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3. Letters from a Maverick
Peter periodically posts a short section from his current writing on the Environment – Letters from a Maverick: Critique of Pure Scientific Unreason:
Climate Change and Pollution – are we ignoring history? And why?
Apart from the current world conflicts the concern over pollution and its apparent effect upon climate is seldom out of the news. But are we taking enough notice of evidence about past momentous climate change events to help us explain what we are facing?
In 535 AD something so cataclysmic occurred that totally disrupted the world at that time. For a period of almost fifty years following that event worldwide tree ring growth virtually ceased – we talk about the Dark Ages without any thought of what this means. Yet there is considerable proof underlying this fact. Few have speculated that if tree ring growth was stunted for so many years, whatever occurred must have severely curtailed other plant growth. Such a reality as actually happened must have caused widespread starvation both in human and animal populations yet this period of time remains a blank as far as official records are concerned. Why?
What has become so clear to me over the years looking at such historical events is that there is not so much cultural ignorance but cultural avoidance of truths that do not correspond to current accepted norm. Many people blithely accept current versions of history, as though we are at the peak of culture limited by the pollution unfortunately caused merely by our super technology. We have become prisoners of our own propaganda.
Peter Ind, France,
August 2009