History and Human Biology Argue for Warmth, Not Cold
By Vijay Jayaraj
To those who have been misled to believe that a warming planet is dangerous, prepare to have a myth shattered: Data from hundreds of scientific journals across major publishing platforms and policy reports from major governments say cold is responsible for more deaths than hot weather worldwide.
Nonetheless, many people find it hard to believe this fact because of the decades-long propaganda and hysteria surrounding global warming. Here is why we should be thankful that our world is warming.
Human Body is Made for Warm Weather
Humans evolved in warm environments. The body is better equipped to handle heat than cold as it can regulate temperature through sweating and other mechanisms. However, in cold weather, our bodies must work harder to maintain a normal temperature, which can lead to a variety of health problems.
Anecdotes of heart attacks induced by shoveling snow are common in northern climes. When exposed to cold temperatures, the body’s blood vessels constrict to conserve heat, which can increase blood pressure and strain the heart.
The relative dryness of cold air is irritating to airways, causing inflammation and making breathing more difficult, particularly for those with preexisting respiratory conditions like asthma or chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD).
So, it is no wonder that civilizations flourished when temperatures were higher, especially when home heating was primitive or nonexistent.
Lessons from Norse Farming in Greenland
Some of the earliest civilizations – such as those in Mesopotamia, Egypt, and the Indus Valley – developed in warm, arid regions with fertile soils and abundant water resources. They were able to support large populations that developed sophisticated technologies, such as irrigation systems that made agriculture possible in dry lands.
Warmer temperatures are associated with higher crop yields, particularly for plants like wheat, rice and maize. Greater warmth increases the length of the growing season and improves the rate of photosynthesis.
In contrast, colder regions like northern Europe and Asia were historically less hospitable to human populations. In these regions, food production was more difficult and the risk of famine and disease higher. The only time life in colder regions was favorable is when there were centuries-long warming phases.
An example of this is the Vikings who developed a thriving civilization in Scandinavia and grew food in Greenland during the Medieval Warm Period. Charred grains and waste from threshing grain proved that barley was cultivated in Greenland by medieval Norse farmers.
As summer and winter temperatures decreased with the waning of medieval warmth, Vikings abandoned farming and turned to seafood. “Greenland’s climate worsened during the Norse colonization,” says Eli Kintisch in “Science” magazine. “In response, the Norse turned from their struggling farms to the sea for food before finally abandoning their settlements.”
Kintisch continues, “It was a sustainable lifestyle for hundreds of years. But in the 13th century, economics and climate began to conspire against the Norse. After 1250, a cooling climate posed multiple threats to a marine-oriented society.”
Even in moderate parts of Europe, the 16th century Little Ice Age was horrific. “All things which grew above the ground died and starved,” reported the National Post.
“The cold was so extreme and the freeze so great and bitter, that nothing seemed like it in the memory of man,” recalls Pierre de l’Estoile, the diarist.
Then, a warming that began in the 17th century and continues to the present day restored more bountiful harvests and a measure of food security that allowed time and energy for innovation and the onset of the Industrial Revolution. Since then, the human population has increased 10-fold.
So, the notion that warming is killing the planet is false. In fact, it is dangerous to direct public policy toward reducing the global temperature.
This commentary was first published at BizPac Review, April 6, 2023, and can be accessed here.
Vijay Jayaraj is a Research Associate at the CO2 Coalition, Arlington, Virginia. He holds a master’s degree in environmental sciences from the University of East Anglia, UK and resides in India.
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They weren’t arid when they developed. Climate has changed in the last 5000 years.
New discoveries have shown that the Mayan empire was much bigger than first thought. Rivaling any of the contemporary empires in Egypt and Mesopotamia.
Thank you – you just nailed Soil Erosion
This is quite interesting.
Medieval lunar eclipse observations show how volcanoes affect Earth’s climate
Then a researcher saying
“The scientists noted, however, that this new technique is not flawless. Only comments on the color of the moon are relevant, and accounts of partial eclipses cannot be used, since they essentially do not discuss what the atmosphere was like. “It’s important to combine this method with other records, such as ice cores,” Guillet said.”
Is unusual in the field of climate research
https://www.space.com/medieval-lunar-eclipse-records-volcanic-eruptions-climate
15 years ago, when I first became aware of climate change, I had a printout of the GRIP ice core. Whenever I came across a reference giving the times of the extinction of various civilisations (the Mayans, the Akkadian Empire etc) I checked the date on the printout. Without exception, all the civilisations died at a time of global cooling. Not one died during a warm period.
