Mayan ruins in Guatemala.
This is an email I recently received from statistician Dr. Richard Mackey who writes:
The following appeared on Gore’s blog of Nov 19, 2008:
Looking Back to Look Forward November 19, 2008 : 3:04 PM
A new study suggests the Mayan civilization might have collapsed due to environmental disasters:
These models suggest that as ecosystems were destroyed by mismanagement or were transformed by global climatic shifts, the depletion of agricultural and wild foods eventually contributed to the failure of the Maya sociopolitical system,’ writes environmental archaeologist Kitty Emery of the Florida Museum of Natural History in the current Human Ecology journal.
As we move towards solving the climate crisis, we need to remember the consequences to civilizations that refused to take environmental concerns seriously.
If you haven’t read already read it, take a look at Jared Diamond’s book, Collapse.”
This is a most curious reference.
It means that Gore is advocating the abandonment of the IPCC doctrine and barracking for the study and understanding of climate dynamics that ignores totally the IPCC/AWG doctrine and focuses on all the other variables, especially how climate dynamics are driven by atmospheric/oceanic oscillations, the natural internal dynamics of the climate system and the role of the Sun in climate dynamics.
Brian Fagan in Floods, Famines and Emperors El Nino and the fate of civilisations Basic Books 1999, shows that the Maya collapse, whilst having complex political, sociological, technological and ecological factors, was largely driven by the natural atmospheric/oceanic oscillations of ENSO and NAO. The book is one of three by Brian Fagan, Prof of Anthropology UC Santa Barbara, that documents how natural climate variations, ultimately driven by solar activity, have given rise to the catastrophic collapse of civilisations. The book has a chapter on the Mayan civilisation which collapsed around 800 to 900 AD.
Here are some quotes from his book:
“The “Classic Maya collapse” is one of the great controversies of
archaeology, but there is little doubt that droughts, fuelled in part
by El Nino, played an important role.”
“The droughts that afflicted the Maya in the eighth and ninth
centuries resulted from complex, still little understood atmosphere-
ocean interactions, including El Nino events and major decadal shifts
in the North Atlantic Oscillation, as well as two or three decade-long
variations in rainfall over many centuries.”
“Why did the Maya civilisation suddenly come apart? Everyone who
studies the Classic Maya collapse agrees that it was brought on by a
combination of ecological, political, and sociological factors.”
“When the great droughts of the eighth and ninth centuries came, Maya
civilisation everywhere was under increasing stress.”
“The drought was the final straw.”
“The collapse did not come without turmoil and war.”
Brian Fagan describes how the ruling class (the kings had divine powers, they were also shamans and there was a vast aristocracy and their fellow-travellers that the tightly regulated workers toiled to maintain) encouraged population growth beyond what the land could carry; how the rulers enforced rigid farming practices which were supposed to increase food production and the ruler’s incomes but had the effect of undermining farm productivity and diminishing the quality of the poor soils of the area. When there were heavy rains the soil was washed away. In times of drought the soil blew away.
More quotes from Brian Fagan:
“The Maya collapse is a cautionary tale in the dangers of using
technology and people power to expand the carrying capacity of
tropical environments.”
“Atmospheric circulation changes far from the Maya homeland delivered
the coup de grace to rulers no longer able to control their own
destinies because they had exhausted their environmental options in an
endless quest for power and prestige.”
Gore says that we should use our understanding of the Maya collapse help us solve the climate crisis, noting that “we need to remember the consequences to civilizations that refused to take environmental
concerns seriously”.
Given what we know of the Maya collapse, what is Gore really saying?
He is saying that we should take all the IPCC/AWG publications and related papers to the tip and bury them there and put all our efforts into the study and understanding of the reasons for climate dynamics that address every theory except that of IPCC/AWG doctrine.
Specifically, we should understand as well as we can how climate dynamics are driven by atmospheric/oceanic oscillations, the natural internal dynamics of the climate system and the role of the Sun in climate dynamics.
In an overview of his work Brian Fagan concluded: “The whole course of civilisation … may be seen as a process of trading up on the scale of vulnerability”. (Fagan (2004, page xv)).
We are now, as a global community, very high up on that scale.
