Green Myth-Busting: Greenland was Once Green
Greenland MYTH: When Eric the Red and his Viking buddies settled Greenland, it was a lush pastoral paradise fit for farming and raising animals.
Facts: As climate change skepticism has developed into a full-blown industry, a number of myths have filtered out about historical patterns of warming and cooling: just mention the “Little Ice Age” or the “Medieval Warm Period” to your favorite skeptic, and let ‘em go…
As a history buff, I always found today’s myth fascinating. As Coby Beck at Grist notes, Viking leader Eric the Red gave Greenland its name not because it was lush and green, but because he wanted folks back home to think it was:
Greenland was called Greenland by Erik the Red (was he red?), who was in exile and wanted to attract people to a new colony. He thought you should give a land a good name so people would want to go there! It likely was a bit warmer when he landed for the first time than it was when the last settlers starved due to a number of factors — climate change, or at least some bad weather, a major one.
But it was never lush, and their existence was always harsh and meager, especially due to the Viking’s disdain for other peoples and ways of living. They attempted to live a European lifestyle in an arctic climate, side by side with Inuit who easily outlasted them. They starved surrounded by oceans and yet never ate fish! (Note: this was not a typical European behavior, and is a bit of a mystery to this day.)
The issue here, of course, really isn’t Greenland’s name; it’s the idea of a Medieval Warm Period that skeptics claim was comparable to the present day in terms of the average temperature (or even warmer!). By extension, ice melts on Greenland aren’t that big a deal: it’s happened before.
Coby has thoughts on the Medieval Warm Period, and points to information from NOAA. RealClimate, the blog for anyone interested in hardcore climate science, also presents a number of reasons why the perception skeptics have about the Medieval Warm Period are likely incorrect.
Greenland wasn’t green in the tenth century… and we don’t want it to become green this century…
September 29th, 2007 at 7:48 am
‘Motie
perhaps I should expand on my “uh?’ comment.
1) Are you saying that you composed your two line response off line, say in a word processor, and spent more than 5 minutes in composing it? If so, surely you have struck your credibility a further blow?
2) reur last two paragraphs. I cannot really respond because I do not understand what you are trying to say. Are you saying in there somewhere that scientists cannot be multi disciplinary, cannot change their focus of interest, do not understand the scientific process outside of their original careers?
‘motie, you are rambling again!
September 29th, 2007 at 8:06 am
Hi direfloyd,
I don’t think it’s that easy! We are dealing with someone stricken with the IPCC and Mann et al culture, and dogma in other “religians” is typically very difficult to combat simply by presenting “inconvenient” facts. They go into denial, based on their dogma.
Regards, BobFJ
September 29th, 2007 at 9:05 am
‘motie
You claim to have a degree in physics, but all you seem to be capable of giving out is waffle without any scientific content. You ramble around without saying anything specific. If you find fault with anything I say, why not identify it and say specifically, something like: What you say (BobFJ) in that point is wrong because…….(and give the reason). This sort of vague crap of yours does not impress me, and I can’t imagine it would impress any visitors to this site either, so what you hope to achieve by it is beyond me! This has applied to many of your responses before this on this thread and also across at: http://reasic.com/2007/03/15/800-year-co2-lag-explained/
For instance, you say that I use terminology that is not used by actual scientists. Rather than make such a typical unspecific statement of yours, why not give some examples? Perhaps too you could answer my final question in my Aug 29 above:
Before addressing the rest of your comments, do you still deny that HEAT is a different form of energy than EMR? (as is electricity and work etc.) There is a very good reason to insist that you answer this question, because earlier you denied that there is a difference, and it is very important to understand the difference, to be able to understand what global warming is about!
September 29th, 2007 at 9:13 am
I don’t know how long you took but it was pure waffle.
I did answer it, but it has not yet appeared. Feel free to list anything you like that you may feel I should comment on. I do have limited time available BTW.
September 29th, 2007 at 9:17 am
Message to Themotie
You wrote: “And I’m sorry if fear makes you unable to reason rationally. This does not apply to everybody. If I see a car bearing down on me and I’m in the middle of the street, I’d jump. From what I gather you would assume fear would make that decision unrational, and you would … what? … stay put?”
The key weakness in this analogy is “If I see a car bearing down on me”.
If you truly SEE a REAL car REALLY bearing down on you, that is one thing.
If you see the VIRTUAL REALITY of a COMPUTER GENERATED car bearing down on you, that is quite something else.
The car you think you see is the result of the virtual reality of IPCC computer models, specifically designed to show an alarmist projection of a “car bearing down on you”.
Relax, themotie, there’s no REAL car, so you do not need to be afraid. It’s just IPCC “smoke and mirrors”.
Max
September 29th, 2007 at 9:27 am
“motie
Wrong again, I was making a comparison that you scold any scientist that is accused of being funded by Exxon if they work independently of the IPCC, and even if there is no evidence that they actually work for Exxon. Is there any difference between the two? Why do you assume that the source of funding affects the integrity of the scientist?
Do you not think that energy companies have the right to investigate the science?
October 1st, 2007 at 8:17 am
Hi Max,
Two long posts of mine were mediated or blocked….Testing….BobFJ
October 1st, 2007 at 12:49 pm
well, you counter scientific facts with nonsense, and since you claim to have a degree in physics, it creates a suspicion that recently you have exhibited disturbance in neuronal activity in the brain
October 1st, 2007 at 1:22 pm
Congratulations motie, you have ID’d your comments to some reference point! Wow, what clarity! As a quickie, Re: 5. You ‘motie clearly ABUSED Vincent Gray and you misrepresented the expert comments of three others. I simply quoted the experts; pray where are the conclusions that you claim that I made thereon? The rest you say is pure rubbish! Bob FJ
October 1st, 2007 at 1:54 pm
Just browsing through, I notice that you did not respond to several issues above, being the bulk of my post. Is it your intention to ignore/deny them? Bob FJ