Vijay Jayaraj is absolutely right: it’s global cooling we should fear. We have been incredibly lucky to have lived during a period of warming.
The most recent major cold periods were very, very bad for humanity: the Dark Ages and the Little Ice Age. Scientific studies based on historical burial sites showed that human bones became smaller during the LIA. That’s not surprising as starvation and disease were common during that period. It is the modern global warming that rescued humanity and the planet from the LIA. Climate change doom mongers should be *very* careful what they wish for!
A fairly recent scientific study looked at the optimum planetary conditions for life to start and flourish. They found that the optimum temperature was 5 degrees warmer than Earth.
The claim that just 1.5 degrees will destroy humanity and the planet is beyond mad. Sadly this madness threatens to literally cost the earth. One estimate for the US to reach net zero by 2050 is 50 trillion dollars. And yet, as far as the climate goes, it will achieve precisely nothing.
This madness will end eventually. But I’m not holding my breath…..
Chris
Without exception, all the civilisations died at a time of global cooling. Not one died during a warm period.
correlation is not causation.
Scientific studies based on historical burial sites showed that human bones became smaller during the LIA.
shrinkage?
Flourishing is the key word. Until the early nineties that was the aim, now they have a new religion – a harsh one with no forgiveness and eternal damnation
“”All our environmental problems become easier to solve with fewer people, and harder – and ultimately impossible – to solve with ever more people.”” – D Attenborough
https://populationmatters.org/
“One death is a tragedy” said Stalin, “but a million deaths is statistic”. What would genocidal monsters like Attenborough and the XR spoilt misanthropic brats say about a billion deaths? Good for the environment and just the price of doing business for a better planet. Let them be the first to swallow the Darwin award pill.
“”What would genocidal monsters like Attenborough and the XR spoilt misanthropic brats say about a billion deaths? “”
In public it would be a catastrophe and in private a result.
But everyone knows that plants grow best in the cold dark nights of winter /sarc
As far as Vijay states that warmth is better for civilization and/or cultural advancement it appears verifiably correct. However, the development of human’s intelligence, the G-Factor of the brain (commonly referred to as IQ, verifiable by verbal tests, non-verbal in-phase alpha brainwave strength, and fMRI) is greatly increased by surviving in colder climates, or at least in distinct seasonal variation. For an example view http://www.worlddata.info, where the report includes the comment: “…a warmer climate badly affects the intelligence quotient.”. Consider the demand for planning ahead if food grows in the summer but snow falls in the winter, and the need for food preparation and storage is the main factor in survival. This is a Darwin concept, and it looks like the current human viability is enhanced by cold weather. OK, disclaimer: when it is winter in Argentina I’m going to Florida for vacation.
“…a warmer climate badly affects the intelligence quotient.”
Total nonsense !!!
Culture & diet are greater influences.
West Europeans developed IQ for West Europeans according to West European standards. It is debatable whether this procedure can be applied to people(s) with entirely different social structures, cultures, values, and ways of thinking.
1saveenergy, maybe you should steal a copy of The Bell Curve and have someone explain the pictures to you.
I think this wrong. Consider “IQ” in India or Southeast China, both warm climates. Certainly equal to Europeans. And I choose these comparisons only because of the overt aspects found these cultures.
IQ evolution is likely a cultural phenomenon, not due to climate. There are brilliant and unintelligent people in every group.
1. More rain is not a problem.
2. Warmer weather is not a problem.
3. More arable land is not a problem.
4. Longer growing seasons is not a problem.
5. CO2 greening of the earth is not a problem.
6. There isn’t any Climate Crisis.
the climate crisis is the fact that too many fools think there is a climate crisis
“It’s not that there’s too many fools, It’s that lightning just ain’t distributed right.”
-Mark Twain
Most of our institutions have been infiltrated by zealots from the political left.
“The Revolution won’t happen with guns, rather it will happen
incrementally, year by year, generation by generation. We will
gradually infiltrate their educational institutions and their political
offices, transforming them slowly into Marxist entities as we move
towards universal egalitarianism.” — Max Horkheimer
“The Revolution won’t happen with guns, rather it will happen
incrementally, year by year, generation by generation. We will
gradually infiltrate their educational institutions and their political
offices, transforming them slowly into Marxist entities as we move
towards universal fascism.” — Max Horkheimer
Fixed.
The oldest human writing is less than 10,000 years ago, probably closer to 6000. Before that, there was a ‘real’ ice age that lasted nearly 100K years. The LIA was barely a hint of what a real ice age would be like. Most humans will not survive a real ice age. Imagine a mile thick sheet of ice where New York now sits.
