ONE: CLOUDY WITH A CHANCE OF CIVILIZATION
The rainy-day butterfly: Author interview with Paul M. Brakefield, November 25, 2013; and Paul M. Brakefield, Julie Gates, Dave Keys, Fanja Kesbeke, Pieter J. Wijingaarden, Antonia Monteriro, Vernon French, and Sean B. Carroll, “Development, Plasticity and Evolution of Butterfly Eye-spot Patterns,” Nature, vol. 384 (November 1996), 236–42.
As the drops hit: Xu-Li Fan, Spencer C. H. Barrett, Hua Lin, Ling-Ling Chen, Xiang Zhou, and Jian-Yun Gao, “Rain Pollination Provides Reproductive Assurance in a Deceptive Orchid,” Annals of Botany, vol. 110, no. 5 (May 2012), 953–58.
An exhaustive study: Brad T. Gomez, Thomas G. Hansford, and George A. Krause, “The Republicans Should Pray for Rain: Weather, Turnout, and Voting in U.S. Presidential Elections,” Journal of Politics, vol. 39, no. 3 (August 2007), 649–63.
Les Misérables: Laura Lee, Blame It on the Rain: How the Weather Has Changed History (New York: Harper, 2006), 166–69.
“Providence needed only”: Victor Hugo, Les Misérables (New York: Dodd, Mead and Co., 1862), 112.
Once prospering in vast numbers from the riches of the rain: Timothy Egan, The Good Rain: Across Time and Terrain in the Pacific Northwest (New York: Vintage, 1990), 36.
An anti-noise-pollution organization: “One Square Inch,” a sanctuary for silence at Olympic National Park, http://onesquareinch.org/.
Connecting East and West: “The tide-beating heart of earth” is from Melville’s memorable description of the Pacific in the chapter of the same name in Moby Dick. Herman Melville, Moby Dick, or, The Whale (Originally published London: Richard Bentley, 1851. Quote is from Los Angeles: Arion Press, 1979), 491.
As the heavy ocean plate: Eugene P. Kiver and David V. Harris, Geology of U.S. Parklands (New York: John Wiley & Sons, 5th edition, 1999), 77–78; and “Olympic National Park,” National Geographic Travel, http://travel.nationalgeographic.com/travel/national-parks/olympic-national-park/.
After this warm, wet air: Ahrens, Meteorology Today, 507.
In 1860: Ibid., 350.
A fast-growing haven: Author interview with Dr. Clifford F. Mass, University of Washington Department of Atmospheric Sciences, Seattle, February 1, 2013; and Cliff Mass, The Weather of the Pacific Northwest (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 2008), 18.
They found the circulation: Clifford Mass and Carl Sagan, “A Numerical Circulation Model with Topography for the Martian Southern Hemisphere,” Journal of Atmospheric Science, vol. 33 (1976), 1418–30.
This rain shadow covers: Author interview with Mass; and Mass, The Weather of the Pacific Northwest, 19–20.
The number of days: Author interview with Mass; and Mass, The Weather of the Pacific Northwest, 20.
While Seattle experiences: Christopher C. Burt, “Thunderstorms: The ‘Stormiest’ Places in the U.S.A. and the World,” Weather Underground, June 21, 2012, http://www.wunderground.com/blog/weatherhistorian/thunderstorms-the-stormiest-places-in-the-usa-and-the-world.
New Orleans and West Palm Beach: Data courtesy Scott E. Stephens, meteorologist, NOAA National Climatic Data Center, Asheville, North Carolina. The top ten cities were derived from the 1981–2010 climate normal in NCDC’s Comparative Climatic Data spreadsheet. Including only those cities with populations greater than 50,000, the top ten are: Mobile; New Orleans; West Palm Beach; Miami; Pensacola; Baton Rouge; Port Arthur, Texas; Tallahassee; Apalachicola; and Wilmington, North Carolina.
