Satirical Parody of AGW alarmism and Climatism
Reader Tom G tips us to this story:
by Bob Baird, PhD, PG
The scene: some 10-12,000 years ago. It is the late Pleistocene, the end of the last ice age. Neanderthal man is just beginning to notice that the climate is getting warmer. At that time, the ocean shoreline on the North American west coast is about 10-25 miles farther out than now. The east coast is even broader, generally from 30 to 100 miles farther out. Imagine now the fear that struck the hearts of the Neanderthal people as they watched the shoreline inch forward year after year as the land they knew and loved was inexorably claimed by an unmerciful ocean.
At that time, the Neanderthal shamans and tribal chieftains proclaimed to the Neanderthal people that it was the deadly emissions of CO2 from their campfires that were causing this disaster. On his tablet, Neanderthaldom in the Balance, the Profit Goregon lamented that the discovery of fire was the worst thing that ever happened to the planet. Profit Goregon warned that the Neanderthals had only ten winters to act.
Upon learning this, the Neanderthals wailed and wept and threw snow on their heads and tore their hides. They promised to do whatever the shamans and chieftains told them to do if it would stave off this impending doom.
After much deliberation and consultation, the shamans and chieftains proclaimed that the only solution was that the Neanderthal people must bring increased tithes of all their beads, berries and fish to them. This would enable the shamans and chieftains to devote themselves fully to determining how to solve the devastating problem of campfire emissions.
With their newfound freedom from having to provide for themselves, the shamans and chieftains were able to devise a cap-and-tithe program. Anyone lighting a campfire would be required to bring still more of their beads, berries and fish to the shamans and chieftains. This would have two wonderful and delightful consequences: It would cause the Neanderthal people to cut back on their use of fire, which is unnecessary in the first place and hurtful to the planet in the second, and it would generate still more revenue for the deserving shamans and chieftains and allow them to spend even more time in contemplative thought pondering on what things should be done for the good of the Neanderthal people.
In their leisure, the shamans and chieftains developed a new solar technology to replace fire. It was discovered that certain clear quartz rocks could be used to focus the rays of the sun to a small point where much heat would be generated. This clean and renewable energy technology would replace the antiquated and planet destroying fire. Certainly, it would take slightly longer to cook food with a quartz rock and the quartz rocks cost ten times more beads, berries and fish than firewood, but the benefits to the planet would be more than worth it. And the clear quartz rocks could also be used to heat other rocks that could be put in the cave to keep everyone warm during the cold, ice age nights.
As always, there were some extremists among the Neanderthals who, with no basis other than their dislike and envy of the shamans and chieftains, argued that fire was good and brought innumerable benefits to the Neanderthals. But good Neanderthal subjects did not listen to them and called them Australopithecines because of their backwardness and their desire only to build a bridge to the past.
As we sadly now know, the words of Profit Goregon rang all too true. The Neanderthal people did not heed his warnings early enough and were too slow in switching from campfires to quartz rocks. The ten winters came and went and the familiar ice sheets melted and withdrew and the seas transgressed dozens of miles to where they are today. And what of Neanderthal man? Alas, Neanderthal man is no more. They paid the price of being too slow to heed the warnings of Profit Goregon and the shamans and chieftains who were much, much smarter than they.
So, what can we learn from their frightful example? We see that even the CO2 from Neanderthalian campfires was enough to end the ice age, melt the ice sheets, and raise the sea level, and that this had nothing whatsoever to do with any natural processes. And we see where even the slightest selfish hesitancy to do what is right for the planet can lead.
Let us pray that we, in our day, do not follow in their fateful steps and let us be ever willing to trust our scientists and the politicians who fund their grants who, as the shamans and chieftains of old, are selflessly and altruistically working only for our good even if we are too Neanderthalian to recognize it!
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Nick, may I remind you of the AGW talking point re: pre-historic CO2. It is indeed the culprit of a warming world from an ice age (big or small), and completely natural in source. Just remember: warming from non-anthropogenic CO2 good, warming from anthropogenic CO2 bad. Ugh ugh.
hmmm. I like the idea of cavemam. Now I just need to find a club and a man.