Everything we know – everything that has been built, has developed AFTER that ice age! Fear the cold, embrace the warm.
I’m imagining a mile thickness of ice where New York is, and it occasions a good drink of an adult beverage. Saludos!
If a mile thick ice sheet covered New York City, there would be exactly zero people killed by being pushed on to the subway tracks ahead of a train, knifed, bludgeoned, shot, etc, etc. So a new Ice Age would be a good thing for human survival. And correlation would, in this case, be identical with causation….
“story tip”
“110,000 Deaths A Year In South Asia Due To Rising Temperatures, Claims WHO”
Paul Homewood: “The first thing to point out is that Dr Neira is Director of Public Health, Environmental and Social Determinants of Health at the WHO.
The second thing to note is that she is telling a pack of lies.”
https://notalotofpeopleknowthat.wordpress.com/2023/04/08/110000-deaths-a-year-in-south-asia-due-to-rising-temperatures-claims-who/#comment-246784
It’s a huge irony to both WHO’s Dr Neira and her source – The Economist – that the data they chose shows temperatures FELL in southern Asia during the period under consideration.
The coldest interval of the LIA was in the 17th and early 18th century, ie the Maunder Minimum, c. 1645 to 1715, not the 16th century. The LIA generally suffered war, famine, plague and societal collapse, after the bountiful centuries of the MWP, when population increased.
Humans are a tropical African animal which has gone global. But during glaciations, which is most of the time, we can’t handle higher latitudes, being limited to the subtropics except during Inter stadia la and interglacials.
Anatomically modern humans didn’t enter Europe, Siberia and hence the Americas for good until after 50Ka, although we did briefly colonize Southern Europe earlier.
there’s a guy on YouTube with a channel dedicated to archeological stuff named Stefan Milo- probably not you 🙂
This set of known historical facts is so obvious and irrefutable that it beggars the imagination why “warming is good, cooling is bad” is not part of every discussion of climate change.
Every American schoolchild is taught that the first English colonists in VA and MA suffered failed harvests and resulting starvation and suffering until the natives came to their rescue. Which is true as far as it goes but is also propagandized to depict Europeans as idiots and natives as all wise and fully adapted to their natural environment.
What schools DON’T teach kids is that the beginning of the 17th century when English colonists first came ashore was also when the Little Ice Age began, causing physical and social havoc throughout all the temperate regions of the planet. Even the North American natives suffered crop failures and “starving times” then just as did the English colonists. Indeed, it got so bad that the Indian tribes concluded that there was not sufficient land to produce all the food needed to feed both themselves and the colonists, so they launched bloody wars against the colonists throughout the last 3/4 of the 17th century – again, not taught to school kids because it makes for a bad look for the natives.
Cold sucks – it leads to starvation, disease, and wars.
The Pilgrims started in the Fall from Plymouth, England, which meant rough seas in small boats, which meant their trip took longer.
They were blown off their intended course by about 400 miles to the North, which was not uncommon, under those conditions, at those times, in 1620, in the depth of the LIA.
Several died en route.
They landed at the site of an abandoned Native village, because the Natives had died of European diseases, and the survivors had fled further inland to join other survivors.
Their population was reduced by 90% in three years.
The Pilgrims called it a blessing; Gods will.
About 50% of the Plymouth colony died the first winter, because of lack of food, and cold.
The Native tribe from the Narragansett Bay Area, had one member who had been kidnapped to Spain, was to be sold on the slave market, but priests intervened.
He eventually was adopted by an English sea captain, who took him to England, where he lived for a few years, until he came back to his home village, which, surprise, had been abandoned.
It is now called Plymouth
He became the interpreter, and negotiator, and arranged to teach the Pilgrims how to quickly grow food in cold climates and how to properly preserve it for winter.
A bountiful harvest was celebrated with a feast in the Fall, which many years later was called Thanksgiving.
Remember, all this was before fossil fuels.
“Remember, all this was before fossil fuels.”
Sure, but it was a tough life. I often visit the Plymouth Colony reconstructed as a museum with actors pretending to be early English. It’s fun talking to them. The Pilgrims were a rather dour people- giving that attitude to New England henceforth. That dark, missionary zeal is still with us- and in ’07, the state of MA sued the EPA resulting in the endangerment finding. The state has a net zero law. And it’s here that we see a new enviro lunatic mission- to lock up all the forests to do nothing but sequester carbon- called “proforestation”. That new mission has caused our lesbian governor to stop all logging on state land. (I have nothing against lesbians unless they’re ultra woke as our governor is)
I think the early English who came to America were mostly religious expatriates- not farmers. Even if they had been- they would have difficulties as you noted.
