Viking-Made Climate Change?

The Detroit News: Viking-era runestone may reflect fears of a climate disaster

The Vikings weren't known as any great users of fossil fuels, but a new interpretation of a portion of an ancient rune inscription shows they had worries of climate disasters all the same.

Of course, the main worry for them was for a Climate change of Global Cooling, rather than Global Warming.

The writing on a famous Viking-era runestone may reflect fears of an approaching climate disaster in 9th century Scandinavia, according to new research by a team of Swedish academics
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“Before the Rok runestone was erected, a number of events occurred which must have seemed extremely ominous: a powerful solar storm colored the sky in dramatic shades of red, crop yields suffered from an extremely cold summer, and later a solar eclipse occurred just after sunrise. Graslund said. “Even one of these events would have been enough to raise fears of another Fimbulwinter.”

Apparently the author of that portion of the missive was named Greta Thunbergsdottir. In the inscription, she advocated the Vikings stop cutting trees and building longships as it was bad for the environment, and to stop children going to school and instead sacrifice them to the Norse gods to stop the change.

Great Lakes Pilotage Authority Turns The Tables On A Ship Going A-Viking

Historically, it's the Vikings with their longships that would go forth and pillage. Now the tables have been turned.

A Viking ship heading towards the Tall Ships Festival in Bay City, Michigan received a rude awakening - a bill for $400,000 in Great Lakes Pilotage fees.

The Detroit News: Viking ship heads to Bay City despite surprise bill.

$9,000 a day for pilots for the vessel for each and every day is rather spendy for a non-profit oar and sail-powered 6-knot replica Viking longboat.

Apparently there was a misunderstanding as to whether they were required or not and they've found out that they are. Apparently the fees don't scale for size.

On the upside, the fees have successfully stopped Viking raiders entering the Great Lakes since the 1960s when the rule went into place, so that's one way how you can stop a boatload of Viking raiders.

I expect it looked something like this but on the water, The ship was happily sailing along until:

They may need to do a raid on Detroit to get some more dimes, they're going to need them.

You Mayan Be A Viking....

If you think the end of the world takes place this Sunday, February 22.

The Detroit Free Press Headline: Viking calendar predicts the world will end Saturday

Actually, it doesn't really, nor is it a calendar. They're conflating the Mayan calendar with the misreading of a Viking legend about the end of the world.

The ragnar will be röking on Saturday when, according to some, the Viking calendar predicts the end of the world.

Nordic folklore has it that after three freezing winters, when there have been no summers in between, the world will come to an end.

Notice how it's Nordic Folklore and not a calendar! Ah well, the Freep never let a few facts get in the way of a headline or false cross-cultural comparison before.

The past two summers have been cold and wet, so declaring that Ragnarök (otherwise known as the Twilight of the Gods) is upon us is a subjective call.

No kidding it's subjective there sportsfans, that's not three freezing winters with no summer in between. That's a few mild-ish winters with low average summers, so no it don't count.

Arguably, this is the first freezing winter as its markedly colder than previous, thanks to that other great cross-cultural mythos, Global Warming.

So, I can happily confidentially predict that the world will not end Sunday due to a Viking Doomsday Calendar, as there's no such thing.

You may keep on ragnorockin' in the free world as usual, and normal pillaging will resume on Monday as scheduled.