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Alan Creech
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aaron klinefelter
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July 24, 2007
> 1:46 PM
that darned weather That darned weather indeed. I watched one of the most fascinating documentaries I've ever seen a couple of nights ago on the History Channel. It was called Little Ice Age: Big Chill. I quote from the show page: "From 1300 to 1850, a period of cataclysmic cold caused havoc. It froze Viking colonists in Greenland, accelerated the Black Death in Europe, decimated the Spanish Armada, and helped trigger the French Revolution. The Little Ice Age reshaped the world in ways that now seem the stuff of fantasy..."I've heard a few things about some of this, but have never seen a full exposition on the period in question. This Little Ice Age, a period of fairly rapid and radical climate change beginning in around 1300, did a number on human society it appears. Especially as it was preceded by quite the period of mild to warm weather in Northern climes - great vineyards in England, cereal crops in Norway, etc., all leading to relative prosperity and a population boom. In what seemed like an "overnight" period, clouds formed, sun went bye-bye, and rain, snow and ice came. Crops died - and didn't come back for centuries. People froze to death in late Summer, etc. Not good at all. I sat amazed at the historical record from different areas attesting to this phenomenon. Yes, and eventually this is what drove people to starvation all over Europe, and inside, anywhere to get out of the cold, wet, frozen muddy mess - and the rats came in too, and the fleas, and the Plague. Very likely, no Little Ice Age, no Black Death. Oh my. Quite a few migrations of people groups wouldn't have happened. Wars and famine would have been much reduced if this weather turn hadn't of happened. I even wondered about one "perfect storm" of a cataclysmic event that might have been very much affected by this change, and whether it would have happened as it did if not for the shift - the Protestant Reformation. Sure, lots of things were bad in the Church but things had been bad before, even evil, and things were dealt with. But as it happened this thing was not merely theological and religious, it was social and political and those factors made it much much worse than I suspect it would have been otherwise. That's just a very small hypothesis I had. I know the weather is bad sometimes, but damn. That mess made a... well, a big stinkin' mess. God's Grace and Mercy be on us all as we participate in the midst of the clean-up effort. technorati tags > little ice age, weather, global climate, little ice age: big chill Labels: church history, history, personal, weather 0 Comments:| permalink | e-mail me | 
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