James Taylor, climate denier and out-of-his-mind Heartland Institute guy, thinks cooler weather will bring the Black Plague

Climate denier says solving global warming could cause Black Plague 

BY JESS ZIMMERMAN, grist, june 17, 2011

James Taylor (the Heartland Institute guy, not the folk singer, alas) has discovered humoral medicine. See, the Black Plague was caused by too much cold, after the Medieval Warm Period petered out. (God, why didn't those medieval physicians think to treat it with hot poultices and baths to reduce black bile? SO OBVIOUS.) Anyway, if we manage to stem the global warming tide, according to Taylor, we'll be setting the stage for a new outbreak of plague.

By the year 1300, however, the climatic good times were coming to an end. Successive cold years drove the Vikings out of Greenland, where many of the Medieval Viking villages remain buried under snow and ice to this day. Longer winters and cooler, shorter summers decimated crop production throughout Europe. The rains that fell were cold, persistent, and slow to dry up. Famine and plague, which had largely disappeared during the Medieval Warm Period, became the norm rather than the exception. And by 1350, the grim, cold climate brought about the dreaded Black Death.

The Black Death’s gruesome, powerful hold on the human psyche is readily understandable. But why is it that so many people yearn for a return to the cold, miserable conditions that spawned the Black Death?

http://www.grist.org/list/2011-06-17-climate-denier-says-solving-global-warming-could-cause-black-pla

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