The Little Ice Age: Futuristic lessons from the winter of our discontent

In the 16th century, winters in Europe got very, very cold, and summers got brutally hot. Grain prices rose as harvests declined. Grapes soured on the vine, and good wine, which had been the beverage of choice for all occasions, grew hard to come by. Religious authorities posited that the weather was a punishment from God and they blamed witches in their midst for inspiring His wrath. But when the bad seasons wouldn’t stop coming—for years—and literal witch hunts didn’t do a thing to help, a new paradigm was (slowly) born. Over the next 100 years, nature started being [seen as a clockwork mechanism]( that humans can discern. Scientists exchanged information. Botanists sent plants across continents, and Europe adopted new growths, like tulips and potatoes, which proved to be the basis for new markets and gastronomies. By the time the weather became more temperate a century later, many of the ideas that shape the world we live in today had come into being—including notions of a free market with its own logic. And those market forces led us to[the current climate crisis](. If the past is any indication, what lies ahead for us as climate change leads to increasingly frequent extreme weather is a time of great trouble, disruption, upheaval, uncertainty, intellectual development, and innovation. If we’re lucky, a brave new world will emerge. 🐦 [Tweet this!]( 🌐 [View this email on the web]( [Quartz Obsession] The Little Ice Age March 11, 2019 The big chill --------------------------------------------------------------- In the 16th century, winters in Europe got very, very cold, and summers got brutally hot. Grain prices rose as harvests declined. Grapes soured on the vine, and good wine, which had been the beverage of choice for all occasions, grew hard to come by. Religious authorities posited that the weather was a punishment from God and they blamed witches in their midst for inspiring His wrath. But when the bad seasons wouldn’t stop coming—for years—and literal witch hunts didn’t do a thing to help, a new paradigm was (slowly) born. Over the next 100 years, nature started being [seen as a clockwork mechanism]( that humans can discern. Scientists exchanged information. Botanists sent plants across continents, and Europe adopted new growths, like tulips and potatoes, which proved to be the basis for new markets and gastronomies. By the time the weather became more temperate a century later, many of the ideas that shape the world we live in today had come into being—including notions of a free market with its own logic. And those market forces led us to[the current climate crisis](. If the past is any indication, what lies ahead for us as climate change leads to increasingly frequent extreme weather is a time of great trouble, disruption, upheaval, uncertainty, intellectual development, and innovation. If we’re lucky, a brave new world will emerge. 🐦 [Tweet this!]( 🌐 [View this email on the web]( Go deeper with Quartz membership --------------------------------------------------------------- 👉Deep analysis of the forces reshaping the global economy, from space travel to big cannabis. 👉Exclusive interviews with the leaders creating the future of business, science, philanthropy, media, and more. 👉Access to our journalists with exclusive member-only conference calls and events. [Start free trial]( Reuters/Benoit Tessier Explain it like I’m 5! The Little Ice Age: where, when, and why --------------------------------------------------------------- Answering those three Ws is tougher than it looks; there’s no consensus on any of them. The term often refers to a moderately cold period in the [17th and 18th centuries]( that [hit Europe especially hard](. But it may have gone as late as the 19th century and began—or was at least triggered—in the 13th century. One theory, based on discoveries out of the University of Colorado, is that four huge volcanic eruptions between 1275 and 1300 kicked it off, [beginning a climate feedback loop]( that kept temperatures cold for centuries. [A more recent theory]( suggests that the massive depopulation of the Americas following the arrival of Christopher Columbus led to a dramatic decline in land use, which led to more forests, which created giant carbon sinks, which cooled the climate. The Little Ice Age also coincided with a period of “extremely low solar activity” from 1650 to 1715 [known as the Maunder Minimum](. It’s possible that all three factors played a role in the shift. Brief history [1570:]( Swiss theologian Heinrich Bullinger writes, “The spring this year was like winter, cold and wet, the wine blossom terrible, and the harvest bad.” [1607:]( The Thames freezes solid and Londoners set up shop on it. [1618:]( Germany begins three decades in which its population plummets by up to 40%. [1620:]( 900 Germans are accused of bringing cold weather through witchcraft and executed. [1621:]( Potatoes, adopted very slowly by reluctant Europeans facing starvation, appear for the first time in a German-language cookbook published by the Seitenstetten Monastery in Austria. [1641:]( Cold weather kills thousands of Protestants during the Ulster Rebellion. [1644:]( China’s Ming dynasty collapses. [1651:]( Thomas Hobbes publishes Leviathan, in which he describes life without society as “solitary, poor, nasty, brutish, and short.” [1664:]( Thomas Mun publishes the influential text England’s Treasure by Forraign Trade, arguing that “wherein we must ever observe this rule; to sell more to strangers yearly than we consume of theirs in value.” [1939:]( Geologist F.E. Matthes coins the term “Little Ice Age.” Giphy Million-dollar question How did the Enlightenment come out of an ice age? --------------------------------------------------------------- We don’t have science and industry just because Europe got cold. But it arguably sped along the process. As Philipp Blom argues in [Nature’s Mutiny]( thinkers were desperate to understand the causes of the mystery, and theological causation ceased to satisfy when it became clear that [burning witches wasn’t going to lift the frost](. This [led philosophers to become more rational]( seeking answers on