The ascending clouds: Author interview with Mass; and Mass, The Weather of the Pacific Northwest, 23–25.
An acre of corn: U.S. Geological Survey, “The Water Cycle,” Transpiration, http://water.usgs.gov/edu/watercycletranspiration.html.
But Yuma is the rain-scarcest city: NOAA’s National Climatic Data Center, Asheville, North Carolina.
Known as rain streamers: Ahrens, Meteorology Today, 473.
Scientists define the monsoon: Author interview with the geoscientist Peter D. Clift, November 7, 2013.
Almost two-thirds: Peter D. Clift and R. Alan Plumb, The Asian Monsoon: Causes, History and Effects (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008), 197.
The monsoons: Ibid., vii.
The anthropologist: Brian Fagan, The Long Summer: How Climate Changed Civilization (New York: Basic Books, 2004), xiii–xiv.
Their subsequent research: Personal communication with Mark Changizi; and Mark Changizi, R. Weber, R. Kotecha, and J. Palazzo, “Are Wet-Induced Wrinkled Fingers Primate Rain Treads?” Brain, Behavior and Evolution, vol. 77, no. 4 (August 2011), http://www.karger.com/Article/FullText/328223#AC.
All in all, Changizi believes: Personal communication with Changizi; and Changizi, Weber, et al., “Are Wet-Induced Wrinkled Fingers Primate Rain Treads?”
Why would they need: Chip Walter, Last Ape Standing: The Seven-Million-Year-Old Story of How and Why We Survived (New York: Walker Publishing Company, 2013), 9–10.
A new sort of primate: Ibid., 4.
Emerging paleoclimate: Gail M. Ashley, “Human Evolution and Climate Change,” in Vivien Gornitz, ed., Encyclopedia of Paleoclimatology and Ancient Environments (Dordrecht, Netherlands: Springer, 2009), 448–50.
The major leaps: Interview with Dr. Rick Potts, “The Adaptable Human,” NOVA, October 26, 2009.
the largest predator: Christopher A. Brochu and Glenn W. Storrs, “A Giant Crocodile from the Plio-Pleistocene of Kenya, the Phylogenetic Relationships of Neogene African Crocodylines, and the Antiquity of Crocodylus in Africa,” Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology, vol. 32, no. 3 (2012), 587–602.
Many archaeologists: Fagan, The Long Summer, 19.
Cores from the Arabian Sea suggest: David E. Anderson, Andrew S. Goudie, and Adrian G. Parker, Global Environments Through the Quaternary: Exploring Environmental Change (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2nd edition, 2013), 127.
As Asian Ice Age hunters: Wolfgang Behringer, A Cultural History of Climate (Cambridge, U.K.: Polity Press, 2010), 33.
After millions of years of heave and ho: Fagan, The Long Summer, xii, 22–25.
Paleolithic people did endure: David G. Anderson, Albert C. Goodyear, James Kennett, and Allen West, “Multiple Lines of Evidence for Possible Human Population Decline/Settlement Reorganization During the Early Younger Dryas,” Quaternary International, vol. 242, no. 2 (October 15, 2011), 570–83.
Likewise in Asia: Clift and Plumb, The Asian Monsoon, 200.
Radiocarbon dating lets scientists analyze: A. M. T. Moore, “The Impact of Accelerator Dating at the Early Village of Abu Hureyra on the Euphrates,” Radiocarbon, vol. 34, no. 3 (1992), 850–58.
Many scientists believe the faltering rains: Clift and Plumb, The Asian Monsoon, 200–203; and Fagan, The Long Summer, 128–45.
TWO: DROUGHT, DELUGE, AND DEVILRY
Nearly 5,000 years ago, the Harappan people: Richard H. Meadow and Jonathan Mark Kenoyer, “Recent Discoveries and Highlights from Excavations at Harappa: 1998–2000,” http://www.harappa.com/indus4/e1.html.
