Warmists have been pushing the “climate change will make diseases oh so worse. Doom!” meme hard for the past couple of weeks. No surprise, this crops up almost every year, particularly during the winter. Science 2.0 reprints an article from The Conversation. See if you can guess whats’ missing
Bubonic Plague Linked To Climate Change In Asia
The Black Death struck Europe in 1347, killing 30-50% of the European population in six violent years.Â
It wasn’t a one-off epidemic: it signaled the start of the second plague pandemic in Europe that lasted for hundreds of years and only slowly disappeared from the continent after the Great Plague of London in 1665-1666.
These outbreaks were traditionally thought to be caused by rodent reservoirs of infected rats lurking in Europe’s cities, or potentially by rodent reservoirs in the wilderness. But our research, published in the journal PNAS, suggests otherwise.
If the “reservoir†thesis were correct, we would expect plague outbreaks to be associated with local climate fluctuations, through changes in agricultural yields and primary productions in forests, affecting the number of urban and wildlife rodents, resulting in more plague. We found that Europe’s plague outbreaks were indeed associated with climate fluctuations – but in Asia.
The Black Death came to Europe from Asia. Historical records tentatively map it back to outbreaks in 1345Â in Astrakhan and Sarai, two trade centers located on the Volga river near the Caspian Sea.
Now, go ahead and read through the rest of the article.
This is the narrative we aimed to substantiate through evidence, but which we ended up challenging. Using tree-ring based climate records from Europe and Asia, we showed that plague reintroductions into European harbors were associated with periods of wet conditions, followed by a drought, across large parts of Central Asia.
OK. Still missing something.
This followed a pattern that we associate with current-day plague outbreaks. What is the implication of such a finding? In terms of our understanding of the past plague pandemics, it provides a different perspective as to how the disease moved across Eurasia, driven by climate events that were and still are frequently occurring.
The implication, as has happened with so many articles about past climate doom, including ones about the Bubonic Plague, is that climate change is Bad and causes lots of problems and look at what is happening now! Doom! What’s not mentioned in most of these articles (such as about the fall of the Roman empire) is that these occurred during a time of cooling. The incredibly deadly Black Death outbreaks, including the one in Asia, occurred during the Little Ice Age, which started around 1300. What these “scientists” are attempting to do is create a link to the Modern Warm Period without providing context and factual data. This is simply scaremongering.
In ancient times (~300BC), Greek warships used a weapon called ‘Greek Fire’ to burn enemy vessels. It is believed that they were using naptha, a fossil fuel.
Less than 2000 years later, the bubonic plague swept across Europe. Coincidence? I think not. Fossil fuels clearly caused it.
They used tree ring data. That has been found to be terribly unreliable. So if they are using a suspect marker, then it indicates that they have no idea as to what they are talking about.
Or are they saying that climate change, regardless of cause, could be the culprit?
dave,
Tree ring data has not been found to be “terribly unreliable”. It’s just more data and one has to be aware of the limitations of interpretation.
From the press article:
Bubonic plague is caused by Yersinia pestis, a bacterium, not a virus. Sheesh. N.B. – The original article described the agent correctly.
Here’s the authors money shot (in an essay type “paper” unlikely to have undergone much scientific review):
They didn’t discuss temperature, just wet periods followed by drought. They didn’t discuss the current warming or imply that we are looking at a new plague of Black Death.
And the best comment following a typical Denier comment about SUVs in the 1500s:
I’m with Jeffrey. The Koch’s caused the plague. No… they CREATED it! Those bastards.
Honesty report: Koch Industries destroyed a company I once worked for (Glitsch Inc.) a decade ago and I haven’t forgiven them yet.
Saturday morning links
Pic: Gwynnie’s hawk du jour, trying to keep warm The real fault line in the culture war isn’t race or sex. It’s sin.(h/t Hot Air) What if the universe had no beginning? "Things We Do Not Say:" 150 Journalism Cliches (h/t Sipp) Townsend
The study authors didn’t link the idea to modern “climate change” in general. They were very specific in identifying localised changes that were significant. They were responsible reporters and didn’t overextend themselves.
Don’t give modern liberals any f-ing “ideas.” Please.