reading log: climate, history and the modern world by hh lamb

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@@ -6,6 +6,67 @@ author: Joe Carstairs
 
 ## 2026-04-16
 
+### @{climate-history-modern-world-v2}
+
+The big idea: the climate has not been stable in human history, it has been
+erratic, and this has had a big impact on human history. It is likely to
+continue having a big impact on us, and so we should strive to understand
+climate much better, so we can forecast how it will change in the future and act
+rationally to prepare for it.
+
+I found it utterly fascinating. Somehow it took the edge out of climate
+apocalypse, knowing that humans have lived with a constantly changing climate
+since forever. The climate change we face now seems less of the utterly unique –
+apocalyptic? – challenge it is typically portrayed, and more like just one more
+of humanity's endless train of difficulties. We've done it before, we can do it
+again...? However, I do wonder if the climate forecasting has become much more
+mature since he wrote, and anthropogenic climate change is in fact likely to be
+much more extreme than historic natural changes in the climate.
+
+I also found his analysis shallow and scientistic. His narrative suggests that
+the modern world is, and should be, run by scientific knowledge. If we can only
+acquire the scientific knowledge, and get it in the hands of decision-makers,
+they will make rational decisions and things will turn out more or less in a
+sensible and efficient manner. There is no notion that political systems are
+systematically incapable of behaving sensibly, nor that human relationship with
+nature is fundamentally broken.
+
+In his view, we currently have several major climate forecasts on different
+timescales: a natural warming on a scale of centuries which started about 1700,
+a natural cooling on a scale of decades which started about 1900, an impending
+ice age which may strike any time in the next one or two thousand years, and a
+warming caused by industrial atmospheric pollution. These temperature changes
+have unpredictable knock-on effects on wind and rain, including extreme weather
+events such as droughts, hurricanes and monsoons.
+
+In his view, current (first ed. 1982, present second ed. 1995) forecasts of
+human-caused global warming are exaggerated beyond the evidence. It is clear
+that human pollution will have some significant impact on the climate, but it's
+not currently known whether this will compare much in scale with natural
+variation. He suspects that even with modern technology, human powers pale in
+comparison to the power of nature.
+
+We must know more! Climate change has big impacts, and we don't adequately
+understand how it changes, whether naturally or by human intervention.
+
+His main concern is food security, particularly in the light of growing global
+populations, in his view, the most significant challenge the human race faces
+over the next century. His history focuses on crops, and so does his future. He
+tells the story of how in the 1950s, a new breed of wheat, Heines VII, within
+years of its invention represented 80% of the wheat crop in the Netherlands due
+to its resistance to yellow rust disease. In 1956, a new strain of yellow rust
+emerged, and two-thirds of the winter wheat harvest was lost. We need genetic
+diversity, and likewise, we need resilience, flexibility, and safety margins in
+our food, population, agriculture, and energy policies.
+
+He describes how the climate of the twentieth century has been in flux in
+complex ways, not simply getting warmer, and getting significantly cooler
+1940-80. No known factor, including industrial CO2, can explain the timing of
+the changes, including the general warming from c. 1700. We can't presently know
+whether the present warm spell will continue or end in a sudden cooling, as
+occurred after the balmy year of 1540 was succeeded by the coldest period of the
+Little Ice Age.
+
 ## 2026-04-15
 
 ### @{net-zero}