Climate Change / Political Changes: The Need for Historical Background

We need more books like Brian Fagan's 2008 The Great Warming: Climate Change and the Rise and Fall of Civilizations: history books, mostly, that help us understand that climate change isn't just  about changes in some abstract "the environment," but about great changes in human politics.

This book is about "the Medieval Warm Period," ca. 800-1300 C.E. and its generally positive effects in, e.g., northern Europe and utterly devastating effects elsewhere, e.g., in already warm, dry places such as long-term droughts in what's now the U.S. southwest.

These Medieval data can cut different ways, as a warning to try to reduce the speed of global warming and try to mitigate its effects — or to say that climate change ca. 900 obviously wasn't caused by human industrial activity, so we needn't reduce current economic activity with its benefits and irrelevant, or even beneficial greenhouse gas emissions. 

To quote for background one on-line pundit, "Climate scientists now understand that the Medieval Warm Period was caused by an increase in solar radiation and a decrease in volcanic activity, which both promote warming. Other evidence suggests ocean circulation patterns shifted to bring warmer seawater into the North Atlantic." So why should we try to reduce greenhouse gasses?

The question isn't rhetorical. For one thing, the article linked last paragraph notes that there's no evidence for a recent increase of solar radiation, nor, in our times, significant decrease of volcanic activity;, and I'll note that currently there's not a damn thing the human species can do about either. We can reduce emissions of greenhouse gasses, which will slow the rate of warming, and we should reduce those emissions anyway to save some easily extractable hydrocarbons for our descendants. They might find safe and efficient ways to use petrochemicals and need some — and be very pissed off at earlier generations who went and burned them. 

They may also be pissed off at a re-run, but worse, of, especially, long-term, catastrophic droughts. 

In addition to the obvious, some of the effects of climate changes indeed include the geo-political. William Grimes's New York Times review of The Great Warming has an arresting sentence indicating that what was so good for much of Europe may have had negative effects: "Although data remain sketchy, it seems probable that extended droughts dried up pastureland on the Central Asian steppe, propelling the armies of Genghis Khan westward." The career of the Great Khan (1206-1227 C.E.) achieved some impressive empire building that, in Europe, arguably set the stage for what was once called the Renaissance, but unarguably resulted in an extraordinarily high body-count. Matthew White tallies up Genghis Khan's "multicide" score at 40 million, which puts the Mongol invasions just behind World War II (1939-1945) for destruction of human life. 

And destruction of the great Muslim civilizations at the center of Eurasia — which in a twisted way brings me to where I started thinking about this post. 

I had typed out on Facebook a quotation from Introduction to Medieval Europe: 300-1500 by James Westfall Thompson and Edgar Nathaniel Johnson (New York: Norton: 1937). In an early chapter on "The Empire of the Arabs," Thompson and Johnson give Mohammed and the early leaders of the Umma credit for organizational genius and make the point that medieval Europe was a side-show as civilizations of the time went. They are far from "climatic determinists," with an Index innocent of such references. And they fully recognized the arrogance and stupidity of the remaining Roman Empire and Persia in their continuing wars and machinations. Still, Thompson and Johnson asserted (in 1937!) that "The expansion of the Arabs is best understood in the light of previous movements out of the desert [...]. These were constant phenomena, to be explained by the vicissitudes of climatic conditions, which always drove nomadic peoples outwards. [...] The [Arabian] peninsula itself was experiencing a periodic desiccation, which made life within it ever more unbearable and drove its inhabitants to seek relief elsewhere. It seems, accordingly, highly probably that what occurred would have happened even without Mohammed and Islam" (p. 166). 

"What occurred" was the end of Late Antiquity, with the final end of the Roman Empire, and the Persian — and Rome in the East (the Byzantine Empire), reduced to a regional power. T & J and those with similar theories may be wrong, but it's a point to consider, along with the possibility that the following round of "desiccation" in the Medieval Warm Period led to that drying out of parts of the Eurasian steppe leading to the western thrust of the Mongol invasions and, let's say, a figurative arrow from a powerful bow through the figurative heart of "The Empire of the Arabs."

