Letter to the Editor: Treacherous climate change

Washington Governor Jay Inslee hit the nail on the head about climate change as the cause of wildfires in the Western United States. We are in a period of global warming with results similar to the last global warming — 950 to 1320 AD.

For insight, Google Images by Cliff Harris and Randy Mann bing.com/images

The document offers an easily understood view of natural warming and cooling cycles during the past 4,000 years.

The Little Ice Age by Brian Fagan is all about climate change. It begins with the Medieval Warm Period, 950 to 1320 AD, followed by global cooling called The Little Ice Age from 1320 to 1880 AD.

The Medieval Warm Period provided great prosperity in Europe and Scandinavia. Viking colonies were planted and grew in Iceland and Greenland. Crops were plentiful. Landowners shared wealth with the church. Huge cathedrals were built.

However, during Europe’s prosperity, global warming brought drought to Oregon, California, Colorado, Nevada, parts of Idaho and the American southwest, bringing an end to Pueblo Indian settlements in Chaco Canyon, N.M., and Mesa Verde, Colo.

Global cooling, 1320 to 1880, better known as The Little Ice Age, killed half of Europe’s population. It was ushered in by violent windstorms and torrential rainfall that beat crops into the ground. Crop losses led to malnutrition, starvation, a low resistance to The Plague.

So far this year, the U.S. West has drought while the South, east of the Rockies, has too much rain.

BOB LAUNHARDT

Pinehurst