Warm blast from the past. A supporter recently sent us an ageing and brief newspaper clipping from the Courier Mail claiming evidence of a warm period around 2,000 years ago that showed earth's climate "can warm up suddenly without any connection to human activity." The report was dated 14 August1998. We tracked down the source of the article in Science vol. 281, p280, 14 August 1998 which described a study of oxygen isotopes in biogenic silica in a high altitude lake in Kenya. Oxygen isotopes are a useful indicator of water temperature. The study indicated there was a warm period some 2,300 to 1,500 years before the present, i.e. 300 BC to 500 AD. The authors also noted there is evidence for a warm period at this time from other places in Africa and locations as far apart of Yukon Alaska and Swedish Lapland.

Editorial Comment: It is interesting that the mainstream media at 1998, before global warming alarmists took over, reported a study that says global warming is not man made. Human activity may not have warmed up the world, but it is interesting to consider what humans were doing at this time. The Roman Empire rose and fell during this time, and so we know from other historical records that this was a warm period. Warm periods in Europe and Britain are times of wealth and plenty, and the warm conditions undoubtedly made it easier for the Romans to expand through Europe and Britain and establish their road system and other infrastructure.

But there is one surprising consequence of this Roman Warming Era. At the height of this warm period the Lord Jesus Christ lived, died, rose from the dead and commissioned his disciples to take the gospel to all nations. There is no doubt the warm climate and Roman infrastructure made the movement of early Christians relatively easy throughout the Roman Empire, and as a result the gospel reached as far as Britain during Roman times. Just an interesting reminder that the earth's climate is under the control of the Creator who uses it to fulfil his purposes. To claim that man can defy God's climate control is as futile as the efforts of the Roman Empire to stop the spread of the Gospel. (Ref. weather, evangelism, history).