Allow me to quote a little from my Rhodes Fairbridge paper because of its relevance to Brian Fagan’s work and what Gore is really trying to say, but can’t quite find the right words.
(My paper is here: http://www.griffith.edu.au/conference/ics2007/pdf/ICS176.pdf ).
“In his many publications (for example, NORTH (2005)), Douglass North stresses that if the issues with which we are concerned, such as global warming and the global commons, belong in a world of continuous change (that is, a non-ergodic world), then we face a set of problems that become exceedingly complex. North stresses that our capacity to deal effectively with uncertainty is essential to our succeeding in a
non-ergodic world. History shows that regional effects of climate change are highly variable and that the pattern of change is highly variable. An extremely cold (or hot) year can be followed by extremely hot (or cold) year. Warming and cooling will be beneficial for some regions and catastrophic for others. Brian Fagan has documented in detail relationships between the large-scale and
generally periodic changes in climate and the rise and fall of civilisations, cultures and societies since the dawn of history. The thesis to which Rhodes Fairbridge devoted much of his life is that the
sun, through its relationships with the solar system, is largely responsible for these changes and that we are now on the cusp of one of the major changes that feature in the planet’s history. As
Douglass North showed, the main responsibility of governments in managing the impact of the potentially catastrophic events that arise in a non-ergodic world is to mange society’s response to them so as to
enable the society to adapt as efficiently as possible to them.
Amongst other things, this would mean being better able to anticipate and manage our response to climate change, to minimise suffering and maximise benefits and the efficiency of our adaptation to a climate that is ever-changing – sometimes catastrophically – but generally predictable within bounds of uncertainty that statisticians can estimate. At the very least, this requires that the scientific community acts on the wise counsel of Rhodes W Fairbridge and presents governments with advice that has regard to the entire field of planetary-lunar-solar dynamics, including gravitational dynamics.
This field has to be understood so that the dynamics of terrestrial climate can be understood.
References:
North, D. C., 2005. Understanding the Process of Economic Change
Princeton University Press.
Fagan, B., 2004. The Long Summer. How Climate Changed Civilization.
Basic Books.”
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Financial collapse has already arrived. Our governments and leaders managde that all by themselves just fine, without the generous help of climate change.
What Gore needs to do now is to somehow convince the public that the current financial collpse was caused by climate change.
Certainly the Maunder and Dalton Minimums can be considered natural cycles. Due to our huge population growth we are just as vulnerable as the Mayans. If a catastrophe such as another Maunder or Dalton Minimum befalls us we’re going to suffer a huge die off. The northern hemisphere will no longer be the bread basket of the world since the temperatures will plunge and grain and livestock will no longer be able to use the land.
Gore will be linked to the collapse of the American civilization.
US ready to climb into hot seat on climate change
http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20081127/sc_afp/unclimatewarmingus_081127030629
WASHINGTON (AFP) – Nations around the world are hoping the United States is set to come in from the cold and take a leading role in the fight against climate change as President-elect Barack Obama prepares to take office.
“It’s a very exciting time. It’s a moment we have been waiting for, many of us, for some period of time; we intend to pick up the baton and really run with it,” Democratic Senator John Kerry told reporters, as he prepared to head to international climate change talks in Poland. (Note: Flying in his wife’s Gulfstream 5; 5,176 gallons of JP 4 per fill-up)
Obama has been “very, very clear that after eight years of obstruction and delay and denial, the US is going to rejoin the world community in tackling this global challenge,” he added.
I just started to look into the CO2 measurement and Ernst Beck’s work.
Are there other scientist who came to a similar conclusion in his paper he talked about 90,000 indirect measurements and CO2 concentrations following the temperature over the last hundred years.
When he is correct we maybe see a drop in CO2 concentration soon as well.
“Either that or he does realize it but from past experience thinks the press and people are too stupid to catch him at his fool’s game.”
It absolutely chokes me to say this, but it could be the first time I’ve agreed with Gorey on anything.
The media, and most people, are indeed too stupid to catch him at anything.
As realists, we have to master the 30 second sound bite.
JimB
Richard, you’re sounding just a wee bit hysterical. Get hold of yourself!
