Roman Climate 'Optimum' vs. Today

Another day, more evidence of rising levels of insanity, courtesy of 'journos™' inadvertently spilling the beans about the power grab/scientism grift masquerading as 'Climate Catastrophe™'

Long-term readers know very well that one of the core aspects of ‘the Science™’ is its farcical nature. Many aspects of scientific enquiry have become thoroughly perverted in recent decades, with the Covid-associated shenanigans being but among the more egregious examples thereof.

In case you’re wondering where this development stems from, well, here’s a crucial, if typically omitted, part of the answer (source; emphases mine):

In the councils of government, we must guard against the acquisition of unwarranted influence, whether sought or unsought, by the military-industrial complex. The potential for the disastrous rise of misplaced power exists and will persist…

Akin to, and largely responsible for the sweeping changes in our industrial-military posture, has been the technological revolution during recent decades.

In this revolution, research has become central; it also becomes more formalized, complex, and costly. A steadily increasing share is conducted for, by, or at the direction of, the Federal government [or the state].

Today, the solitary inventor, tinkering in his shop, has been over shadowed by task forces of scientists in laboratories and testing fields. In the same fashion, the free university, historically the fountainhead of free ideas and scientific discovery, has experienced a revolution in the conduct of research. Partly because of the huge costs involved, a government contract becomes virtually a substitute for intellectual curiosity. For every old blackboard there are now hundreds of new electronic computers.

The prospect of domination of the nation’s scholars by Federal employment, project allocations, and the power of money is ever present and is gravely to be regarded.

Yet, in holding scientific research and discovery in respect, as we should, we must also be alert to the equal and opposite danger that public policy could itself become the captive of a scientific-technological elite.

Yep, if you guessed Dwight D. Eisenhower’s ‘Farewell Address’, given in 1961, you’re correct. Many people might know the first part about the ‘military-industrial complex’, but very few read on.

Eisenhower’s warnings about ‘research™’ conducted at the mercy of gov’t grants is, in short, precisely the clusterf*** that brought forth ‘Covid’.

We note, in passing, that ‘climate change™’ is a longer-running grift-cum-power grab as none of the ‘research™’ done at huge expense is actually feasible with the funding available to the typical professor or scientist.

I’d merely add that while I consider Eisenhower to have been correct about this development, his castigation of ‘the gov’t’ is, sadly, incomplete—as Big Gov’t and Big Business, incl. High Finance cannot exist without each other.

Put differently: those billionaires who now complain about Big Gov’t being the problem (which doesn’t mean it isn’t) are gaslighting you into believing Big Business had (has) nothing to do with this situation.

And this brings us to the Climate Grift™, a long-running multi-level marketing scam whose implications sometimes, and in the below piece I’d add unwittingly (for the ‘journo™’ who penned this piece of BS is a moron), come to the fore.

Translation and emphases mine, as is the [snark].

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Bethlehem Today: 16 Degrees Celsius

Jesus Christ lived in a time of ‘climatic optimum’

By Bernd Watzka, Heute.at, 24 Dec. 2024 [source]

At the time of Jesus, the temperatures in ancient Palestine [red herring no. 1: around Christ’s birth, there was no such Roman province, which was established in 136 AD following the Bar Kokhba revolt] were pleasantly warm —an ideal climate for agriculture. In stark contrast to today [red herring no. 2: that is merely a claim and one that’s unsupported by any evidence: I live at 61 degrees north, and I can tell you for a fact that I can’t grow grapes or wheat because it’s too cold].

The so-called ‘climatic optimum’ of the Roman Empire, also known as the Roman Warm Period, extended from 200 BC to 150 AD—Jesus Christ therefore lived ‘right in the middle’ of this climatically favoured era [red herring no. 3: even the Ministry of Truth™ (Wikipedia) marks its end around 400 AD, but, hilariously so, ‘a period of unusually-warm weather’].

