A must-see video.
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“When I talk to people about the Grand Solar Minimum (GSM) I usually point them to the BBC documentary called “Little Ice Age Big Chill”,” says reader Norman Grant Smith. “I tell them that the documentary will show them exactly what happened during the last GSM, and this is exactly what will happen in the GSM that is starting right now.”
“This video is an amazing history lesson. And it’s also kind of a horror story as well. People eating their children. Thousands and thousands of “witches” being burned for “causing the clouds rain storms, snow storms, crop failures, plagues etc. That kind of thing. It’s a must-see for all of us.”
This is a l-o-o-o-o-n-g video, so I’ve taken notes (below) in 15-minute segments.
Here are notes from the 15-minute to the 30-minute mark.
“With brutal swiftness, over the course of only a decade, the average global temperature dropped to a level some 4 degrees colder than today.”
From Norway to New Zealand, glaciers began their rapid advance. In England, the Tames froze frequently.
A catastrophe descended on Europe.
From Russia to Ireland, just as the crops were planted it started to rain. And it rained. And it rained. And it rained.
Many of the crops planted on marginal land simply washed away due to soil erosion. The drenching rains persisted for five long years.
The Little Ice Age was not only cooler, it was a period of more frequent, and intense, storminess. Once fertile croplands became water-logged mud pits, littered with flattened crops.
There was little, or nothing, to eat. By the end of the 6th year, over 1.5 million people have died throughout Europe from starvation and from famine-related diseases.
Crime skyrocketed. The desperate assaulted anyone with food.
With their tall stalks, the grains made easy targets during the Little Ice Age.
Throughout Europe, crop failures persisted for centuries. Famine after famine produced a harvest of death. In 1601, one famine in Russia killed over 500,000. It was not uncommon for families to kill their children, or at least some of them, in order to reserve food for the rest.
The story of Hansel and Gretel is representative (see note below). Parents who did not have enough to eat took their children into the forest and abandoned them there.
The Bubonic plague was made much worse during the Little Ice Age because people were already weakened by lack of food.
Europe’s infected masses began dying by the millions. The stench of decaying bodies filled the air. Church bells tolled day and night for funerals. By the time the epidemic ended, 25 million people – one third of the population – had perished.
People concluded the erratic climate was the evil handiwork of their neighbors, whom they accused of witchcraft. Thousands of people were burned to death or otherwise killed as witches.
The Church fed the frenzy. Pope Innocent VIII issued a decree blaming Europe’s cold destructive climate on witches. Foul weather and witch hunts went hand-in-hand.
According to some historians, some 50,000 climate-destroying witches – both men and women – were burned at the stake.
In Greenland, where the Vikings had established colonies during the Medieval Warm Period. Greenland was so named because it actually may have been green at the time, with lush vegetation and trees, almost a paradise, but the Little Ice Age brought their paradise to a chilling end.
The waters around Greenland became chocked by ice, and temperature-sensitive cod, which by the had become the colonists main food source, fled to warmer waters.
The Greenlanders began to starve. Then the sea ice became even thicker, so that supply ships from Europe could not make it through.
I stopped taking notes at the 30-minute mark. See more tomorrow.
Thanks to Norman Grant Smith for this video
Note: Here’s how Wikipedia describes the beginning of the Hansel and Grettel story:
In Germany, Hansel and Gretel are the children of a poor woodcutter. When a great famine settles over the land, the woodcutter’s wife decides to take the children into the woods and leave them there to fend for themselves, so that she and her husband do not starve to death, because the children eat too much. The woodcutter opposes the plan but finally, and reluctantly, submits to his wife’s scheme. They were unaware that in the children’s bedroom, Hansel and Gretel have overheard them. After the parents have gone to bed, Hansel sneaks out of the house and gathers as many white pebbles as he can, then returns to his room, reassuring Gretel that God will not forsake them.
The next day, the family walk deep into the woods and Hansel lays a trail of white pebbles. After their parents abandon them, Hansel and Gretel follow the trail back home. When the wife sees them she is furious and locks them in the house. Hansel and Gretel are unable to escape or even simply collect pebbles.
The post Horrifying account of the Little Ice Age – Segment 2 appeared first on Ice Age Now.
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May 8, 2018 at 06:50AM
Iowa Climate Science Education 