It is futile to try to figure out what Algore means at any time. He is the comsumate snake oil salesman, he doesn’t know what is right nor does he care. He depends on the average joe’s ignorance and short attention span to grab the spotlight, say something that sounds like it might be scientific, rake in a few more dollars and high tail it off to his next opportunity to do the same.
““It’s a very exciting time. It’s a moment we have been waiting for, many of us, for some period of time; we intend to pick up the baton and really run with it,” Democratic Senator John Kerry told reporters, as he prepared to head to international climate change talks in Poland. (Note: Flying in his wife’s Gulfstream 5; 5,176 gallons of JP 4 per fill-up)
Obama has been “very, very clear that after eight years of obstruction and delay and denial, the US is going to rejoin the world community in tackling this global challenge,” he added.”
Amazing that Kerry is from a one party state, and hasn’t picked up any baton here in Massachusetts, where there’s been NO “delay and denial” for him to deal with. He and Kennedy have both made sure the Cape Cod wind farm couldn’t go forward though.
Apparently, according to the residents of Cape Cod, wind energy is NOT enviromentally friendly, as they’ve come up with all sorts of reasons that this is a terrible idea.
JimB
Pierre
I suggest you actually learn some history before shouting rubbish!
Many societies can adapt-look at the Byzantine empire from 386 to 1453. Their climate references show numerous climatic changes which they adapted to through better irrigation or withdrawing from certain areas that were no longer compatible. However some were brought down by it- severe weather helped to cause the collpase of the Western Roman Empire and the demise of the Vikings wasn’t due to poor government-they had nowhere to go when the sea lanes started to close up again.
We should learn from history not pretend it hasnt happenmed because it suit our political viewpoint.
If you want to learn some history read this remarkable 1872 book by British Chemist R Smith. Numerous references to co2 readings as high as todays are made. We also know temperatures in the past were as high or higher than today.
http://www.archive.org/stream/airrainbeginning00smitiala
Its all historic fact and though the IPCC might try to rewrite it and Michael Mann might say ‘the MWP is an outdated concept’ there are those of us who have bothered to study the past.
TonyB
The parallel between the Mayan civilization and now is that rigidity of government processes and prescriptions prevented (prevents) appropriate adaptations to unforeseen climate changes.
In the present, the IPCC’s dogma of CO2 reduction to the exclusion of all else is, and will be, rigidly adhered to at the expense of simple and rather obvious mitigation steps, such as stockpiling food.
Remember, mitigation is a dirty word in the IPCC scheme of things. Primarily because mitigation means we wait and see what actually happens.
Otherwise, I wouldn’t read too much into what Al Gore says. Logical and coherent thought processes are not his speciality. You only have to watch An Inconvenient Truth to see that.
I wonder what the Weather in Poland’s going to be like? Hope the De-icers work well on a G-V…
I think they are a ‘Hot’ wing if not mistaken…
I should have made my point clearer.
The parallel with the Mayan civilization is the rigidity of the IPCC dogma and its CO2 reduction precription will be the direct cause of a civilization-wide climate crisis, should one occur.
All it would take is one large volcanic eruption causing a Year Without A Summer and planet wide famine.
The point of all of this ought to be to teach us some humility first over all else. We think of the Mayans as primitive, but in their time they were as advanced a society as there was to be found considering that Europe, from which most of us are sprung, was enduring the so-called Dark Ages. That is not to say I agree with Gore’s brand of humility. Quite the opposite. I agree with Jim when he said: “All the blog post said to me was Gore saying “See what happened to the Mayans when THEY ignored the impact of climate change???” I find myself in close agreement. People will not take out of that book or his blog that he is abandoning IPCC warmist ideology, but rather it is just more of the same alarmism using history as a backdrop for a simplistic argument: the end of modern society because greedy humans ignored the principles of nature and caused their own destruction, just like the Mayas did Gore would say. Somehow I doubt they were putting a lot of CO2 into the atmosphere such as we today are alleged to be doing. Furthermore I see some deeper things in this line of thinking.
