What the Sami people can teach us about adapting to climate change | Environment | guardian.co.uk

The Arctic region is uniquely vulnerable to global warming, but if it is to weather the storm, it would do well to adopt Sami methods of land and resource management, communal co-operation and communication, local knowledge and best practice, she said.

In order to keep a reindeer herd out of trouble, for example, a knowledge of different types of snow could be decisive, Helander-Renvall said. Muohta (ordinary snow) or oppas (untouched snow) might be safe. But the presence of sievla (wet snow), skarta (thin, ice-like snow layers) or ceavvi (a hard layer that the reindeer cannot penetrate in search of lichen) could dictate a life-saving change of route or decision to move camp.

But I already live in a region that is much warmer than it is in the Arctic.  If warm weather is so dangerous, why do the people in my area generally look pretty healthy and well-fed, with no visible signs of starvation, serious kidney stones, dengue fever, heat stroke, malaria, etc?

Sun won't stop global warming if dims as in 1600s: "Scientific" American

A weakening of solar activity in recent years, linked to fewer sunspots, would cut at most 0.3 degree Celsius (0.5 F) from a projected rise in temperatures by 2100 if it becomes a long-lasting "Grand Minimum" of brightness, they said.
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The sun has gone through four Grand Minima since the 13th century, including the Maunder Minimum from 1645-1715 that overlapped with the Little Ice Age. The Thames River froze in London, for instance, during a "Great Frost" of 1683-84.
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"Current temperature data also confirm that the effect of low solar activity on the climate is very small," said Stefan Rahmstorf, also of the Potsdam Institute, of the study published on Wednesday in the journal Geophysical Research Letters.

[Are the people above suggesting that all this cold-weather misery happened at temperatures only a fraction of a degree cooler than now?]: River Thames frost fairs

The cold weather was not only a cause for merriment as John Evelyn went on to explain:

"The fowls, fish and birds, and all our exotic plants and greens universally perishing. Many parks of deer were destroyed, and all sorts of fuel so dear that there were great contributions to keep the poor alive..."

"London, by reason for the excessive coldness of the air hindering the ascent of the smoke, was so filled with the fuliginous steam of the sea-coal... that one could hardly breath".