Storms, blizzards, floods, hurricanes, droughts … These weather emergencies can greatly disrupt people’s lives.  Are they also signs that the climate is changing?  How would we know?  In this class, we turn to history for answers.  We will examine episodes of extreme weather in Europe and America in the last three centuries and consider how the climate has changed over that period.  We will focus on people’s attempts to adapt to and understand the atmospheric changes that affect their lives.  Knowing more about this history will help us appreciate why climate change is now such a crucial and contested issue, one that bears upon the future of humanity as a whole but also reflects our divergent opinions and interests.