Monday, April 09, 2007

Sudden cold snap linked to Neanderthals' demise

They once inhabited a zone stretching from Asia to western Europe and eked out an existence until some 24,000 years ago. But in the end it was a familiar foe - climate change - that did for our evolutionary cousins the Neanderthals, new research suggests.

(Via Unknown Country.)

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Why do I doubt that conclusion? Because it's too binary, for one zero-sum thing. I'm sure Neanderthal's had fur clothing just like the slightly more advanced Cro-Magnon's.

On the other hand, I've read they've discovered quite a few European Neanderthal bones with stone implement cut marks and split bones in digs a few years ago. I suspect the Cro's ate the Neo's when the going got tough and colder, among a variety of other factors. We derived from the Cro's.

Ummmummm! Pass the barbecue sauce, Throg! Dee-licious! Ladyfingers, anyone?

Anonymous said...

"Human caused climate change is the new, Politically Correct, religion of these times, used by the powers that be to frighten, and thus control, the general populace. It is equivalent to the flagellants of the Middle Ages, who thought the Black Death was the fault of man, and that self-flagellation the cure."

And, uh, what if _you're_ wrong, and that a significant, or majority, of the climate change recorded for over 150 years now, since the industrial revolution started throwing 100's of millions of tons of CO2, etc., into our atmosphere, _is_ caused by humanity's activities?

Will you just say, "whoops!" 30 years from now, when it is scientifically proven, as it seems to be already, if you read all the latest research, and when it may be too late for us to change that prospective reality, and leave it at that? I mean, damn, who's really the one that needs to "get real", man?

Or will you, as we all should anyway, try to make personal and progressive change in our use of energy and the subsequent air, water, and ground pollution that results, and it's terribly bad effect not just on us, long-term, but the planet's ability to sustain all life without a "mega-desert" intermediate period? Huh!?

Terming the "crisis" in climate change, which is real, whether man-made or NOT, a "...religion of these times, used by the powers that be to frighten, and thus control, the general populace. It is equivalent to the flagellants of the Middle Ages..." is just wrong on several levels of fact: religion is based on belief and faith without proof--the evidence for climate change is pretty evident, and it matters not whether it is man-made or not, it is measurably and deliteriously REAL.

And the "powers that be"? They certainly are not advocating this "belief" or "religion", as you put it. "They" (being backward governments such as our own executive branch, and the mega energy corps, like Exxon/Mobil and BP, etc.) are actively campaigning to deny it, and persuade the affected population that there is nothing really to it, and that we need not "look behind the curtain" of deceit and short-term profit and power-mongering.

Your comment almost sounds like a lazy excuse to do nothing, ride out the storm, and see what happens.

Talk about a religious belief system based on misbegotten faith!

We need to do something, now, before it is too late. Or bear the consequences to our children, future generations, and life on earth. Do you wanna take the chance that you might possibly be wrong?

'Cause I would suggest and say that would be wrong, wrong, wrong! Just my 13 cents worth....

Mac said...

Ken--

No one said the Neanderthals were producing greenhouse gases. "Climate change" is not synonymous with "anthropogenic climate change."

I'm continually amazed how elusive this point seems to be.