Reappearing ‘Hunger Stones’ Shows Climate Change NOT Behind Europe’s Drought

Drought in Europe

Another alarmist nothingburger not fit for human consumption. Next!
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A story published by Business Insider among other media outlets today cites the reappearance of “hunger stones” in dry European creek beds and riverbeds as evidence that climate change is responsible for the current drought in Europe.

This is false, says Climate Change Dispatch.

If anything, the fact that these stones have “reappeared” and have been uncovered multiple times in the past shows severe droughts have been common throughout European history.

There is no more evidence that human activities are the source of the present drought than existed when droughts and crop failures happened in the past, with some blamed on witches.

In the story, titled “A historic climate-fueled drought in Europe revealed ominous, centuries-old ‘hunger stones’ warning of hardship,” Business Insider writer Paola Rosa-Aquino says the fact that “hunger stones” stones have been uncovered as water levels have fallen across many areas of Europe during the present drought provides evidence climate change is responsible for the drought.

“An intense drought is shrinking rivers across Europe, revealing stones carved centuries ago to give future generations a warning of hard times ahead,” writes Rosa-Aquino. “A growing body of research links intensifying droughts in many parts of the world to climate change.

“Researchers say the current drought that Europe is experiencing could be the worst in 500 years,” Rosa-Aquino says.

Rosa-Aquino’s claim that droughts are intensifying is refuted by the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s most recent report.

Although to the media a drought is a drought, in its 2021 Sixth Assessment report, the IPCC distinguishes four categories of drought: hydrological, meteorological, ecological, and agricultural.

The IPCC finds no evidence climate change has increased the number, duration, or intensity of hydrological or meteorological droughts, and it has only medium confidence it has “contributed to changes in agricultural and ecological droughts and has led to an increase in the overall affected land area.”

Even for ecological and agricultural droughts, the data is a mixed bag. The IPCC divides the world into 47 separate regions of study when analyzing drought trends, and its data suggests ecological and agricultural drought may have increased during the period of modest warming in 12 of those 47 regions.

However, in only two of those regions does the IPCC have even “medium confidence” for any human role in the observed increase.

For the remaining regions experiencing a possible increase in droughts, the IPCC has low confidence human activities have had any discernible impact.
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Photos of the hunger stones accompanying the Business Insider article show Europeans experienced droughts equal to or more severe than the present one in 1417, 1616, 1707, 1746, 1790, 1800, 1811, 1830, 1842, 1868, 1892, and 1893.

Full article here.