All of this life flourished on monsoon rains and rivers: Clift and Plumb, The Asian Monsoon, 210.
people began to abandon: Jonathan Mark Kenoyer, Ancient Cities of the Indus Valley Civilization (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998), 18.
The Hindu holy text: Author interview, Hindu scholar Vasudha Narayanan, April 18, 2013; and Vasudha Narayanan, unpublished manuscript, A Hundred Autumns to Live.
Appearing in the text more than seventy times: Clift and Plumb, The Asian Monsoon, 210–11.
Searching in an ancient rain-fed lake: Yama Dixit, David A. Hodell, and Cameron A. Petrie, “Abrupt Weakening of the Summer Monsoon in Northwest India 4,100 Yr Ago,” Geology, vol. 42, no. 4 (February 24, 2014), 339–42.
The public was captivated: “The Royal Graves of Ur,” British Museum, highlights, http://www.britishmuseum.org/explore/highlights/articles/r/the_royal_graves_of_ur.aspx.
They conceived the first written philosophy: University of Chicago Library, “This History, Our History: Ancient Mesopotamia,” http://mesopotamia.lib.uchicago.edu/mesopotamialife/index.php.
And then, after a hundred years of prosperity: H. Weiss, M. A. Courty, W. Wetterstrom, F. Guichard, L. Senior, R. Meadow, and A. Curnow, “The Genesis and Collapse of Third Millennium North Mesopotamian Civilization,” Science, vol. 261 (August 20, 1993), 995–1003.
The city once so grand: Richard Conniff, “When Civilizations Collapse,” Environment Yale, http://environment.yale.edu/envy/stories/when-civilizations-collapse/.
With no rain to moisten the soil: Weiss et al, “The Genesis and Collapse of Third Millennium North Mesopotamian Civilization,” 995–1003.
Lake-bed soils in Africa: H. M. Cullen, P. B. deMenocal, S. Hemming, G. Hemming, F. H. Brown, T. Guilderson, and F. Sirocko, “Climate Change and the Collapse of the Akkadian Empire: Evidence from the Deep Sea,” Geology, vol. 28 (April 2000), 375–78.
In China, scientists note: M. J. C. Walker, M. Berkelhammer, S. Bjorck, L. C. Cwynar, D. A. Fisher, A. J. Long, J. J. Lowe, R. M. Newnham, S. O. Rasmussen, and H. Weiss, “Formal Subdivision of the Holocene Series/ Epoch,” discussion paper, Journal of Quaternary Science, vol. 27, no. 7 (2012), 649–59; and Weiss et al., “The Genesis and Collapse of Third Millennium North Mesopotamian Civilization,” 995–1003.
More than 11,000 people were killed: Ahrens, Meteorology Today, 453–54.
Persistently copious rains: Behringer, A Cultural History of Climate, 128–29.
Chroniclers of the day: Ibid., 104.
In 1315, the downpours began: Henry S. Lucas, “The Great European Famine of 1315, 1316, and 1317,” Speculum, vol. 5, no. 4 (October 1930), 346.
Floodwaters ran so deep: Ibid., 346–48.
The Danube burst its banks: Behringer, A Cultural History of Climate.
“The men stood knee-deep:” Lucas, “The Great European Famine of 1315, 1316, and 1317,” 349.
The Flemings thanked God: Brian Fagan, The Little Ice Age: How Climate Made History, 1300 to 1850 (New York: Basic Books, 2000), 31–32.
In England, the price of wheat: Lucas, “The Great European Famine of 1315, 1316, and 1317,” 351–52.
In some rural areas: Fagan, The Little Ice Age, 32.
Families foraged: Lucas, “The Great European Famine of 1315, 1316, and 1317,” 355–56.
“Horse meat was precious”: Johannes de Trokelowe, Annates, H. T. Riley, ed., Rolls Series, no. 28, vol. 3 (London, 1866), 92–95. Translated by Brian Tierney, Internet Medieval Source Book, Fordham University, http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/source/famin1315a.asp.