Jtom says:
November 9, 2013 at 8:05 am
Neanderthals were if anything more violent than modern humans. Like us, they were cannibals, but also killed big game in ways more up close & personal than modern hunters with superior technology. While moderns & Neanderthals clearly made love as well as war, they lost the war, whether by being wiped out or not being able to compete as well for the same resources. Despite today’s improved understanding of Neanderthal abilities, it still appears that their lives fit Hobbes’ description of the state of nature, ie nasty, brutish & short.
That Neanderthals (N) had empathy and cared for the sick, injured and elderly is well demonstrated in the discovery of the 12 skeletons in the Shanidar Cave in Iraq (dated 60-80,000yrs ago). There were individuals who had suffered severe accidents (presumably) with broken and atrophied limbs that had healed up and an elderly fellow 40-50 yrs old – a remarkable age for N- with deformities from age and from severe trauma crushing the orbital bone of one eye at an earlier age. There can be no question that these fellows would have been unable to survive long enough to heal without their family/companions taking care of them.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shanidar_Cave
Ever skeptical, I wonder if there has been some fiddling of data to try to make it unlikely that N had gone extinct before “modern man” arrived so that it would be impossible for us to have any N in our systems. I know it is disputed and that we apparently do have some N in us.
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Maybe you don’t have enough Neanderthal DAN? 😎
Jtom says:November 9, 2013 at 8:05 am
I found the information on IQ distribution interesting when it came out. You might add to what you said by pointing out the sub-Saharan Africans are the purest Homo Sapiens genetically. From my own reading on paleo-anthropology over the past 50 years, it seems to me that people who live where food is readily available in a warm climate, don’t need much intelligence to survive. If you live where it is cold, you need clothes, fire and food storage. All these need intelligent strategies for continuous survival. It would be acute irony if we discovered our intelligence is actually from the archetypal heathen, Neandertal.
Pamela Gray says:
November 9, 2013 at 8:31 am
hmmm. I like the idea of cavemam. Now I just need to find a club and a man.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Where do you think I found my husband? The National speleological Society. (Lots to choose from too.)
Steve Keohane says: @ur momisugly November 9, 2013 at 9:23 am
Jtom says:November 9, 2013 at 8:05 am
…. All these need intelligent strategies for continuous survival. It would be acute irony if we discovered our intelligence is actually from the archetypal heathen, Neandert[h]al.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Stolen from William McClenney (August 2013):
“The onset of the LEAP occurred within less than two decades, demonstrating the existence of a sharp threshold, which must be near 416 Wm2, which is the 65oN July insolation for 118 kyr BP (ref. 9). This value is only slightly below today’s value of 428 Wm2. Insolation will remain at this level slightly above the glacial inception for the next 4,000 years before it then increases again.”
http://www.particle-analysis.info/LEAP_Nature__Sirocko+Seelos.pdf
with respect to:
“An examination of the fossil record indicates that the key junctures in hominin evolution reported nowadays at 2.6, 1.8 and 1 Ma coincide with 400 kyr eccentricity maxima, which suggests that periods with enhanced speciation and extinction events coincided with periods of maximum climate variability on high moisture levels.”
http://www.manfredmudelsee.com/publ/pdf/Trends-rhythms-and-events-in-Plio-Pleistocene-African-climate.pdf
Gary Pearse says:
November 9, 2013 at 9:06 am
The date is as valid as can be. What appears to have happened in the Middle East over a long period was alternating occupation by early moderns & Neanderthals depending upon climatic conditions, until the Ns were locally extirpated before about 50 Ka. Moderns then invaded Europe, slowly extirpating Ns there, too, until the last of their subspecies died out around 28 Ka in the southern Iberian Peninsula. Gibraltar might well have been the scene of their last stand before extinction, except to the extent that their genes live on in some modern populations.
Got brow ridges? You might be of Neanderthal extraction.
Gail Combs says:
November 9, 2013 at 2:03 pm
Thanks for Trauth, Larrasoan & Mudelsee’s paper, although I wish in Section 6 they had said “maximum” when that’s what they meant instead of “maxima”. We’re headed for a major eccentricity low in about 30,000 years.
It so happens there were important developments in human evolution around 600 & 200 Ka, also. Some might argue 1.4 Ma, too.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homo_heidelbergensis
Anatomically modern humans (or almost so) evolved between 160 & 200 Ka.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homo_sapiens_idaltu
We’ve been duped! I want my beads, berries and fish back!
