Why it was warmer in the Middle Ages than today

PoliPundit's Oak Leaf takes note of a bizarre statement by the Secretary of the Interior. To wit, that polar bears are in "deep trouble" because of global warming and therefore should be listed as a "threatened species."


There's only one, teensy, weensy little problem with this pseudo-science. It was warmer in the Middle Ages than it is today. I first came across this information in a book called The Great Mortality, an unrelated study of the spread of the Great Plague during the Middle Ages. This data has since been reiterated in a series of studies.

...the scientific community is unable to agree on whether the warming is caused primarily by CO2 emissions, whether it will continue, or whether it would be harmful if it did... "One reason for this uncertainty is that the climate is always changing," said Richard Lindzen, professor of meteorology at Massachusetts Institute of Technology. "Two centuries ago, much of the northern hemisphere was emerging from a little ice age. During the Middle Ages, the same region was in a warm period. Thirty years ago, we were concerned with global cooling..."

So, if the Middle Ages were warmer, doesn't this mean that early cars must have been belching out emissions in the Middle Ages? Isn't that the only possible explanation for this 'Middle Ages warming period'?


New evidence has come to light that shouts, "Yes!" This rare lithograph, carbon-dated to somewhere prior to the invention of carbon-dating, is irrefutable proof that automobiles existed in the Middle Ages. And, therefore, that they were the cuprit behind warming period during those years.

You heard it here first.