Total doom, y’all!
Lessons From The Last Time Civilization Collapsed
Consider this, if you would: a network of far-flung, powerful, high tech civilizations closely tied by trade and diplomatic embassies; an accelerating threat of climate change and its pressure on food production; a rising wave of displaced populations ready to sweep across and overwhelm developed nations.
Sound familiar?
While that laundry list of impending doom could be aimed at our era, it’s actually a description of the world 3,000 years ago. It is humanity’s first “global” dark age as described by archeologist and George Washington University professor Eric H. Cline in his recent book 1177 B C: The Year Civilization Collapsed.
1177 B.C. is, for Cline, a milepost. A thousand years before Rome or Christ or Buddha, there existed a powerful array of civilizations in the Near and Middle East that had risen to the height of their glory. Then, fairly suddenly, the great web of interconnected civilizations imploded and disappeared.
What they are talking about is the Bronze Age, particularly the late Bronze Age. This period started around 3,000 B.C., so, around 5,000 years ago. Let’s continue
It was the transport of copper and tin for bronze that helped establish complex trade networks. Grain and manufactured goods also became part of that transportation web. Alliances between city-states followed. In this way, the Egyptians, Hittites, Canaanites, Cypriots, Minoans, Mycenaeans, Assyrians and Babylonians became the economic powerhouses of the ancient world — what Cline calls the ” Together they built the first version of a “global” culture using long-distance economic and military partnerships that required advanced — for its day — technologies.
So what took all these cultures down at the same time? The story begins, but does not end, with climate change.
The evidence that a prolonged shift in climate was a factor in bringing down the Mediterranean Bronze Age comes from a number of studies, including one published in 2013, showing that cooling sea surface temperatures led to lower rainfall over inland farming areas. from sea sediments also indicates a fairly rapid transition to a dryer climate in during this period that includes the Late Bronze Age collapse.
That is the one and only mention of cooling within the article. I have not read the book, so I do not know if the author, Eric H. Cline, stokes the flames of runaway global warming today, or spends lots of time discussing what happened with the climate of the time, namely, cooling.
We can see that, 5, 000 years ago, the Earth was experiencing a warm period, followed by a small cool period, some warming, then a deep cool period, one which would coincide with the end of the Bronze Age. But, the narrative from NPR seems to be doom from “climate change” for today based on the civilization collapse from then, without mentioning the cause, nor that the civilizations seemed to thrive during that warm period, which was warmer than today.
BTW, what caused that warm period? Sure wasn’t fossil fueled vehicles. What caused the Roman Warm Period? The Roman Empire’s collapse, interestingly, coincided with another cool period, known as The Dark Ages. In context with the data, we see that human civilization does much better in warm periods than cool ones.
This is why it’s virtually impossible to have a real conversation with Warmists: they are completely dishonest.
The fail to tell of three big events. First the fall of Troy and the geopolitical shift that occurred, then the invasion of the sea peoples, then the explosion of Santorini. Somehow they think that people are stupid and not aware of history.
Your cartoon of the Holocene temperature record is woefully out of date. Even worse you fail to give a citation as to who crafted it from the old data.
The point was that civilizations should be wary of climate change. According to the author: “We should be aware that no society is invulnerable and that every society in the history of the world has ultimately collapsed. We should also be thankful that we are advanced enough to understand what is happening.”
The author hypothesized that in the late Bronze Age, climate change (at least partly from the eruption of Santorini, as dave points out – cooling coincided post-eruption) led to Northern hemispheric cooling, drought and crop failures and famines, mass migrations (the “Sea Peoples” as dave correctly points out), invasions and wars. He further argued that the interconnectedness and interdependence of the cultures for trade contributed to the collapse, since if one group relies on another group for important commodities, the failure of one group can contribute to the failure of others. (What if our access to all foreign oil was suddenly stopped?).
The risk of severe climate change now is not to the human species – it will survive – but to current human civilizations. What impact could a 30% reduction in world food output have on 10 billion people? How about a 10% reduction in fresh water availability?
jeff,
You were getting me excited with the predictions of doom. Do you really see all those things as being bad?
Jeff,
I find it amazing that you can construct so much from the eruption. Now if you look at the archeology, you will find that the civilizations retreated to the hills and mountains as they had been ruined by the tidal waves. And the speculation is that the sea people arose from the fall of Troy.
Wow- I’m shocked to hear it warmed in the past before we were here. “What impact would a 30% reduction in world food output have on 10 billion people?” Is that another “prediction”? Funny, because CO2 should help food production.
j,
You are shocked that the Earth has warmed before? And cooled? It seems odd that you would know so little about a topic on which you claim to be expert.
You may be right about CO2 improving crops, but global warming will increase areas of drought and change the growing seasons and distribution of crops.
dave typed: “You were getting me excited with the predictions of doom. Do you really see all those things as being bad?” Do you think that famine and drought are good things? You probably think these things will disproportionately affect non-Caucasians. You may be right.
Jeff,
It is like this. Germany was devastated after WWII. Everyone was brought down to the same level, in other words, nothing. One woman observed that in a few years, the people that had been at the top were once again there and the people at the bottom took their accustomed place. Darwin did a good job on a more scientific explanation.