With sufficient emphasis, whoosh!

:)

H-So . . . to your mind, what lesson could humanity best take from this fact? Is it enough for you to say "perhaps global warming isn't all it's hyped to be," or will you follow me toward the statement "we ought to put a LOT of thought into the ways in which we are changing our environment"?

Primarily, it says to me is that the earth goes through cycles, quite unrelated to man. Thus despite the hype based on models, theories, or postulations this is not a catastrophe in the making but rather the normal course of events -temperature ebb & flow- globally speaking. [We could delve into any number of cosmic level variables -Dale brought some significant ones to bare, e.g.- but that isn't necessarily pertinent to your thrust 405]

I would say there is a lot being done to change our environment as Congress allots a great deal of funds to unspecified weather modification programs, and has been for decades. Further, I believe it much wiser to surrender some coastline than fiddle with our atmosphere or other environment systems our scientists have so little understanding about(despite their wishful thinking about their far from complete! and contradictory models). With the law of unintended consequences in mind, would you rather be inconvenienced with adapting to rising sea levels(were that to transpire), or have even the worlds brightest men fiddling with our life envelope?

H-Okay, you're correct when you say that grain was grown. It's the part about "or they could not have sustained themselves" that I have trouble with. In fact, it is the clearing of land for farm purposes, and the subsequent erosion, that appears to have doomed the long-term survival of those colonies, since they were dependent on European models of agriculture and survival. The records I have read say the Norse left because the cold made their situation untenable, period.

To your thrust, and the movement underlying it, as it is tied into the propaganda behind the sustainability movement. [Btw, propaganda is not necessarily a negative, it's just a sales pitch for a point of view, definitionally speaking.]

That warming period made marginal waste land all over Europe, and presumably elsewhere, productive and populations expanded accordingly. Any level of sustainability was dependent upon the warmer climate and increased CO2 levels I expect also, since core samplings indicate that atmospheric CO2 levels elevate following the outset of a warming period. Which is why people starved during the transitional decades of the mini ice-age that followed; the land lost it's viability due to inadequate temperatures; it was always marginal agriculturally speaking(nutrients, soil depth, etc.). The primary factor being temperature, not erosion.

H-What if the people had chosen to sustain themselves with fish & more ocean-derived nutrients? Their descendants might still be living there. The five hundred years during which the Norse settled that area coincide with the "medieval warming period," so yes, you're right, grain was grown. But at what cost? The cost of sustainability . . . ?

From what I understand they did a great deal of fishing. However, without modern machinery they could not sustain their livestock without grain, and trade with Europe was iffy at best(the sailing equipment being less precise than we might guess prior to the industrial age). In addition, the ice sheets returned. And there is evidence of a great deal of geological changes to that general area, including Greenland itself. And the disappearance of the islands in the southern portion of the Davis Strait come to mind. The Norse left reluctantly by my reading, and out of necessity given their lack of technology. And from a brief investigation, it seems fairly obvious that were it not for modern technologies, only the fiercest individualists or inuits and polar bears would occupy Greenland today; and still I expect the present lot are rather more rugged than we might hope we were.

As to the sustainability propaganda. It sure sounds good 'til you start digging below the surface. As I have admitted in the past, I once thought that movement eminently sensible. The fact of the matter, as with one of the latest adaptations(CSA), it is part of a top down program that sounds great but has something other than human liberty or saving the planet for all, at its heart. In truth, it is an elaborate social engineering program. All encompassing is prolly more accurate.

As with Ross' query elsewhere, it's arguable where all this engineeringsoriginates but, in human terms the UN settled on the environment catastrophe program in the 60's as a means, among other objectives, of moving men and nations, eventually, to turn over their humanity and national sovereignty to some form or other of world government. [Following the money will give you an indication though Ross. Thing is, that gets right murky beyond a certain point. But! keep in mind the inferentual evidence: who pays for the policy work, who initiated it and who supported the founding directors, etc. Too, I would suggest Jerome Corsi's latest work, The Late Great USA: The Coming Merger with Mexico and Canada. I haven't read it but I've listened to numerous indepth interviews with him. Keep in mind Carlin's remarks above too.] Read Agenda 21 or the Biodiversity Treaty or any of the major national or international policy statements of the past 10 decades. Read them with an eye on the layers of legality and how they interlock and overlay our own Bill of Rights, etc. Read the UN Declaration of Human Rights, all of it, and you decide after you've read carefully to the end, whether it's as good as the US Bill of Rights.

In closing Herr 405(as ever, thanks fer playin:), the strength and glory of humanity according to nearly every futuristic scenario(or the evolutionary doctrines) is human adaptability. So Manhattan drowns, won't something better follow. Don't forget the doctrine of Creative Destruction that's currently playing out in Iraq, and arguably, in New Orleans.

There is no saving the planet, we're too puny and besides the fact it will carry on without us; on the whole the likelihood is far greater humanity will destroy the planet. Which is not to say I do not support conservation, as part from our duty to be good stewards of the planet, and there is the whole vested self interest angle(the space ship earth envelope), given there doesn't seem to be much movement toward moving off the planet(which I've fancied since childhood. Even tried to develop astral capabilities in order to go exploring on my own-erratic success at best).

Sustainability is a political movement, not a positive response to changing conditions(I favor a fluid response that doesn't need involve hamstringing human liberty: let's start moving toward higher ground, just in case).

[Curiously(& I do wish I could be far more specific), in the course of conducting business, we had a multi-day experience with the marketing arm one of the worlds largest NGO's which propagate numerous elements of this fearscape. Suffice it, some of the folks view their work as nothing more than saving open land in their own locale, while many of the leaders see it as pure politics combined with how they're going to cash in organizationally while separating the suckers from their cash. Heard it with my own ears, including the tittering and how the term 'offsets' is officially a no- no from now on(so listen to that disappear).]

respects

PS Whoever once upon a when turned me onto David Crosby's, If I Could Only Remember My Name, thank you!

Also, I wish I were a more succinct writer, let alone a better one. Sustainability is all about social engineering. And as for me, I don't trust GW, the Dalai Lama, the Pope or any other seemingly benevolent soul you might name(there won't be many votes for Jesus Christ) to micro manage human existence(let alone yours), which including eugenic management, is the final goal of all these plans. Try reverse engineering the transhumanist movement if you'd care to see the evil bearing down on the general population of the planet. Anywho ...