Posted by
Andrews on Wednesday, May 20, 2009 3:56:32 PM
I wrote earlier about the dry period in South America which led to cultural changes, corresponding roughly to the Medieval Warm Period. In my post "
Interesting Evidence", I argued that this shows both that the Medieval Warm period was worldwide and that it was likely a solar event, a sit effected the whole globe.
Recently, I ran across another interesting bit of history. While reading about pre-dynastic Egypt, I saw numerous references tot he first settlements along the Nile as being the result of dessication, which led tot eh drying of Lybian oases and the flight of oasis dwellers to the Nile. What makes this interesting is that many environmental activists blame "desertification" only on human activity. They also have a tendency to minimize natural warming and cooling cycles and to blame only human activity for any changes in temperature. Of course the best argument against this is the historical evidence for cycles of ice ages and warmer periods., but even ignoring that, there is tons of historical evidence for the expansion and contraction of deserts, the expansion and shrinking of forests and fields and the growth and contraction of agricultural areas. The Egyptian example is just one, but I still felt the need to point out that "desertification" as well a warming are perfectly normal facts of nature, and one does not need to hypothesize some angry environmental deity who is punishing us for the sin of using hydrocarbons.
I am sure my readers can probably provide a dozen more examples, for, as I said, history is full of them, but I thought I would share this one, as it is a very good example of pre-industrial "desertification", giving lie to the argument that all such incidents were man-made.