A Cultural History of Climate

Introduction 1

1. What Do We Know about the Climate? 8

Sources of Climate History 8

Causes of Climate Change 14

The Palaeoclimate since the Formation of the Planet 20

2. Global Warming: The Holocene 31

Children of the Ice Age 31

Global Warming and Civilization 39

From Roman Optimum to Medieval Warm Period 60

3. Global Cooling: The Little Ice Age 85

The Concept of the Little Ice Age 85

The Changing Environment 88

Dance of Death 103

Winter Blues 115

4. Cultural Consequences of the Little Ice Age 121

The Wrathful God 121

Sin Economics as the Motor of Change 133

The Cool Sun of Reason 146

5. Global Warming: The Modern Warm Period 168

Apparent Uncoupling from the Forces of Nature 168

The Discovery of Global Warming 182

Reactions to Climate Change 191

6. Epilogue: Sins against the Environment and Greenhouse Climate 206

Notes 218

Further reading 262

Index 264