Earth rather than in the heavens. [As Blom writes]( “the most basic proposals for tackling the climate crisis came from gentlemen scholars we would today call botanists and agricultural experts.” Meanwhile, the agricultural shortages caused by the climate shift [hastened the transition from feudalism to capitalism](. The need for resources encouraged more robust, interconnected international trade networks—as well as international exploitation [in the form of slavery and colonization](. By the digits [2℃:]( Drop in winter temperatures during the Little Ice Age [3:]( Days René Descartes spent locked in a room in Germany in the bitter cold winter of 1619–20, where he had the visions that led him to quit the military and devote himself to science, in order to “reform all knowledge” [40:]( Sperm whales beached on the Dutch coast in the winter of 1598 due to cooling seas that likely lured the creatures into shallow waters searching for migrating prey [150:]( Liters of wine per year consumed per capita by citizens of Vienna before 1587, a year that marked the start of a string of bad harvests due to extreme weather [90%:]( Share of homes destroyed by London’s Great Fire of 1666, which raged for three days after an especially hot, arid summer that left the city’s timber buildings as dry as tinder [2 cm (0.8 in):]( Decline in average height of Europeans in the late 1500s, due to malnourishment Charted[atlas_ByfNrXUBf@2x] Have a friend who would enjoy our Obsession with The Little Ice Age? [ [Forward link to a friend](mailto:?subject=Thought you'd enjoy.&body=Read this Quartz Obsession email – to the email – AP Photo/John McConnico Pop quiz How does Shakespeare’s 1595 play Richard III begin? “My wit’s diseased”“Now is the winter of our discontent”“Baby, it’s cold outside”“Blow, winds, and crack your cheeks!” Correct. Incorrect. If your inbox doesn’t support this quiz, find the solution at bottom of email. Reuters/Yves Herman A blossoming market My kingdom for a tulip --------------------------------------------------------------- When grain harvests grew unreliable due to the Little Ice Age, the threat of starvation changed both land use and trade practices. in the 1600s, Amsterdam became a trading hub and transformed from a village to a bustling city, complete with a stock market and the frenzied speculation that accompanies such a development. Tulips, a bloom that was new to Europe, prompted the first documented stock market bubble in Amsterdam in 1637. The flower had reached the continent in the late 1500s, sent by a merchant in the Ottoman empire to a Dutch merchant who gave the bulbs to his cook, thinking they were onions. The cook threw the inedible bulbs in a garbage heap which blossomed in spring and the merchant sent this foreign specimen to the foremost botanist of the time, Charles de l’Ecluse, in Leiden. The flowers survived the extremely harsh winter of 1593 and the delighted botanist sent bouquets to his friends. These blooms became such a sensation that entrepreneurs stole bulbs from de l’Ecluse’s garden and began cultivating tulips to sell. By 1630, the price of a single varietal of tulip bulb could equal as much as “a well-appointed country house,” according to Philipp Blom. For a time, a bouquet of tulips graced every fine home in the Netherlands and beyond, inspiring “breathless buying and selling” by investors. Suddenly, in February 1637, however, the bloom wore off the blossom, and the tulip bubble burst, leaving many investors destitute and driving some to suicide. The bulbs were deemed practically worthless again, tossed aside as they had been by the first cook who mistook them for inedible onions. [Read the Obsession on the tulip bubble]( Quotable “Europe where the sun dares scarce appear, for freezing meteors and congealed cold.” —[Christopher Marlowe, Tamburlaine the Great (1587)]( This one weird trick! How the Dutch thrived during the LIA --------------------------------------------------------------- While many countries suffered through war and strife, the Dutch Republic enjoyed a golden age during the 1600s. Why? Historian [Dagomar Degroot writes]( that the country was heavily urbanized, with a diverse and robust international trade network, and extensive experience controlling nature through the dikes necessary for its survival. And some of it was luck: sea ice brought whales to its front door, new wind patterns blew fair for them in war, [and heavy rains aided their military defense](. Fun fact! One theory for why Stradivarius violins sound so good is that the Little Ice Age [altered tree growth]( such that it produced wood with “more consistent density than that found in modern violins.” Giphy Poll How worried are you about climate change? [Click here to vote]( We’re doomedIt will be bad, but we’ll also adaptWe can stop itWe don’t need to do anything 💬let's talk! In Friday’s poll about [applause]( 52% of you said you’ve given a standing ovation “many times.” 📧In Friday’s email, the New Yorker’s Masha Gessen was misidentified as “Sasha.” Pauline writes: “Fascinating piece of cultural diversity. However it failed to recognize the Deaf applause. Auditory stimulus is absent therefore shaking of hands in the air is the equivalent. This is universal in the Deaf world. Another unique visible sign is the waving of napkins at Deaf weddings in order to get the bride and groom to kiss, rather than tapping glasses.” 🤔 [What did you think of today’s email?](mailto:obsession%2Bfeedback@qz.com?cc=&subject=Thoughts%20about%20the%20Little%20Ice%20Age&body=) 💡 [What should we obsess over next?](mailto:obsession%2Bideas@qz.com?cc=&subject=Obsess%20over%20this%20next.&body=) 🎲 [Show me a random Obsession]( Today’s email was written by [Ephrat Livni]( edited by [Whet Moser]( and produced by [Luiz Romero](. The correct answer to the quiz is “Now is the winter of our discontent”. Enjoying the Quartz Obsession? [Send this link]( to a friend! If you click a link to an e-commerce site and make a purchase, we may receive a small cut of the revenue, which helps support our ambitious journalism. See [here]( for more information. Not enjoying it? No worries. [Click here]( to unsubscribe. 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