Mother Nature Network’s Catie Leary is utterly vexed by the loss of 5 ancient civilizations that should have watched their carbon pollution output, which led to their destruction
As we grapple with climate change, it’s important to remember that this isn’t the first time climate change has threatened grand, seemingly unstoppable civilizations.
The Ancestral Puebloans, also known as the “Anasazi” by the Navajo, are one of the most famous examples of an ancient civilization that collapsed due to climate change. Once dominant across the Colorado Plateau in places like Chaco Canyon and Mesa Verde (pictured), the Ancestral Puebloans abandoned their distinctive homes sometime in the 12th and 13th centuries, and it’s not completely understood why they left. There’s evidence of warfare, human sacrifice and cannibalism, but many scientists speculate that devastating environmental changes caused by climate change are largely to blame.
According to NOAA’s Paleoclimatology branch, the decline in the Mesa Verde and Chaco Canyon villages “coincided with a prolonged drought in the San Juan Basin between 1130 and 1180. Lack of rainfall combined with an overtaxed environment may have led to food shortages. Even the clever irrigation methods of the Chacoans could not overcome prolonged drought. Under these pressures Chaco and the outliers may have experienced a slow social disintegration. The people began to drift away.”
There are four others
- Khmer Empire of ancient Cambodia, which “by the 15th century, the marvelous city had been laid to waste by ecological overexploitation and a devastating water crisis caused by severe climatic fluctuations.”
- Norse Viking settlers of Greenland, which she surprisingly mentions was killed off by the Little Ice Age, but still had to add “though the overarching catalyst was likely the result of climate change.”
- Indus Valley civilization of ancient Pakistan, where she notes “What led to their ruinous state? Two centuries of relentless drought.” This was during, you guessed it, a period of cooling, which also effected Greece and Egypt at the same time.
- Maya civilization of ancient Mexico, in which “The leading theory, however, is that sudden climate change brought about an extremely severe “megadrought” that lasted 200 years.” Time period? 8th and 9th centuries.
What do all of these have in common? A Holocene cool period. During the preceding warm periods, these cultures flourished. Warm periods which were actually warmer than today, and they didn’t have anything like air conditioning and other technology. Isn’t it wonderful how members of the Cult of Climastrology attempt to scare us about the current warm period using examples of destruction during cool periods? What they’re counting on is that people are too stupid to know that they were cool periods.