They solicited charity: Fagan, The Little Ice Age, 38.
“The people were in such great need”: Ibid. 41.
In Tournai: John Aberth, From the Brink of the Apocalypse: Confronting Famine, War, Plague and Death in the Later Middle Ages (New York and London: Routledge, 2nd edition, 2013), 22.
In Holland, “rich and poor”: Lucas, “The Great European Famine of 1315, 1316, and 1317,” 370.
In the rains, dead bodies: Ibid., 358.
Scholars estimate the Great Famine of 1315–1322 killed some 3 million people: Ibid., 361–63.
A musician in the papal court of Avignon: Aberth, From the Brink of the Apocalypse, 4.
But the “full world”: Fagan, The Little Ice Age, 81.
The stress of childhood hunger: Behringer, A Cultural History of Climate, 107–8.
What we know as: Fagan, The Little Ice Age, 81.
When a victim coughs: World Health Organization, “Plague,” fact sheet, http://www.who.int/topics/plague/en/.
Others who have examined it: Mark Wheelis, “Biological Warfare at the 1346 Siege of Caffa,” Emerging Infectious Diseases Journal, vol. 8, no. 9 (September 2002), http://wwwnc.cdc.gov/eid/article/8/9/01-0536.htm.
By 1349, it had crept north to Scotland: Fagan, The Little Ice Age, 82.
No event in European history: Behringer, A Cultural History of Climate, 109.
A global consortium of scientists: Nils Christian Stenseth et al., “Plague Dynamics Are Driven by Climate Variation,” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, vol. 103, no. 35 (August 2006), 13110–15.
At the same time, a good, hard rain: Molly Caldwell Crosby, The American Plague: The Untold Story of Yellow Fever, the Epidemic That Shaped Our History (New York: Berkley Books, 2007).
In late August 1589: “Annual Report of the Deputy Keeper of the Public Records, Volumes 46–47,” Great Britain Public Records, no. 5, Report on Royal Archives of Denmark. This record spells Peter Munch’s name as Munck.
King James VI of Scotland had seen the fair Anna: Agnes Strickland, Lives of the Queens of England, vol. VII (London: Henry Colburn, 1844), 323–25.
Munch thought the tempest uncommonly fierce: Ibid., 326.
The dastardly winds: Ibid.
After an awkward first embrace: Letters to King James the Sixth (Edinburgh: Library of the Faculty of Advocates, 1835), xvii.
The royal couple’s return: Donald Tyson, The Demonology of King James I (Woodbury, Minn.: Llewellyn Publications, 2011), 22.
Historians who study witch hunts: Wolfgang Behringer, Witches and Witch-Hunts: A Global History (Cambridge, U.K.: Polity Press, 2004), 145.
About 80 percent of the victims were female: Ibid., 37.
A German woodcut from 1486: Behringer, A Cultural History of Climate, figure 4.2, 129.
A frontispiece from a 1489 pamphlet: Behringer, Witches and Witch-Hunts, plate 5, 75.
A colored Swiss painting: Ibid., plate 6, 84.
The crime disappeared: Behringer, A Cultural History of Climate, 128.
“Witches were the scapegoats”: Ibid.
In 1582, a similar sheet reported: Behringer, Witches and Witch-Hunts, 91.
In Scotland, the zeal for witch-hunting: Ibid., 6–7.
After humiliations and tortures: Tyson, The Demonology of King James I, 24.
She explained that Satan: Ibid., 4, 24.
No words could have rung: Ibid.
Its woodcuts show a storm: Newes from Scotland, Special Collections Exhibition, Special Collections Department, Library, University of Glasgow, Scotland, http://special.lib.gla.ac.uk/exhibns/month/aug2000.html.
She said the witches: Tyson, The Demonology of King James I, 25.
King James and his council: Newes from Scotland.
Witch hunts and trials continued: Ibid.
He began writing with James in mind: Stephen Greenblatt, Will in the World: How Shakespeare Became Shakespeare (New York: Norton, paperback edition, 2005), 349.
