1 This is an oversimplification. The point at which the axis points actually passes through a thirteen thousand–year cycle. But this has no bearing on anthropogenic climate change, and people who suggest that it does are prevaricating.
2 To someone who is not a historian of science, the field might seem small and arcane—small enough that any given historian of science must surely know pretty much all there is to know about . . . the history of science. But those inside the field know that its subject matter is vast. Essentially, it’s everything that counts as science fifty years ago, one hundred years ago, two hundred years ago, and so on, plus everything that every Greek philosopher ever thought about. That’s a lot to cover, and nobody can do it all. No one even tries.
3 There is a close analogy between my discussion of Richter versus Mercalli here, on the one hand, and the thrust of my discussion of “global” climate warming and dooryard phenology, on the other. Science, in its effort to get to the truth, has to average variations, in place and in time. This is good for getting at the truth, but not always for understanding truth’s portent.
4 The U.S. Geological Survey “publishes” Modified Mercalli Intensities on its website under the title “Did You Feel It?”
5 Social scientists have tested the idea and have found that people who spend time observing nature do not necessarily support action on environmental issues as much as Peterson thought.
6 Walden Pond, chap. 16, “The Pond in Winter.”
7 Committee on Extreme Weather Events and Climate Change Attribution; Board on Atmospheric Sciences and Climate; Division on Earth and Life Studies; National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, Attribution of Extreme Weather Events in the Context of Climate Change (Washington, DC: National Academies Press, 2016), fig. S.4.