29th December 2012, 11:17 AM
(This post was last modified: 29th December 2012, 11:20 AM by kevin wooldridge.)
I have some sympathy with Martin's reservations about us jumping onto any media bandwagons. My main angst in that direction however would be archaeologists (or media interpreted archaeologists) who claim uniqueness or magnitude or magnificence for their finds (only, biggest or best). Regarding climate change though, he is wrong.
Of course archaeologists should be careful not to be come too closely allied to the extremes of the discourse. The 'media' will pick and choose those findings it best believes fit Mr Murdoch or the Daily Mail's agenda, but I have always thought that perspective is what is lacking in the whole debate about climate variation. Archaeologists, or scientists adopting archaeological methods. are the ONLY folk who can put climate change into perspective by adding a longer time frame to the data collected over the past 50 years. We have the tools and methods that can interpret past incidence of climatic variation, be it through dendrochronology, soil micromorphology or a multitude of other techniques and add a chronological dimension far in excess of the time span that present day data collectors have at their disposal. In addition we can point to incidence where both natural variance and human manipulation has affected climate and show evidence of the outcomes of those interactions. Both at a macro and micro level.
Martin's blog is full of good things, but in this instance his Swedishness perhaps shows through. Scandinavians in general have a slightly different perspective on climate change to the rest of us in Europe, let alone the rest of the world.....greeting the arrival of their mini ice-age every winter with the glee of pigs let loose in the orchard, whilst at the same time whacking the thermostat up to 23 degrees and in general not really giving a hoot whether another one of the Maldive Islands becomes uninhabitable. Norway, for example, has recently eschewed wind-power as an alternative 'clean energy' because its unit cost is higher in Norway than other 'free' sources of fuel i.e gas, petrol or hydro-electrical power, whilst at the same time investing heavily in buying up British sectors of the North Sea and effectively creating a fossil fuel monopoly in western Europe....
My view is that if the climate variation debate brings archaeology into the public eye as particularly pertinent to everyday life, that has to be a good thing.
Of course archaeologists should be careful not to be come too closely allied to the extremes of the discourse. The 'media' will pick and choose those findings it best believes fit Mr Murdoch or the Daily Mail's agenda, but I have always thought that perspective is what is lacking in the whole debate about climate variation. Archaeologists, or scientists adopting archaeological methods. are the ONLY folk who can put climate change into perspective by adding a longer time frame to the data collected over the past 50 years. We have the tools and methods that can interpret past incidence of climatic variation, be it through dendrochronology, soil micromorphology or a multitude of other techniques and add a chronological dimension far in excess of the time span that present day data collectors have at their disposal. In addition we can point to incidence where both natural variance and human manipulation has affected climate and show evidence of the outcomes of those interactions. Both at a macro and micro level.
Martin's blog is full of good things, but in this instance his Swedishness perhaps shows through. Scandinavians in general have a slightly different perspective on climate change to the rest of us in Europe, let alone the rest of the world.....greeting the arrival of their mini ice-age every winter with the glee of pigs let loose in the orchard, whilst at the same time whacking the thermostat up to 23 degrees and in general not really giving a hoot whether another one of the Maldive Islands becomes uninhabitable. Norway, for example, has recently eschewed wind-power as an alternative 'clean energy' because its unit cost is higher in Norway than other 'free' sources of fuel i.e gas, petrol or hydro-electrical power, whilst at the same time investing heavily in buying up British sectors of the North Sea and effectively creating a fossil fuel monopoly in western Europe....
My view is that if the climate variation debate brings archaeology into the public eye as particularly pertinent to everyday life, that has to be a good thing.
With peace and consolation hath dismist, And calm of mind all passion spent...