17th-century Dutch thrive in Little Ice Age.

• Position: The Frigid Golden Age - Dagomar Degroot's "The Frigid Golden Age: Climate Change, Crisis, and Opportunity in the Early Modern Dutch Republic" - Book review

How the Dutch dealt with climate change in the 17th century has important lessons for today's global warming crisis, according to a book written by Dagomar Degroot, assistant professor of history at Georgetown University, Washington, D.C.

In The Frigid Golden Age: Climate Change, Crisis, and Opportunity in the Early Modern Dutch Republic, Degroot argues that, in the Little Ice Age, a period of climatic cooling triggered by volcanic eruptions and declining solar activity, one society thrived while many others succumbed. "That society enjoyed its so-call ed 'Golden Age' in precisely the chilliest part of the Little Ice Age. Studying examples of societal resilience in the face of past climate changes can provide important lessons for the present and future."

The Dutch also used alternative forms of energy--sails and windmills--when most of the world depended on human- and animal-muscle power. 'The Dutch society was highly flexible and adaptive--a society in which people exploited opportunities that were given to them by a changing climate. We also need to be flexible and adaptive--and, when we look into the present and future, renewable energy sources provide our best opportunities for addressing climate change."

The Dutch Republic was resilient in part because its economy did not rely as much on subsistence agriculture...