Much of California, and other areas in the West, are enduring a severe drought. In February, President Obama decreed that the drought is the product of man-made “climate change.”
This is a good example of a proposition that should be self-evident, but is generally ignored: you can’t talk intelligently about climate change unless you know something about climate history. Which, not surprisingly, Barack Obama doesn’t. The reality is that California is no stranger to drought, and hasn’t been for millennia. This chart from Anthony Watts, covers the American West beginning in 800 A.D., based on tree rings:
As Watts headlines, “Spot the portion of California drought caused by ‘climate change’.” With regard to climate, as in other fields, ignorance of the past tends to lead to hysteria whenever anything changes.
Notice: All comments are subject to moderation. Our comments are intended to be a forum for civil discourse bearing on the subject under discussion. Commenters who stray beyond the bounds of civility or employ what we deem gratuitous vulgarity in a comment — including, but not limited to, “s***,” “f***,” “a*******,” or one of their many variants — will be banned without further notice in the sole discretion of the site moderator.