What might Paleolithic climate denialism seem like? I decided to consider the
Last Glacial Maximum of the
Last Glacial Period, roughly 26,000 - 20,000 years ago.
I came up with a scenario of someone living in Northern Germany who is in denial about the coming of the continental glaciers from Scandinavia.
Bright Stone, a tailor, from a place nicknamed "The Green", was an elder of her band, much respected for her expertise in making warm clothes. But as she aged, she would go off on rants about ghosts and demons and the like, When people grumbled that berry bushes are becoming harder and harder to find, she would ramble about how easy they were to find in her earlier years.
Enduring Bear, another elder, was not in physical shape to do much hunting, but he had plenty of expertise on that, and he noticed how the hunters of the band were grumbling about animals being more and more difficult to find.
Bright Stone and Enduring Bear were at loggerheads as to what to do about that, and they got the idea to send a hunting party to the north. Running Deer and Crafty Badger agreed, and they and some other men packed up a lot of pemmican and went northward.
They traveled half a month, and they came across snow -- snow in the middle of summer. The snow extended off into the horizon. Running Deer had the idea that the snow would end somewhere, and he convinced the others to walk into it. But it was slow going without winter boots and snowshoes, and they turned back.
Enduring Bear said that this was worse than they thought. He knew of huge snowdrifts to the north, but this one was getting very close. With the shortages of berries and animals, it seemed like time to move -- move southward.
Bright Stone's only response was to rant about how lazy everybody was. Plenty of berries to pick and plenty of animals to hunt.
So they packed up their bags, disassembling their tepees, and Bright Stone reluctantly went along with that. She didn't want to try to survive without the others, and she didn't want to become a meal for some wolf or hyena or lion or bear.
The move southward was a slow trudge, but as they moved, they saw more and more vegetation. Enduring Bear felt very justified, while Bright Stone grumbled about having to help carry her tepee poles.
They successfully settled down, and only Bright Stone continued to be unhappy with it, even as the others tried to explain to her that her old home was a bad place to live.
Bright Stone --
Meaning, origin and history of the name Marjorie - Behind the Name
Enduring Bear --
Meaning, origin and history of the name Bernie - Behind the Name
on Twitter: "What we all saw tonight from Biden.
That part is too funny. Images of people like Louis Farrakhan, Malcom X, Huey P. Newton & Angela Davis yelling to the point of saliva flying from their mouths beg to differ.