But he relied on storms: Roland Mushat Frye, Shakespeare: The Art of the Dramatist (Boston: Houghton Mifflin Co., 1970), 216.
Archaeologists have found that the later Harappan: Camilo Ponton, Liviu Giosan, Tim I. Eglinton, Dorian Q. Fuller, Joel E. Johnson, Pushpendra Kumar, and Tim S. Collett, “Holocene Aridification of India,” Geophysical Research Letters, vol. 39 (February 2012).
THREE: PRAYING FOR RAIN
As a teenager, he’d been stricken: “Robert McAlpin Williamson,” Justices of Texas 1836–1986, University of Texas School of Law Tarlton Law Library Jamail Center for Legal Research, http://tarlton.law.utexas.edu/justices/profile/view/116.
His disability stopped him from nothing: “Robert McAlpin Williamson,” Justices of Texas 1836–1986; and “Williamson, Robert McAlpin (Three Legged Willie),” Handbook of Texas Online, Texas State Historical Association, http://www.tshaonline.org/handbook/online/articles/fwi42.
As a brilliant orator: Ross Phares, Bible in Pocket, Gun in Hand: The Story of Frontier Religion (New York: Doubleday & Co., 1962), 133–34.
Tree-ring researchers: Malcolm K. Cleaveland, Daniel K. Stahle, Todd H. Votteler, Richard C. Casteel, and Jay L. Banner, “Extended Ch
ronology of Drought in South Central, Southeastern and West Texas,” Texas Water Forum, http://www.jsg.utexas.edu/ciess/files/Water_Forum_01_Votteler.pdf.
“O Lord, Thou Divine Father”: Phares, Bible in Pocket, Gun in Hand, 134.
At Texas A&M University: John Burnett, “Drought, Wildfires Haven’t Changed Perry’s Climate-Change Views,” NPR News, September 7, 2011; and Kate Sheppard, “Rick Perry Asks Texans to Pray for Rain,” Mother Jones, April 21, 2011.
His rain refrain: Timothy Egan, “Rick Perry’s Unanswered Prayers,” New York Times, August 11, 2011.
“trying to co-opt the most important three days of the Christian calendar,” Richard Connelly, “We Obey Rick Perry, Our Rain Prayer,” Houston Press, April 22, 2011.
In the arid American Southwest: Ann Marshall, Rain: Native Expressions from the American Southwest (Santa Fe: Museum of New Mexico Press, 2000), 9, 18, 20.
Rain has been woven: Ibid., 32.
The cantor dons: Ronald H. Isaacs, The Jewish Sourcebook on the Environment and Ecology (Northvale, N.J.: Jason Aronson Inc., 1998), 33.
Today, Muslims communally perform the prayer: Sarah Kate Raphael, Climate and Political Climate: Environmental Disasters in the Medieval Levant (Leiden, Netherlands: Koninklijke Brill, 2013), 70.
In an unprecedented gesture: Judith Sudilovsky, “Holy Land Jews and Muslims Pray Together for Rain,” Ecumenical News International, November 17, 2010.
The rain god Iškur/Adad: Piotr Bienkowski and Alan Millard, Dictionary of the Ancient Near East (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2000), 1–2. You can see Iškur/Adad today in the Louvre. The small figure hardly looks fierce behind his glass pane, but proudly rides his bull across a stone tablet, poised to hurl one of his lightning bolts.
Rain and storm gods were around then, too: Alberto R. W. Green, The Storm-God in the Ancient Near East, University of California San Diego Biblical and Judaic Studies, Volume 8 (Winona Lake, Indiana: Eisenbrauns, 2003), 76–83.
Some were considered divine kings: Daniel Schwemer, “The Storm-Gods of the Ancient Near East: Summary, Synthesis, Recent Studies, Part I,” Journal of Ancient Near Eastern Religions, vol. 7, no. 2 (December 2007), 121–68.
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