Gore and the IPCC advocate State control over the economies of the world to chisel their ideology onto the face of human civilization – to remake it into the image that they see fit. Yet this was exactly the downfall of the Mayas. We may have a more ‘scientific’ world-view than they did, that is certain, but for all that we still do not understand the complexities and subtleties of our own planet. That is the humility to which I first refer, and the one which Gore and the IPCC, in their rush to reform the world according to their own ideology, chose to ignore or to wear falsely. In their pride, they purport to be our saviors whilest ignoring anyone who would gainsay them and their so-called evidence.
This “Mayan argument” is just more of the same: give in and let us take over and guide you on the path of ecological salvation. Well, like the others here, I am not buying into that. I would rather die free than live as a slave, even a well treated slave, any day of the week. Give me liberty, or give me death! The spirit of the American Constitution is that government is a necessary evil to restrain the evils of man, to try to liberate and encourage the good things in men that lead to “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.” That is not something that Gore or the IPCC hold at the center of their ideology, and thus is perhaps among the best reasons for rejecting it.
Leif Svalgaard (07:52:54) :
We have gone over the lack of scientific value of the planetary influence ‘theory’ already and need not repeat the nauseating arguments.
Time is the best argument since nothing can be proved or disproved at this point. I’m hopeful that one day there will be a good model for the sun.
Here’s some links that show the “wobble” talked about previously:
http://tycho.bgsu.edu/~laird/cp_images/wobble.html
http://history.nasa.gov/SP-419/s2.3.htm
http://astro.unl.edu/naap/esp/centerofmass.html
It’s obvious the Sun experiences velocity and acceleration changes. It’s not obvious as to effect – but no sunspot recovery yet…
It is quite obvious why the Mayan civilization died out!
As a scholar of Scottish history I am an expert.
We had history, real history, long before the Mayans.
We beat up the Romans!!
The Maya sociopolitical system decreed green taxation, which began the move towards total deforestation allowing more “green” corn to be grown.
Yellow corn caused flatulence and was deemed environmentally unacceptable. The Mayan traders speculated in the corn market and ended up with toxic corn. The Mayans were then forced to reduce their Corn footprint. Town cries read out doom and gloom narratives every night to ensure that everyone felt equally guilty. Maybe not everyone the green corn eaters could sit back and smile, knowing that their belief was right.
With further taxation the Mayan corn market was doomed to fail causing the Mayan sociopolitical systems to step in and save the Corn Banks. Mayan environmentalist were overjoyed and longing for the day when yellow corn production would be finally over.
The green market -GM- thrived, using corn offset. Yet production was low and deforestation continued. Yellow corn production was given over to green corn, yet yields fell and a famine was forecast.
This forced the populous to pay the High Priest extra so that they could increase their individual corn footprint.
The High Mayan priests blamed the populous.
“It is all your fault, you need to reduce your corn foot print!”
The greens vandalised yellow corn production with the blessing of the High Priest Nasagoddard the second. “These yellow corn eaters are criminals, they are committing crimes against Mayans”. Well yellow corn production ceased and the Mayans die out.
So what about the High Priest and his sociopolitical advisers,? Well they did very well. Most had 5 houses with private luxury jetties while offsetting their yellow corn allowance. Eventually they changed course and blamed everyone, well not exactly everyone.
But by then it was too late.
I hope that you didn’t think that I made all this up??
Happy St Andrews Day.
I think the key response to climate change is adaptation.
To try and pick the cause e.g co2 +AGW is the most expensive ridiculous fraud ever thrown at the taxpayer. It most probably is a combination of solar, ocean oscillations, enso plus more or less volcanic activity, but to try and single out athropogenic GHG’s is just gross stupidity when there is so little evidence to reinforce the argument.
If we are suffering from drought, fire or flood we must adapt and carefully spend our scarce funds on an obvious problem not this nonsensical, delusional rubbish of trying to change the climate.
Spencer’s team can’t find positive feedback to co2 or a hot spot over the tropics using the best technology available so where is the proof?
Satanic Gas
Ray Evans
Carbon is the sixth element in the periodic table. It is unique among the elements in the vast number and variety of compounds it can form. With hydrogen, oxygen, nitrogen and other elements, it forms a very large number of compounds. There are close to ten million known carbon compounds, many thousands of which are vital to organic and life processes. Carbon is essential for life.
