Summer Reading, Part 1

Each Fall Semester I teach a course, SOC260 Population, Resources and Change, that examines the interrelationships between human societies and the environment, focusing on modern industrial societies. Consequently each summer, I try to read a couple of new (to me) books on the general topic of the environment and society. This summer I thought I would post reviews of books as I finish them -- with the thought that this might prompt me to finish more! The first book I will discuss is The Great Warming: Climate Change and the Rise and Fall of Civilizations by Brian Fagan, Bloomsbury Press, 2008.

Let me begin by saying that The Great Warming has lots of fascinating information about the interplay between climate and society, drawing upon research on dozens of societies on eight continents across thousands of years of human history. It is well researched, entertaining and lively and worth reading. Each of the stories shows the importance of climate in both the making and the breaking of humans societies. However, the book does not live up to its title, nor does it deliver on the basic premise set forth in its preface.

Fagan's thesis, as set out in the preface, is that the "Medieval Warm Period" was a global warming event affecting the entire planet, and that the primary lesson to be drawn from this global event was that global warming (even when it is on a lesser scale than the anthropogenic warming of the present day), creates devastating drought across much of the world.

The term "Medieval Warm Period" refers to the higher than average temperatures, documented by several forms of temperature proxy research, in Europe between approximately 800 AD to 1300 AD. Proxy methods for establishing past temperature regimes include: ice cores, deep sea an lake sediment cores, coral records, and tree rings. Through out the book, Fagan refers to the period between 800-1300 AD as either the "Medieval Warm Period" or more generally as the "warm centuries;" but when he gets down to the specifics the regional temperature proxy information he presents often indicates prolonged centuries of colder climate for regions such as Eurasia, the Sahara/Sahel in Africa, the Andes of South America, and the middle and south Pacific.

We know, in the present day, that an overall warming of the earth, is consistent with the occasion pattern of cooling in specific regions. Not every location on earth, experiences a constant, upward warming pattern. Present day climate change research emphasizes statistical averages and the global pattern while recognizing local variation. Fagan does not produce sufficient evidence to support a claim that the overall earth's temperature rose during the period 800-1300 AD, only that some widespread regions experienced warming and that equally wide spread regions experienced cooling. Perhaps that evidence exists, but it was not presented in this book.

Moreover, although Fagan's primary aim is to show the connection between warmer climate and drought, many of the examples of drought come from regions where temperatures were cooler, or where there are no proxy measures of temperature available, only measures of rainfall. For example, drought in the Sahara/Sahel during the 800-1300 AD period is primarily related to cooler temperatures. Cooler temperatures over the Pacific during these centuries is also associated with drought on the west coast of California, and in the South American Andes.

Other examples of drought come from regions such as India where both warming and cooling occurred in different regions, and even shifted from time period to time period as the oscillation between El Nino/La Nina shifted the timing and location of the monsoons. With China, Fagan's evidence of warming comes from eastern China, while the evidence of drought comes from Huguangyan in south China where lake cores indicated cooler climate (during the early part of the target period) and the northern Tibetan highlands (during the latter part of the target period).

If one ignores Fagan's attempt to build a grand argument about global warming, much can be learned in this book about the importance of climate, and especially the impact of flood and drought, in the course of human history from the specific evidence about particular societies.

while some folks play hockey...

No, that is not a reference to Governor Palin and her children, but rather a reference to the attempt to revive the controversial "hockey stick" depiction of average global temperatures by Dr. Michael Mann, director of the Earth System Science Center at Pennsylvania State University. Mann who first published his "hockey stick" curve in the peer reviewed journal Nature in 1998, published a new study this week in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences. The new analysis purports to support the findings of a decade ago with additional temperature proxy data.

As it should be in the natural sciences, other climatologists are already examining the data series on which Mann has based this newest study, and asking tough questions about Mann's criteria for including and excluding proxy series, particularly wondering why some (such as a proxy series by Yamal in 2002) that have figured prominently in other research have been excluded from this study. Many kinds of proxy studies using ice cores, tree rings, deep-sea and lake sediment cores, and coral records are used to approximate temperature readings in many geographic regions around the world.

This legitimate and vociferous scientific debate focuses not on the current warming trend, which seems accepted by all participants, but on the degree and extent of warming during the "Medieval Warm Period" which affected Europe between approximately 1100 and 1300 C.E. (Common Era). How warm did it get, and how does that compare to today?

While scientists debate the interpretation of proxies, and how warm the "Medieval Warm Period" actually was, there is another kind of less ambiguous form of evidence from the period, that is of more interest to us who are not professional climatologists. Anthropologist Brian Fagan, has assembled information from written historical sources and archaeological excavations, that chronicle the social, economic and political impacts of the "Medieval Warm Period" around the world in his 2008 book The Great Warming: Climate Change and the Rise and Fall of Civilizations (Bloomsbury Press). The "great warming" referred to in the title is not the present one, but rather the one between 1100 and 1300.

Fagan looks not only at the agricultural and technological improvements in Europe, but also at the impact of drought in central Eurasia on the western push of the Mongols, the enterprising way in which Moorish traders made drought work for them and their camel caravans, and the impact of mega-drought on the native populations of the American southwest and California coast -- including the abandonment of Chaco Canyon pueblos, and much much more. A fascinating read for those interested in the way in which climate interacts with social structure and technology.

Progress, I Wonder.

I'll stray from my typical policy/science posts to approach a very vague topic - progress.

This blog's goal is to drive debate and discussion around prescient issues and their solutions, such as those regarding science, ethics, the economy, and the like. The elementary idea being, that progress needs to be made in order to, among other reasons, move society forward, forge greater levels of peace, allow for increased prosperity, drive personal freedoms, and discover a better World for the present and future.

Therefore, is it justifiable to ask whether we are making progress? In what quantifiable manner? Are their hindrances? Is progress the correct method to measure society?

As I campaign with different candidates it is easy to note that there are voters that care, strive, and push for progress and those that don't. It may be one of the few topics that doesn't fall along political or cultural lines - so what dictates a persons need for progress? What jump starts or stops a person from wanting it?

In policy, progress is often made directly after a focusing event (i.e. Sept. 11). In science, progress is made post a scientific revolution (i.e. Einstein). Is progress ever made in ethics? Has there been any progress in economics? Philosophy? Taken within historical context, has society ever truly solved anything or just made the issue more narrow?

Too philosophical? Maybe.

Good summer reading!

I'm starting my summer vacation off by reading Lester R. Brown's Plan B 3.0: Mobilization to Save Civilization. [This book is available free on-line in its entirety, with the bonus of Excel data tables at http://www.earth-policy.org/Books/PB3/ I've read the earlier edition (Plan B 2.0). I think this is a must read for anyone who wants to think seriously about how societies must change to deal with the scourges of over-population, hunger, poverty and environmental degradation world wide.

As we have often discussed here at Blue Island Almanack, the world's environmental problems range far beyond "global warming." Lester R. Brown blends his educational and occupational background in both natural science (agriculture) and social science (agricultural economics), into a balanced view about environmental problems and society. This particular book (out of the more than 100 he's written over the past 35 years) stands out because of it's focus on solutions.

The solutions in Plan B 3.0 are all based on existing technology and economic systems, they are all designed to work within the framework of capitalistic economies with democratic political institutions. Almost all are solutions that have been proven to work somewhere, they just haven't had as wide an application as necessary.

I'll be posting my thoughts on this book here and at Sociological Stew over the next month.