The Good Old Days of the Black Death

The Little Ice Age brought human misery and environmental havoc on a terrible scale. Crops failed, human life spans declined, famine and plague became regular events, and the Black Plague inflicted such widespread and painful death that it assaults the human psyche to this day.

So why is it that so many people yearn for a return to the cold, miserable conditions that spawned the Black Death? Even many self-proclaimed Small Government conservatives like Mitt Romney have advocated to reverse the alleged role humans have had in bringing the planet out of the Little Ice Age.

Cold weather kills, as does cold climate. The warming of the past 100 years has benefited the human condition rather than harmed it. Foreseeable future warming will continue to benefit the human condition.

Read more in my Forbes.com column: The Black Death: Longing for the Good Old Days.