Climate Change Doomed the Ancients

[Viggen]

This month, a report issued by a prominent military advisory board concluded that climate change posed a serious threat to America’s national security.  The authors, 16 retired high-ranking officers, warned that droughts, rising seas and extreme weather events, among other environmental threats, were already causing global “instability and conflict.”  But Senator James M. Inhofe of Oklahoma, the ranking Republican on the Senate Armed Services Committee and a stalwart believer that global warming is a “hoax,” dismissed the report as a publicity stunt. 

 

Perhaps the senator needs a history lesson, because climate change has been leading to global conflict — and even the collapse of civilizations — for more than 3,000 years. Drought and famine led to internal rebellions in some societies and the sacking of others, as people fleeing hardship at home became conquerors abroad.  One of the most vivid examples comes from around 1200 B.C. A centuries-long drought in the Aegean and Eastern Mediterranean regions, contributed to — if not caused — widespread famine, unrest and ultimately the destruction of many once prosperous cities, according to four recent studies...

 

...full article at the NY Times

[caldrail]

Or the Minoans, whose empire collapsed because of the tsunami damage the explosion of Thera (modern Santorini) had caused. The Huns were supposed to have been forced to migrate and raid westward because their homeland was becoming too arid for them, leading to all sorts of problems.