Chinese scientists say that Chinese society prospered during warmer times.
From the prosperity of the Shang dynasty 3,600 years ago to the ruin of the Bronze Age, the cultural peak of the Tang dynasty in the seventh to 10th centuries and the subsequent ravages wrought by horsemen from the north, Chinese civilisation has reached its highest points when temperatures have been warmest and its lowest points when they have cooled.
Wang Zijin , an environmental historian at Beijing Normal University, said the relationship between temperature and success was no coincidence. When the weather cooled, agricultural output fell, wealth contracted, discontent rose and China became more vulnerable to invasion from the north.
'In the long term, warming may not be a curse but a blessing [to China],' he said. 'According to what happened in the past, if the temperature continues to rise in the future we may not see the return of elephants, but it will be very possible that rice and bamboo can again grow along the Yellow River. Xinjiang , Gansu and Inner Mongolia will become much more habitable than they are today.'
This doesn't really answer my concerns and I think looking at more continental climates with summers and winters, further away from the equator is looking at a very narrow amount of data. Countries closer to the equator will not see these benefits from a warmer climate. A few years ago, Pakistan saw a devastating weather in the summer, with scorching temps above 45C as well as very high relative humidity (far above what tropical climates usually see), effectively turning the air into an oven.
Mind you, climate change is not solely about warming temps; the biggest part of it is it makes the weather simply unpredictable; farmers can't determine what they should plant anymore and when. Canada right now is having a cold snap, while Europe is seeing summer temperatures. We don't know what summer will look like in the future, one year it could be unbearably dry and droughty (2022) while in other years, it can be cold and rainy (2019). This leads to droughts one year, and floods the next. Climate change is the reason there was a cold snap north of the equator in January, the polar vortex could not be contained and spilled down south due to changing wind patterns.
Certainly people living in colder climates will be happy that it gets a bit warmer. People living in scorching heat right now will not.
That first study you linked about the Medieval Warm Period was written by just one guy (wonder why he couldn't get anyone else to co-sign his paper) and they're basically climate change deniers, not "we shouldn't be alarmists"-ers. This makes me wonder why exactly you would point to these fringe scientists, who run against almost the entire body of science, as trustworthy sources if you're not a climate change denier yourself. I don't have time to look deeply into Easterbrook right now, but I found this:
Easterbrook is a regular speaker at the Heartland Institute‘s International Conference on Climate Change. The Heartland Institute and its conference sponsors have collectively received millions of dollars in funding from the fossil fuel industry.5 (https://www.desmog.com/don-easterbrook/)
All climate change deniers are sponsored by the fossil fuel industry, if you follow the money back up enough, you'll find they all have an agenda.
That first study you linked about the Medieval Warm Period was written by just one guy (wonder why he couldn’t get anyone else to co-sign his paper) and they’re basically climate change deniers, not “we shouldn’t be alarmists”-ers.
The work I linked is not a study. It cited many studies on the Medieval Warm Period.
I think you are basing him being a denier on what he said in 2013, it's about the haitus and he's acknowledged warming in the 1900s. (“Global warming ended in 1998. […] There has been no global warming in 15 years.”). This was said at the end of the 15-year hiatus (1998-2014). The hiatus was even acknowledged by the IPCC in its 2013 report.
And here's Chinese climate scientists acknowledging a decrease in temperatures in North America during that time period in a peer-reviewed journal. So there was some substance to what he was saying at the time. https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1029/2018EA000443
In North America, the minimum temperature experienced an obvious decline during 1998–2014
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Edit: I'll respond to the first part too in a later reply.
The medieval warm period was warmer than present and society flourished during that time. This period lasted from 900 to 1300 AD.
https://est.ufba.br/sites/est.ufba.br/files/kim/medievalwarmperiod.pdf
https://www.scmp.com/article/700638/china-gives-history-lesson-warming
Chinese scientists say that Chinese society prospered during warmer times.
This doesn't really answer my concerns and I think looking at more continental climates with summers and winters, further away from the equator is looking at a very narrow amount of data. Countries closer to the equator will not see these benefits from a warmer climate. A few years ago, Pakistan saw a devastating weather in the summer, with scorching temps above 45C as well as very high relative humidity (far above what tropical climates usually see), effectively turning the air into an oven.
Mind you, climate change is not solely about warming temps; the biggest part of it is it makes the weather simply unpredictable; farmers can't determine what they should plant anymore and when. Canada right now is having a cold snap, while Europe is seeing summer temperatures. We don't know what summer will look like in the future, one year it could be unbearably dry and droughty (2022) while in other years, it can be cold and rainy (2019). This leads to droughts one year, and floods the next. Climate change is the reason there was a cold snap north of the equator in January, the polar vortex could not be contained and spilled down south due to changing wind patterns.
Certainly people living in colder climates will be happy that it gets a bit warmer. People living in scorching heat right now will not.
That first study you linked about the Medieval Warm Period was written by just one guy (wonder why he couldn't get anyone else to co-sign his paper) and they're basically climate change deniers, not "we shouldn't be alarmists"-ers. This makes me wonder why exactly you would point to these fringe scientists, who run against almost the entire body of science, as trustworthy sources if you're not a climate change denier yourself. I don't have time to look deeply into Easterbrook right now, but I found this:
All climate change deniers are sponsored by the fossil fuel industry, if you follow the money back up enough, you'll find they all have an agenda.
The work I linked is not a study. It cited many studies on the Medieval Warm Period.
I think you are basing him being a denier on what he said in 2013, it's about the haitus and he's acknowledged warming in the 1900s. (“Global warming ended in 1998. […] There has been no global warming in 15 years.”). This was said at the end of the 15-year hiatus (1998-2014). The hiatus was even acknowledged by the IPCC in its 2013 report.
And here's Chinese climate scientists acknowledging a decrease in temperatures in North America during that time period in a peer-reviewed journal. So there was some substance to what he was saying at the time. https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1029/2018EA000443
Edit: I'll respond to the first part too in a later reply.