Huh?

At first this article caught my interest because the main subject was interesting: an archaeological find of humans in Switzerland some 5,000 years ago. But as I read the lead, I did a double-take:

Some 5,000 years ago, on a day with weather much like today's, a prehistoric person tread high up in what is now the Swiss Alps, wearing goat leather pants, leather shoes and armed with a bow and arrows.

The unremarkable journey through the Schnidejoch pass, a lofty trail 2,756 metres (9,000 feet) above sea level, has been a boon to scientists. But it would never have emerged if climate change were not melting the nearby glacier.

The emphasis above is mine. The rest of the article make clear the author's believe that the glaciers are melting today because of anthropomorphic (i.e., human-caused) global warming (AGW).

So...in the space of three sentences – the first three, no less – and with no apparent intended irony or sarcasm, this article (1) states plainly that 5,000 years ago the climate under today's glacier was warm, and (2) introduces the notion that anthropomorphic global warming is causing the glacier to melt, thus revealing our frozen Swiss hunter.

Presumably not even the most fanatic believer in AGW believes that the warm climate 5,000 years ago was caused by human activity. What amazes me is their assured acceptance of the notion that the many warm cycles our planet has experienced in the past are all different (and ok, somehow) than the current warming (assuming, even, that such warming is really occurring – something I am none too sure about). In other words, even though Earth has had hundreds of warm periods, dozens of them within the span of human history, AGW believers are certain that if another warming period occurs, it could only be because of (bad!) human activity.

And this set of assumptions is pervasive enough to make it into completely unrelated articles like this one.

I heard an interesting theory at work a few days ago. My coworker proposed this notion: that mankind has some sort of deep need to always be facing some upcoming disaster. Therefore if no real disaster is readily at hand, mankind will make one up through some sort of organic community process.

As I think back over my lifetime, it's not hard to plug in the looming disaster over each period of my life – the Soviets and their super-technology when I was a kid (think Sputnik), then the Communists and their quest for world domination. Oh, and let's not forget nuclear winter, over-population, the year 2000, and on and on. Yup, there always seems to have been one overriding looming disaster, except on a few occasions when we had two of them at once. Makes me wonder if my coworker might be right...