to the proliferation of cities like Tikal, Copan and Caracol across the Maya lowlands. The new climate data show that this salubrious period was followed by a general drying trend lasting four centuries.....
A four century long drying trend not caused by SUV spewing CO2? How is this possible? But it got worse for our pre-industrial age ancestors-much worse.
It was punctuated by a series of major droughts that triggered a decline in agricultural productivity and contributed to societal fragmentation and political collapse.All of this mayhem which took place without the benefit of jet liners or even a random Piper Cub, occurred conveniently corresponding with the now politically incorrect time frame known as the Roman Warm Period. But as our erstwhile researchers discovered this natural climate occurrence was, despite the hyperbolic nature of the story, not the catalyst for the decline of the Mayan Empire .
The most severe drought (AD 1020 and 1100) in the record occurs after the widespread collapse of Maya state centers (referred to as the Maya collapse) and may be associated with widespread population decline in the region.Imagine that a naturally occurring severe drought that lasts eighty years without the benefit of fossil fuel usage, who would have ever guessed. Certainly not today's students who have been propagandized to believe that all bad weather is the result of man's mischief. Who am I kidding it is not just today's students, it is now two generations of youth that have been indoctrinated into guilt ridden submission to the warmist mythological philosophy.
The idea that the research does more to disprove the alarmist view of climate change in our time seems to escape the notice of the researchers, they being all caught up in their new found celebrity.
Our findings published in a recent issue of the journal Science have attracted national and international media attention and public discussions in several countries.
So what is the conclusion of our expensive research into Mayan era climate change?
The effects of climate change are complex and play out over multiple time scales. Abrupt climate change is only part of the story. In addition to climate drying and drought, the preceding conditions stimulating societal complexity and population expansion helped set the stage for later stress on their societies and the fragmentation of political institutions.
Abrupt climate change? Half a degree a century is abrupt? Compared to what, an eighty year long severe drought? So caught up are they in showing that climate change can have drastic effects on society, they seemed to have failed to notice that what they have shown is that far from being unique or man made, climate change and its effects on human society are as old as...well mankind.