THE VIKINGS: VICTIMS & VICTORS
By Dennis T. Avery
Overall, the Norse were big winners in their struggles with the earth’s abrupt climate change cycles. When the cold, stormy Dark Ages set in about AD 600, the Norse had just succeeded in clearing enough Scandinavian land to support their dairy cattle and a few hardy crops. They had also developed their famous long-ships, for catching codfish on the Dogger Banks offshore.
Then, suddenly, the Dark Ages shortened the northern farmers’ already-short cropping season by weeks. The colder and stormier seas drove the codfish and herring further south, away from their nets and hand-lines. Even their trading voyages became far more dangerous.
Desperate, the Vikings put sails on their swift, shallow-draft rowing boats and became the “Mongols of the North.” They looted the English church and monastery at Lindisfarne in AD 782, and for centuries went on to rape, pillage, steal, capture, and enslave around the British Isles and western France.
Being smart as well as clever, they noticed that England, Ireland, and France were not only richer, but warmer, nicer places to live. They fought their way ashore to colonize the Faeroe and Shetland Islands, northern England, Ireland, and the Normandy Peninsula of France. Then the Dark Ages shifted abruptly into the Medieval Warming, so they extended their raids into the Mediterranean, attacking southern France and northern Italy — even drawing tribute from Constantinople!
The Vikings made two serious mistakes — by trying to colonize northward during the Medieval Warming between 950 and 1200 AD. Iceland became a big Viking colony, but when the Little Ice Age’s sea ice surrounded the entire island, people and livestock died in huge numbers.
The Vikings’ other bad mistake was Greenland. Eric the Red, a historically bad guy, wanted to be chief of something, and Greenland offered walrus tusks, rare white eagles and polar bear cubs, which could be traded to Europe for the wood and metals that Greenland lacked. He sailed with 25 ships filled with people who also wanted to be somebody somewhere other than Scandinavia. (Fourteen ships made it.)
Ultimately, the Vikings’ Greenland gamble failed. William D’Andrea of Brown University led a team that cored lakebed sediments in western Greenland, near the failed colonies. They found that, around AD 1100, the temperatures dropped by four degrees Celsius – in just 80 years. Pollen studies show the Greenland climate shifted toward more intrusive oceanic storms, heavier rainfalls, deeper Winter snows, and ice-encrusted forage that would have been deadly for the caribou the Norse hunted for food. Their cattle grew so weak and hungry in the longer, colder Greenland Winters that they had to be carried out to the fields when Spring finally arrived.
D’Andrea says that the series of “little ice ages” not only froze the Greenland Norse, but also collapsed several Inuit cultures. The real wonder is that the Greenland Vikings lasted as long as they did — the farthest northern farming ever attempted, destroyed by an abrupt climate change they had no way to predict, prevent, or adapt to. Fortunately, it was a small bet — only about 3,000 people. Still, even today, their fate haunts our dreams. When might we, too, become “unsustainable”?
In truth, we are always “unsustainable.” The fate of all cultures is at the whim of the climate: cold is far worse than warm, while drought is the scariest of all. Our expanding knowledge of the world’s 1,500-year climate cycles tells us to be vigilant and encourage technology to prepare for the climate changes that are certainly in our future. From the dawn of civilization, few cultures have survived 500 years.
Thomas McGovern, “Cows, Harp Seals, and Church Bells: Adaptation and Extinction in Norse Greenland," Human Ecology 8 (1980):257.
Dennis T. Avery, a senior fellow for the Hudson Institute in Washington, D.C., is an environmental economist. He was formerly a senior analyst for the U.S.
Department of State. He is co-author, with S. Fred Singer of Unstoppable Global Warming Every 1500 Years. Readers may write to him at PO Box 202
Churchville, Virginia, 2442; email to cgfi@hughes.net; or visit us at www.cgfi.org
Africa: Black Africa *
Africa: North Africa *
American Government 1
LINKS TO PARTICULAR ISSUES & SUBJECT MATTER CATEGORIES
TREATED IN THE PROGRESSIVE CONSERVATIVE, U.S.A.:
American Government 2 *
American Government 3 *
American Government 4
American Government 5 *
American Politics *
Anglosphere *
Arabs
Arms Control & WMD *
Aztlan Separatists *
Big Government
Black Africa *
Bureaucracy *
Canada *
China *
Civil Liberties *
Communism
Congress, U.S. *
Conservative Groups *
Conservative vs. Liberal
Constitutional Law *
Counterterrorism *
Criminal Justice *
Disloyalty *
Economy
Education *
Elections, U.S. *
Eminent Domain *
Energy & Environment
English-Speaking World *
Ethnicity & Race *
Europe *
Europe: Jews
Family Values *
Far East *
Fiscal Policy, U.S. *
Foreign Aid, U.S. *
Foreign Policy, U.S.
France *
Germany *
Hispanic Separatism *
Hispanic Treason *
Human Health *
Immigration *
Infrastructure, U.S. *
Intelligence, U.S. *
Iran *
Iraq *
Islamic North Africa
Islamic Threat *
Islamism *
Israeli vs. Arabs *
Jews & Anti-Semitism
Jihad & Jihadism *
Jihad Manifesto I *
Jihad Manifesto II *
Judges, U.S. Federal
Judicial Appointments *
Judiciary, American *
Latin America *
Latino Separatism
Latino Treason *
Lebanon *
Leftists/Liberals *
Legal Issues
Local Government, U.S. *
Marriage & Family *
Media Political Bias
Middle East: Arabs *
Middle East: Iran *
Middle East: Iraq *
Middle East: Israel
Middle East: Lebanon *
Middle East: Syria *
Middle East: Tunisia
Middle East: Turkey *
Militant Islam *
Military Defense *
Military Justice
Military Weaponry *
Modern Welfare State *
Morality & Decency
National Identity *
National Security *
Natural Resources *
News Media Bias
North Africa *
Patriot Act, USA *
Patriotism *
Political Culture *
Political Ideologies
Political Parties *
Political Philosophy *
Politics, American *
Presidency, U.S.
Private Property *
Property Rights *
Public Assistance *
Radical Islam
Religion & America *
Rogue States & WMD *
Russia *
Science & Ethics
Sedition & Treason *
Senate, U.S. *
Social Welfare Policy *
South Africa
State Government, U.S. *
Subsaharan Africa *
Subversion *
Syria *
Terrorism 1
Terrorism 2 *
Treason & Sedition *
Tunisia *
Turkey *
Ukraine
UnAmerican Activity *
UN & Its Agencies *
USA Patriot Act *
U.S. Foreign Aid
U.S. Infrastructure *
U.S. Intelligence *
U.S. Senate *
War & Peace
Welfare Policy *
WMD & Arms Control
POLITICAL EDUCATION, CONSERVATIVE ANALYSIS
POLITICS, SOCIETY, & THE SOVEREIGN STATE
Website of Dr. Almon Leroy Way, Jr.
A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z
An Online Journal of Political Commentary & Analysis
Dr. Almon Leroy Way, Jr., Editor