At 8:05am milodonharlani says:……
…………………………………………….
N’s tools were more complex and diverse that Homo Erectus. Cannibalism was rare, perhaps forced by the ice age, and their diets consisted of meat and cooked vegetables. There is evidence of medicinal use of plants. Those who were buried were generally of an ‘elderly’ age, between 40 and 50. I doubt if modern man fared much better until he acquired cheap, reliable energy.
Reminds me of an old cartoon of two cave men talking. One is saying, “I don’t understand it. We get plenty of exercise, only eat natural organic food, live with nature, breath pristine air, drink unpolluted water, and don’t smoke. So why is our average life expectancy 42?”
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I’ll return them in exchange for Manhattan.
(Well, on second thought…)
Jtom says: @ur momisugly November 9, 2013 at 3:23 pm
At 8:05am milodonharlani says:……
…………………………………………….
Reminds me of an old cartoon of two cave men talking. One is saying, “I don’t understand it. We get plenty of exercise, only eat natural organic food, live with nature, breath pristine air, drink unpolluted water, and don’t smoke. So why is our average life expectancy 42?”
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Must be those smokey fires and that damp cave. I have slept in a cave. The 100% humidity means you wake up soggy and the sound of the creek running through will just about drive you nuts.
cartoon
Jtom says: @ur momisugly November 9, 2013 at 3:23 pm
N’s tools were more complex and diverse that Homo Erectus….
I forgot to mention my farm was a favorite site for Archaic Indians. I donated a lot of my finds (permanent loan) to the local park. The ranger in charge of the exhibit hall told me the really ancient tools were the more sophisticated. He was really pleased since I had choppers, awls and hand axes as well as the usual spear and arrow heads. I have a good eye for spotting worked flint, a life time as a rock hound no doubt. As a two year old we lived near Herkimer (Herkimer diamonds) and I was hooked from then on.
Jtom says:
November 9, 2013 at 3:23 pm
I should hope Neanderthals’ tools were better than those of H. erectus, which remained virtually unchanged for up to 1.8 million years. However Neanderthals’ tools were not better than those of H. sapiens sapiens, ie us, although towards the end it does appear as if they copied those of the moderns in their area.
Definite or suggestive signs of cannibalism appear at Neanderthal sites clear across Europe. Even ceremonial burial has been debunked, although not definitively so. It’s possible that rodents could have introduced the flower heads found a Shanidar into the putative “grave” there. It’s not at all clear that Neanderthal burials were ceremonial or simply disposing of a dead body or natural covering of a corpse left in the open that didn’t happen to be torn apart by scavengers.
Neanderthals apparently never fished, although even watching bears should have showed them how to do so at the many convenient salmon sites in their territory. The indications of Neanderthal “art” & “music” are similarly questionable, or in imitation of moderns with whom they came in contact.
Their brains, while big, were organized quite differently from moderns’.
Milodonhalani: Interesting. Could you provide some links that go into the details of what you described? I’ve checked about 20 research sites, but have failed to turn up virtully any of what you have described. I’m especially interested in how researchers determined how their brains were organized. Also, burials, including strong evidence of ritualistic burials, are descibed in neadertals.org. Do you have links to research explaining how or why so many of the dead ended up with their head facing west and feet pointing east? Or an explanation of the Shanidar cave site?
I’m just not finding the info you found, and would like to read more before tossing out everything I have read on the subject.
Thanks.
Jtom says:
November 9, 2013 at 8:05 am
BTW, high-IQ East Asian populations have little or no Neanderthal ancestry, although possibly Denisovan. Neanderthals petered out in Uzbekistan, Central Asia.