Optimal Climatic Conditions

During this period, particularly favourable climatic conditions prevailed in the Mediterranean region—with pleasant temperatures and sufficient rainfall, which created ideal conditions for productive agriculture [red herring no. 4: there are no temperature ranges given, as in ‘it was xzy degrees warmer back then’, in addition to the methodological ‘problem’ that the Roman Warm Period was a regional phenomenon whose existence is ‘proven’ by resorting to a global temperature reconstruction (as per this Wikipedia piece):

More recent research, including a 2019 analysis based on a much larger dataset of climate proxies, has found that the putative period, along with other warmer or colder pre-industrial periods such as the ‘Little Ice Age’ and ‘Medieval Warm Period,’ were regional phenomena, not globally-coherent episodes.^[7] That analysis uses the temperature record of the last 2,000 years dataset compiled by the PAGES 2k Consortium 2017.^[7]

So, the Roman Warm Period, a regional phenomenon, can’t be related to any kind of global phenomenon; yet, that is precisely what this ‘journo™’ does]

Economic Prosperity

The favourable conditions at the time of Jesus contributed to the economic prosperity and population growth of the Roman Empire. This period was followed by a phase of climatic instability, which led to the so-called Late Antique Little Ice Age (450 AD to 700 AD) [these ‘putative periods’ were also ‘regional phenomena’].

Climate Crisis Makes it Possible: 17 Degrees on Christmas Day

The ‘climatic optimum’ from the time of Jesus stands in stark contrast to today’s climate conditions fuelled by climate change. One example: Maximum temperatures on 24 December 2024 in Bethlehem: 16 degrees. The forecast for Christmas Day is even a spring-like 17 degrees [ah, isn’t making such a claim mistaking one-off measurements = weather for da climate™?].

Opposite Effects Today

While the ancient ‘climatic optimum’ favoured civilisational and economic progress, today’s temperatures in the Middle East, which are higher all year round due to global warming, have the opposite effect.

Consequences of climate change in the Middle East incl.:

• Water scarcity: climate change is leading to shorter and warmer winters and hotter and drier summers. This exacerbates the rampant water shortage in the region.

• Heatwaves: temperatures are rising and extreme heatwaves are becoming more frequent and intense. In the summer of 2021, temperatures reached almost 50 degrees Celsius, leading to numerous forest fires.

• Food security: rising temperatures and water scarcity are affecting agriculture and jeopardising the food security of the population.

• Environmental degradation: climate change is contributing to the destruction of habitats and the loss of biodiversity. Forests and coastal regions are particularly affected.

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Bottom Lines

That was particularly painful to read, among other this due to the many assertions that ‘climate optimum good’ 2000 years ago but ‘comparable (?) warming today bad’.

Yes, there are a lot of problems, in particular in the Middle East, most of which are man-made, ranging from mismanagement to ignoring, or at least accepting, environmental destruction.

Yes, there is also foreign interference—but that’s also a feature of Roman rule—and the like, but for ‘whatever’ reason(s), the Middle East is a basket case.

Strangely, that is, in terms of argumentative stupidity, the above piece makes a claim about the entire Mediterranean region, yet the areas in Europe appear to be faring much better.

If we’d make a juxtaposing list of ‘Europe’ and the ‘Middle East’, there’s but one core aspect that stands out: Islam.

Yes, foreign/US imperialism also affects Europe, and does so perhaps in less oppressive ways and means than in the Middle East, but it’s there.

There may be another aspect that characterises the predicament of the Middle East, which is also cultural in nature, but it has real-world implications esp. among Moslem communities: incest, or, as legacy media would call it, ‘marriage among first cousins’.

To learn more about this feature, see e.g. this BBC piece or this article in The Times.

Incest increases the likelihood of genetic defects in offspring, and since Islam arrived on the scene in the Middle East almost 1500 years ago, this kind of cultural/social reproduction has significant implications in the long run.

And that’s before we get into this entire climate 2000 years ago good vs. today’s it’s roughly the same but bad nonsense.

The only people benefitting from this grift are ‘da scientists™’ and ‘journos™’ peddling this BS without even pretending to do their due diligence.

What an embarrassment for both of these grift campers.