As we now see in the Commonwealth government’s Green Paper, Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme, and newspaper sub-headings (“Carbon’s a diabolical foe”—Australian Financial Review) carbon is now being demonised by the media and by ministers of the Crown.
How did we get to a situation where fantasy has triumphed over reality?
http://www.quadrant.org.au/magazine/issue/2008/9/satanic-gas
Leif Svalgaard (10:19:28) :
This is slightly OT but much of this thread seems to be so. I’m trying to understand the atmospheric greenhouse effect (AGE). I don’t know the physics well enough to follow a detailed physical explanation, but can usually follow the logic pretty well. I know that CO2 absorbs reflected radiation, but I don’t understand why it would re-radiate that energy rather than conduct the energy to other cooler gases.
There is a method to my maddness. I should think that if the process were well enough understood, then it should be possible to calculate the point at which CO2 saturation would occur?
Thanks
Once again, we all know what it is…
What we (at least I), seem incapable of is convincing others what it is, and what it’s doing.
And I’m still surprised at the inference that Dr. Richard Mackey makes based on the blog.
Oh well. Time to paunder the…oh wait… 😉
JimB
Alphajuno (13:23:40) :
Time is the best argument since nothing can be proved or disproved at this point. I’m hopeful that one day there will be a good model for the sun.
The physics involved has been known for more than 300 years, so time will clearly not sway you from your error.
It’s obvious the Sun experiences velocity and acceleration changes.
The Sun is in free fall and feels no forces. The Earth goes around the Sun and is being accelerated all the time, yet there is no effect from this. The space station and astronauts are in free fall and therefore feel to forces. A man in a falling elevator accelerates towards his doom, yet feels no force [until he hits the floor]. Etc, etc, etc. There is no need to find a mechanism to create effects when no forces are felt [except the minuscule tidal forces].
Gilbert (14:23:12) :
I’m trying to understand the atmospheric greenhouse effect (AGE). I don’t know the physics well enough to follow a detailed physical explanation, but can usually follow the logic pretty well. I know that CO2 absorbs reflected radiation,
AGE is well understood. It has only a little to do with CO2. Most of AGE is due to water vapor. The mechanism is quite simple: The Earth’s surface radiates heat it got from the Sun back into space, some of that is absorbed by a greenhouse gas, e.g. H20, which re-radiates that right away in a random direction, half upwards into space where it is lost, but the other half downwards back to the Earth where it heats the surface again.
Just the idea that Al Gore almost made it to President of the United States!
Here is another former candidate: “America is back as a leader on the issue of climate change and will press ahead with policy changes that address environmental and economic challenges that are now interlinked, according to Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.)
http://www.cnsnews.com/public/content/article.aspx?RsrcID=39958
Kerry remains a fool, according to Heliogenic Cimate Change.
http://heliogenic.blogspot.com/2008/11/kerry-remains-fool.html
Considering that the new President elect, an even bigger fool, is cut out from of the same wood as Gore and Kerry makes one wonder about the future of us all.
Is there an epidemic of foolishness going on?
Could it be that these guys have different plans for us?
http://green-agenda.com
Leif,
what Al did not say is correct LOL
Thank You
tiny tim
One of the main food sources for the Mayan empire was a nut called the Ramon nut. It has about 19% protein and more importantly it has all the essential amino acids unlike corn or beans. You can live on it.
It grows on a major rainforest tree that can produce food for over 100 years. It’s destruction by wind or drought would put a major dent in the food supply of the cities.
Most of the Ramon nut trees produce fruit once a year but the trees around Tikal they produce fruit twice a year. It would seem the Mayans were breeding this food source to flower twice a year.
Cities without food quickly depopulate. City folks would have a hard time finding food so they would steal it from those who could, creating strife and open warfare.
No doubt some ancient cultures suffered collapses through climate change or ecological collapse. What the modern world has, and the ancients lacked, is shipping. Food and water can be moved cheaply from A to B. Nuclear power plants can drive desalination plants. We cannot control climate or weather. We can easily adapt to this adversity, when it occurs.