Guest “implied face palm” by David Middleton
How Is This science?
Why the Thanksgiving myth persists, according to science
Memory often favors a tidy narrative over the messier reality of history
Social Sciences Writer
22 HOURS AGO
Ask someone in the United States to name five events important to the country’s foundation and there’s a good chance they’ll mention the Pilgrims.
That’s what researchers found a few years ago when they put that question to some 2,000 people. The Revolutionary War, Declaration of Independence, Christopher Columbus’ “discovery” of the Americas and the Civil War topped the list. But coming in seventh place were the Pilgrims, the team reported in 2022 in Memory Studies.
[…]
The “Thanksgiving myth” is part of that tale, says coauthor and cognitive psychologist Henry Roediger, also at Washington University. The shorthand for that story, he says, goes like this: In 1621, the Pilgrims and Native Americans “had this peaceful meal and powwow [while] singing kumbaya.”
The two groups did engage in a peaceful harvest celebration in the fall of 1621, history suggests. But historians are quick to point out that the tidy tale ignores context, particularly the deadly diseases and bloody wars that devastated Indigenous populations both before and after the occasion.
Despite persistent efforts to flesh out the historical record, the kumbaya vision persists.
[…]
America’s origin story is still in its messy middle
Breaking up with the Thanksgiving narrative is no easy feat. But some people in the United States are starting to question Thanksgiving and other stories pointing to the country’s rosy beginnings, Wertsch says. “How do you [begin to] break a bad habit? You have somebody point it out to you.”
That’s what happened, say Wertsch and others, when a group of journalists at the New York Times launched the 1619 Project a few years ago. Led by journalist Nikole Hannah-Jones, that long-term endeavor began the U.S. story with slaves’ arrival in Virginia in August 1619. The nation’s story, they argued, spirals outward from that ugly point.
“If there’s anything that debunks our national origins, it’s the 1619 Project,” Bickford says.
[…]
There’s no science, apart from political science, in the article. Furthermore, citing the 1619 Project as anything other than left-wing propaganda is laughable. Yes, our history is far more complicated than holiday decorations. Easter is more complicated than the Easter Bunny. Christmas is more complicated than Santa Claus.
The True Origin of Thanksgiving?
President George Washington’s Thanksgiving Proclamation of 1789 made no mention of the Pilgrims, sought forgiveness for our national transgressions and at least touched on science…
and also that we may then unite in most humbly offering our prayers and supplications to the great Lord and Ruler of Nations and beseech him to pardon our national and other transgressions– to enable us all, whether in public or private stations, to perform our several and relative duties properly and punctually–to render our national government a blessing to all the people, by constantly being a Government of wise, just, and constitutional laws, discreetly and faithfully executed and obeyed–to protect and guide all Sovereigns and Nations (especially such as have shewn kindness unto us) and to bless them with good government, peace, and concord–To promote the knowledge and practice of true religion and virtue, and the encrease of science among them and us–and generally to grant unto all Mankind such a degree of temporal prosperity as he alone knows to be best.
The Science of Thanksgiving
Oddly enough, I found this in The Washington Post:
What the first Thanksgiving can teach us about adjusting to climate shock
Perspective by Sam White
November 22, 2017
Every American schoolchild learns a version of the first Thanksgiving, a story half-legend and half-history: After the Pilgrims spent a freezing first winter in Plymouth, friendly Native Americans helped them learn to harvest the bounty of their new country the next year.
[…]
We should take their stories with a grain of salt. But there is other evidence that something unusual was going on during many of these early encounters. Advances in paleoclimatology, the science of reconstructing past climates from records such as tree rings and lake sediments, show how America in the late 1500s and early 1600s was getting cooler and more prone to drought. The trend was part of a global pattern sometimes called the Little Ice Age. The causes were complex, but the effects were unmistakable — and the way the Pilgrims coped (and failed to cope) with the shock of a new and harsh climate can serve as a warning to us as we face a rapidly changing environment.
[…]
By Little Ice Age standards, the Pilgrims’ first winter at Plymouth wasn’t especially cold, and the drought of 1623 wasn’t especially bad. But neither were their troubles over. A decade later, two years of severe drought followed by a destructive storm brought famine.
[…]
But the climate fluctuations of the Little Ice Age were only a fraction of the climate change projected under most global warming scenarios. We can’t let the reprieve of fall and winter turn our attention away from the climate realities ahead and the need to adapt, even as we give thanks for gentler weather now.
Sam White is associate professor of history at the Ohio State University and author of “A Cold Welcome: The Little Ice Age and Europe’s Encounter with North America.”
The Little Ice Age
The Little Ice Age was the coldest phase (so far) of the Holocene Epoch.