Not in the Virginia colony – it was a strictly secular business venture conducted by the Virginia Company (later taken over by King James). Even the Massachusetts colony was only half puritans, the other half being secular business men and adventurers.
There was a general misunderstanding of climate in the Americas in the early 17th century. The assumption by Europeans was that latitude solely governed climate, and because both Virginia and Massachusetts were located in temperate latitudes (37 deg and 41 deg N resp – well south of London and Paris) , similar to central and southern Europe, that they would be relatively warm. But they did not understand continental climates influenced by westerly winds. Added to that misconception was the suddenly colder weather of the Little Ice Age.
But the Puritans ran MA for a long time.
Studies of the dependence of human mortality on temperature indicate that at each location there is an optimum temperature at which mortality is a minimum. Based on Gasparrini et al. (2015), this temperature apparently varies between the 60th percentile of the average daily temperature for some tropical countries to more than the 90th percentile in some temperate countries. See Figure here. Most of the optimum temperatures are clustered between the 78th and 93rd percentiles. This is totally consistent with the notion that human beings evolved in Africa before dispersing around the world.
Equally important, substantially more deaths are attributable to abnormally cold than to abnormally warm days. An analysis of over million deaths at 384 locations in 13 countries suggested that deaths from abnormal cold are 17 times more common than deaths from abnormal heat. Even in a warm country like India, the ratio is nearly 14. See discussion in Goklany (2021).
The average human produces about 150 watts internally to maintain body temperature. The naked human being radiates more than 150 watts in temperatures below 27.5C/82F. Below those temperatures we radiate more heat than we produce and eventually die of exposure
In other words, humans cannot survive temperatures lower than those of the tropical jungles from which we evolved without technology. Since the average temperature of the earth is much lower at 15C, if you cut off the energy that powers our technology you would kill something like 6 billion humans without a shot fired.
Or, we could all move to warmer climates, wear minimal clothes, grow our own food, use no electricity, etc, as we have done for about 4 million years, until some brave ones started exploring “the beyond EDEN” and eat from the forbidden fruit.
The rest is just written history by the survivors of the fittest
Which it will be again, if the CO2 warriors get their way.
Actually, warmth is conducive to increased biodiversity period. Look at how many species of animal and plant live in a jungle vs how many live on Antarctica. The further you go from the equator (and also very high elevations, where it is cold) the fewer living things you find. Same for extremely dry areas. Clearly, wet and warm is most conducive to life.
And also looking back in prehistory – the same is found. The dinosaurs (and yes, mammals that were our ancestors) did quite well in the hot house earth.
It seems so many who keep trumpeting “the science” are so incredibly ignorant of history. Human history and geological/paleontological history….But then again, I don’t think much history is taught these days, either in public schools or higher education.
It’s even true of the oceans, where the most abundance of life lives in the warm tropical regions. (Although it couldn’t get much wetter.)
Warmth didn’t create the jungle – fertile soil created the jungle and the jungle created the warmth. (The soil was/is permanently wet)
NB: Not hot warmth. Just nice ‘Goldilocks’ warmth – typically 23°Celsius and never varying by ±3°C. Both diurnally and annually
In comparison deserts have hot warmth because they are permanently dry – although it is cold in fact.
Their average is maybe 10°C but varying by ±20°C
Across day/night and winter/summer
Peta, “fertile soil created the jungle” is not quite true. Jungle soil is very poor. Nearly all nutrients are already taken up by the plants.
Humans are tall, thin, have no fur and sweat all over. That is not a cold weather animal.
Very nice.
“Nonetheless, many people find it hard to believe this fact because of the decades-long propaganda and hysteria surrounding global warming.”
Most of my students have never heard of warmer weather even just 1000 years ago. When I tell them that there were hundreds of vineyards in the UK centuries ago, and that the Earth was much hotter back then, most are incredulous. You can see that for many, though, it sparks a few questions in their mind, although most won’t dwell on it.
None of this is disputed, even by those we disagree with, but that’s the power of the narrative.
This may be slightly off topic, but still relevant to this page- given the cutting energy situation, the war in Ukraine, inflation, the increasing reliance on “renewable” energy, and supply chain problems, do the people in Europe and the eastern US realize how freaking easy they got off this past winter? The western US has taken it in the shorts with consistent cold and winter storms, which is also good for the drought-stricken areas. You could not have dialed up a better scenario than what we had in this past NH winter.
Good article. Just look at when were the great European cathedrals built. It was a time of plenty and there was extra resources available.