Gross Neanderthal cranial anatomy is famous for the bun at the back, but we now know more about the details of brain structure:
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2013/03/130319093639.htm
For the flowers at Shanidar being rodent-borne, as I mentioned before:
D.J. Sommer, The Shanidar IV ‘Flower Burial’: a Re-evaluation of Neanderthal Burial Ritual, Cambridge Archaeological Journal, vol. 9(1), pp. 127-129, 1999
And for other burials, here’s a reporter’s interpretation of a Spanish site at odds with what its more scientifically circumspect excavators actually felt they could conclude:
http://news.discovery.com/history/archaeology/neanderthal-burial-ground-afterlife-110420.htm
http://www.jscarrion.com/pdf_tercera/walkerpress.pdf
I’d be interested in evidence for statistically significant, systematic burial orientation (east-west), as I’ve not seen that study. IMO archaeologists haven’t been able conclusively to determine that Neanderthal burials are ceremonial at all rather than simply placing slabs over their dead in a cave they want to keep using, or even to distinguish definitely that coverings weren’t from natural rock falls or sediment accumulation. For instance, the paw cited in the above reference could simply have been a belonging of the deceased which others didn’t want to take, rather than some kind of grave good or offering for use in an after life.
IMO too much has been inferred upon too little evidence. Neanderthals may have had symbolic beliefs, but the evidence to that effect is slim at best, with more speculation than substance.
Neanderthals were physically adapted to a particular way of life, in the case of men as ambush hunters of forests. When climate changed, as it always does, they were stressed, as they had been before, but with the added competitive factor of invasion by moderns. We are lightly built, more agile, swift & adaptable humans, armed with projectile weapons suitable for a more arid, steppe environment, rather than with thrusting weapons reliant upon strength. Our culture changes constantly, so that our special adaptation is the capacity to adapt. In support of your IQ hypothesis, however, I suppose that extra-tropical populations would require even more cultural flexibility.
Jtom says:November 9, 2013 at 6:50 pm
Here are a couple of sites, the first is pretty general wrt Cro-magnon and Neanderthals. The second goes into just Neanderthals, although focused on a theory of autism & the N. gene, it has a lot of references at the end, and an index of topics.
http://realhistoryww.com/world_history/ancient/cro_magnon_Homo_sapien.htm
http://www.rdos.net/eng/asperger.htm
Steve Keohane says:
November 9, 2013 at 8:51 pm
Ns were not built for running. Their ankles differed markedly from ours, as did their legs & pelvises. Perhaps even more strikingly, their balance organs, the ear canals, were markedly smaller than moderns’, & for that matter than other hominids & apes, relatively.
http://io9.com/5751619/proof-that-humans-could-outrun-neanderthals
Modern humans are cursorial hunters, more like dogs, while Ns were more like tigers, ie forest ambush hunters. The injuries to N’s skeletons have been compared to those of rodeo competitors.
Toto says:
November 8, 2013 at 5:20 pm
“Climate science is so simple even a caveman could do it”
I think this should be the comment of the month at WUWT.
Or maybe the year.
Great parody and a fun read!
Jtom said @ur momisugly November 9, 2013 at 3:23 pm
From Bones, Stones, and Molecules: “Out of Africa” and Human Origins 2004 p 224:
Estimating age at death from skeletal remains is fraught. The Git recalls the exhumation of skeletons from a crypt at Spitalfields in London some decades ago. Forensic pathologists were asked to estimate age at death for them. The actual age was known to the researchers and were approximately twice the number of years estimated by the pathologists. The deaths were from the 19th C and doubtless the severe smog had a debilitating effect on those buried in the crypt.
Addendum to the above re Spitalfields. The Century was 18th, rather than 19th. A cursory Internet search failed to find the study I remember. So it goes…
I noticed you posted Red Cross for donations to Typhoon victims in Phillipines. Red Cross is
totally corrupt. Very little of the $$ gets to the victims.
In haiti they are still living under tarps and have gotten little help. Also United Way, Unicef
totally corrupt.
Give to the Salvation Army or Samaritans Purse Those 2 send the help directly to the victims.
Didnt mean to get off subject just want people to know how corrupt these crooks are stealing
from victims who desperately need help.
The book by Michael Crichton deals with the story of Beowulf-type creatures in Scandinavia in the 900s. It’s based (apparently loosely) on a manuscript by an Arab traveler that was discovered a few decades ago. It has two titles, “Eaters of the Dead” (original) and “The 13th Warrior” (title of a movie). Used copies of the paperback are cheap.
http://www.amazon.com/Eaters-Dead-Vintage-Michael-Crichton-ebook/dp/B007UH4ELM/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1384106253&sr=1-1&keywords=The+13th+Warrior
Well played. Very well played indeed.