It's possible that two major changes in the course of human history had as one basic cause the long-term droughts — the "desiccation" — brought on by global warming. Mohammed and Genghis Khan count, and their decisions are important. Still, one thing Karl Marx got right was that "Men make their own history, but they do not make it as they please [...], but under circumstances existing already, given and transmitted from the past." And those circumstances include a physical environment that is both beyond human control and influenced by our actions.

Unless we want some really bad circumstances for the next generation, we'd better get right some important decisions — and soon. 

Doing What We Ought to Do Anyway: Meat and Water (8 July 2014)

   In a moment of candor, an official of the Alumni Association or U of I Foundation or other money-raising activity of the Univsersity of Illinois told me that soliciting people like me — nonrich people — barely repaid the effort. We were solicited, persistently, so we'd give something and the "Development" people could record that gift and add it to their statistics and appeal to serious potential donors with "Hey" (or the equivalent in rich-people's speech), "89.37% of alums have contributed, so don't you want to do your part?!" Also, getting us to contribute small amounts early on in life kept or got us "invested" in the Big U, which would be of use to the solicitors if they hit us up later on, when we might have made some money.

      Something like that is going on in California where our Governor, Jerry Brown, is asking — with increasing intensity — ordinary folk to conserve water. 

      We in California do need water discipline. In a surprise best-seller, Brian Fagan looks at The Great Warming of about 900-1500 C.E., with the arresting subtitle Climate Change and the Rise and Fall of Civilizations. Viking and more generally Nordic and European people did rather well the last time Earth warmed up; peoples in water-sensitive areas — including what is now the US Southwest —  often did not come through well, if at all.

      Which is why out here arguments on the causes of climate change and the details of proper responses can seem weirdly pedantic and perversely political.

      Right now, immediately, without debate, we ought to be taking the more obvious actions on all levels, including individuals: doing things we should be doing anyway.
      Given that future generations might want petroleum and maybe some coal for what are significantly called "petrochemicals," we should be leaving a fair amount in the ground and not, for God's sake, burning it.

      Given that beef is good and good for you — the film operation I work on is looking for money from ranchers ... — but Americans should reduce beef and pork consumption on health grounds, we would do well to go over to more chicken and fish to reduce methane release, a greenhouse gas.
     And for the last part — personal conservation of water — a story.

     I had Legg-Perthes disease as a child:  bone death in the ball and, in my case, socket of the hip. I recovered completely by sophomore year in high school, but I still found it of karmic appropriateness that I got through adolescence and young adulthood with no broken bones beyond one finger and a couple of toes. Anyway, I had never worn a cast until one time well into adulthood I slipped on black ice while jogging and got myself a carpal navicular fracture and wore a cast for three months. The cast removed, I went into high-rehab mode squeezing balls — and was back at my internist's office very quickly thinking I'd sprained every ligament and tendon in my hand.

      My doctor checked me out and said my hand was fine but that I should start with the big ball (a tennis ball) and work my way to the little ball of Silly Putty. He reminded me that I hadn't used that hand in three months and that the pain was normal and, indeed — "If you weren't feeling pain I'd have you at the hospital for neurological tests. ... Didn't the orthopedist explain that to you?" I told him the orthopedist had said, "There may be some discomfort," and my GP replied, "Ah! Doctor talk. You layfolk would say, 'There will be pain.'"
     And we got to talking of other things, one of which is relevant here. I told the doctor that I was happy to be showering again regularly, though I'd gotten proficient at sponge baths and had received no complaints on body odor. He said that spong-bathing was good — it turned out to be a crucial skill for when I broke my foot and that took a year to heal — he said it was good I'd learned about alternatives to showers since, "Americans bathe too much."

     My doctor was convinced that we showered and bathed more than was good for our skin and that this would become an increasing issue as I aged and — strongly relevantly here — as the US population aged.

      It won't make up for much of the water wasted on golf courses or sloppily used in agriculture, but Californians to start with can start adjusting to long-term drought with learning to take more sponge baths; and rich Californians (et al.) can cut back on demands for private swimming pools.


      We should be cutting back there already, and if we ordinary folk start conserving, the Governor can go to the heavy-users of water and say, "Hey," or the proper agri-biz form, "89.37% of your human-individual fellow citizens have cut back even on showers; so it's time to do your part." And we ordinary folk will have "investments" in water conservation — and maybe laying off the lamb and beef and pork — to support conservation by important people.