Yes, I know, I know—too longsince I last blogged! All I can plead is an excuse is travel, a great deal ofit, and impending book deadlines. The fall is usually very busy with lecturesand other commitments on the road, this time to a wide variety oforganizations. These included a faculty retreat at Columbia Community Collegein Pasco, Washington, lectures to National Geographic and the SacramentoArchaeological Society, and to a conference of hospital administratorsresponsible for emergencies. All this time on the road culminated in a superbvisit to the University of Western Ontario at London, Ontario. Apart fromgiving a public lecture, I was corralled into answering questions about The Little Ice Age from amultidisciplinary group of graduate students for two-and-a-half hours. Theyasked perceptive and sometimes humbling questions. I realized once again howlittle I know about climatic and environmental issues.

Why a conference onemergencies you may well ask? This is actually the fourth time I’ve lectured tosuch groups and was the question I asked first time. The answer they gave wasthat human nature has not changed and that responses to emergencies in humanterms have probably remained the same. When I looked into it, indeed they had.Decisive leadership, controlling borders, rationing food, and the importance ofkin and family all resonated from history, issues as important then as they aretoday.

On this subject, if youhave not read Mike Davis’s Late VictorianHolocausts, with its harrowing descriptions of 19^th-centurytropical famines caused by monsoon failure and inept governance, do so. Davisestimates that between 20 and 30 milliontropical farmers perished of famine and famine related diseases during the nineteenthcentury—and that at a time when there were many fewer people living onagriculturally marginal lands. You’ll never think the same way about famineagain.

Something to think about inan era of impending drought and global warming.