Surviving Massachusetts’ winters during the Little Ice Age would clearly seem to justify at least one day of Thanksgiving.
How Bad Was the Little Ice Age?
Little Ice Age
JUNE 5, 2015 / K. JAN OOSTHOEK[…]
During the height of the Little Ice Age , it was in general about one degree Celsius colder than at present. The Baltic Sea froze over, as did most of the rivers in Europe. Winters were bitterly cold and prolonged, reducing the growing season by several weeks. These conditions led to widespread crop failure, famine, and in some regions population decline.
The prices of grain increased and wine became difficult to produce in many areas and commercial vineyards vanished in England. Fishing in northern Europe was also badly affected as cod migrated south to find warmer water. Storminess and flooding increased and in mountainous regions the treeline and snowline dropped. In addition glaciers advanced in the Alps and Northern Europe, overrunning towns and farms in the process.
Iceland was one of the hardest hit areas. Sea ice, which today is far to the north, came down around Iceland. In some years, it was difficult to bring a ship ashore anywhere along the coast. Grain became impossible to grow and even hay crops failed. Volcanic eruptions made life even harder. Iceland lost half of its population during the Little Ice Age.
Tax records in Scandinavia show many farms were destroyed by advancing ice of glaciers and by melt water streams. Travellers in Scotland reported permanent snow cover over the Cairngorm Mountains in Scotland at an altitude of about 1200 metres. In the Alps, the glaciers advanced and threatened to bulldozed towns. Ice-dammed lakes burst periodically, destroying hundreds of buildings and killing many people. As late as 1930 the French Government commissioned a report to investigate the threat of the glaciers. They could not have foreseen that human induced global warming was to deal more effective with this problem than any committee ever could.
Really Bad!
“Many farms were destroyed by advancing ice of glaciers and by melt water streams”… “Ice-dammed lakes burst periodically, destroying hundreds of buildings and killing many people”… Sounds like an actual climate crisis to me.
When Science News Actually Covered Science
Who else remembers the 1970’s?
Observed temperatures were consistent with models of natural forcing mechanisms up until about 1975.
Even if anthropogenic CO2 emissions are actually the cause of all of the warming since 1975, we’d still be in “The Ice Age Cometh” mode if not for fossil fuels.
Giving Thanks for Fossil Fuels
From 1800 to 1900, per capita energy consumption, primarily from biomass, remained relatively flat; as did the average life expectancy. From 1900 to 1978, per capita energy consumption roughly tripled with the rapid growth in fossil fuel production (coal, oil & gas). This was accompanied by a doubling of average life expectancy. While I can’t say that fossil fuels caused the increase in life expectancy, I can unequivocally state that everything that enabled the increase in life expectancy wouldn’t have existed or happened without fossil fuels, particularly petroleum.
Our modern society would not exist without fossil fuels and it would collapse in a heartbeat if fossil fuels were made unavailable and/or unaffordable. One of the coolest things about being a petroleum geologist, is that I can give thanks for fossil fuels and say “you’re welcome” in the same sentence.
Happy Thanksgiving!
References
Bohleber, P., Schwikowski, M., Stocker-Waldhuber, M. et al. New glacier evidence for ice-free summits during the life of the Tyrolean Iceman. Sci Rep 10, 20513 (2020). https://ift.tt/jvSO7r1
Dyke, A.S., Moore, A. and L. Robertson. [computer file]. Deglaciation of North America. Geological Survey of Canada Open File 1547. Ottawa: Natural Resources Canada, 2003.
Grosjean, Martin, Suter, Peter, Trachsel, Mathias & Wanner, Heinz. (2007). “Ice‐borne prehistoric finds in the Swiss Alps reflect Holocene glacier fluctuations”. Journal of Quaternary Science. 22. 203 – 207. 10.1002/jqs.1111.
Kaufman, D., McKay, N., Routson, C. et al. Holocene global mean surface temperature, a multi-method reconstruction approach. Sci Data 7, 201 (2020). https://ift.tt/5uX7AjO
Lomborg, Bjorn . Welfare in the 21st century: Increasing development, reducing inequality, the impact of climate change, and the cost of climate policies. Technological Forecasting and Social Change. Volume 156, 2020, 119981, ISSN 0040-1625, https://ift.tt/erWiMBN.
Terando, A., Reidmiller, D., Hostetler, S.W., Littell, J.S., Beard, T.D., Jr., Weiskopf, S.R., Belnap, J., and Plumlee, G.S., 2020, Using information from global climate models to inform policymaking—The role of the U.S. Geological Survey: U.S. Geological Survey Open-File Report 2020–1058, 25 p.,
https://ift.tt/9lVkUwg.
via Watts Up With That?
November 23, 2023 at 08:01AM
Iowa Climate Science Education 