The Little Ice Age

For the past month or so I've been reading a book I started on the way to Greece about the climactic shifts of the past millennium. It's Brian Fagan's The Little Ice Age, which depicts Europe as a victim of the vagaries of the North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO) and perhaps a variation in solar irradiation. It's not hard to see how famine due to climate caused political unrest. More interesting is the cataloging of the slow abandonment of agricultural lands as they became unsustainable in a colder world.

Most of the book is awesome and well researched, but the last chapter regarding the current global warming and it's anthropogenic drivers is base political bullshit. You'd think someone writing a book about the adaptability of humanity in face of climactic change would be rooting for us, but sadly one finds him rooting for governments that will squandor resources until the window closes. (Referring here to the window during which the resources of this planet can be harvested is quantity great enough to propel our species to other habitable worlds).