Saturday, March 24, 2007

The great historian Braudel and climate change.

Why the modern eco-cult is just another fraud and failure.

by StFerdIII

From the handy Webster dictionary the entry for ‘cult’ is: ‘…great devotion to a person, idea, object, movement, or work (as a film or book); especially: such devotion regarded as a literary or intellectual fad.’ Devotion to a fad is the key idea. It is an apt description of the mother Gaia cult of eco-fascist hyperbole and irrationality – devoted to implausible and unscientific ideas and abstract Marxist ideology. The current ‘green’ cult is no more intelligent, rational or environmentally friendly than the earth cults of Sumeria, Assyria, ancient Egypt or the 2000 year old pagan cult centered at Delphi in Greece. Nor is it more enlightened and relevant than the Druidic cults which were smashed by the Romans in Gaul and Britain. Cults are simply bad news.

And this is apparent if one takes a long view of history and civilisational development. One of the great historians – the Frenchman Braudel – wrote a magnum opus called, ‘The Mediterranean in the ancient world.’ It should be required reading in high school. This book best illustrates the power of viewing reality for what it is. Braudel is perhaps the best historian of the last 100 years. He focuses on what he calls the ‘longue duree’ or the long view of history, wrapping up geography, social movements, technology and trade improvements along with leadership, to form holistic ideas about civilisation’s advance. It is Braudel in fact that brings the development of civilisation into clear focus.

In his great work on the Mediterranean Braudel makes some important claims that should enlighten the reader about how civilisation advances and why cults are impediments to our development. Braudel rightly ascribes the creation of villages and then urban centers to trade; a division of labor; early capitalism and the creation of institutions of laws and mores. The nexus of the above was centered for many practical reasons in the ‘garden of eden’ or early Mesopotamia. From there the structures of civilisation spread out to cover the Near East and Aegean.

As trade and technology developed from agriculture through to the copper and bronze ages [about 5000 b.c.], society became wealthier, more urban and more open to ideas, higher culture [advance pottery and textile production took off about this time], and more creative in devising political and intellectual solutions to satisfy economic and spiritual needs. In fumbling around for a spiritual dimension most Neolithic and ancient societies developed the earth goddess or mother fertility cult. As Braudel points out from southern Russia to Egypt this cult was supreme until the times of the Roman empire which smashed the last earth cult at Delphi in 170 AD.

What is interesting in Braudel’s work, written in the 1960s is his description of climate change. Braudel uses archeological data and many sources to rightly ascribe civilisational change in the Mediterranean area to massive upheavals in climate. For instance in 1200 BC the Hittite, Mycenaean and Cretan civilisations literally vanished within 30 years. No evidence of invasions, war, human interference or disease has been found to account for this collapse. Migrations of people did exist of course but not on the scale to bring down 3 wealthy empires within 30 years. Something else happened and that was massive climate change – caused by a warming period that ensured drought, a lack of food production, starvation and ultimately societal collapse.

Braudel recounts the migrations of people in and around 1230 BC from the arid areas of the Mediterranean to those areas that were still receiving rain. Hence the central plateaus of Turkey, Western Greece, Syria, Palestine and other domains that were not receiving rain, were depopulated. North Western and Eastern Greece, Attica [central eastern Greece], parts of Ionia [Turkey’s Aegean coast], and Macedonia became the recipients of these population movements. The result? A complete reordering of civilisation including a huge impact on trade and technology development; writing; pottery and textile manufacturing and even fertility.

So what is the relevance of this tale?

Braudel who is perhaps the smartest historian of the past 100 years ascribes one of the great civilizational falls in all of history, the collapse in 1200 BC that outlasted that of Rome’s demise in 476 AD in length of time and societal calamity, to climate change. Natural climate change it should be noted. There were no Co2 emission linkages to the global warming that wiped out 3 civilisations, nor was there $100 billion given to eco-institutes to warn the Hittites that the earth goddess was angry. Nor were there eco-prophets flying in private jets to various conferences announcing the end of the world. Climate change just simply happened and there was not a damn thing that the local Mycenaean King could do to stop it.

In the 'longue duree' of history the cycles of climate occur with no linkages between Co2 gases and temperature. This is the why the modern eco-cult is so dangerous. There are literally thousands of climate change episodes throughout history that have nothing to do with Co2 or any other gaseous emissions. Yet the cult of mother earth will ignore all of this. The cult ignores rational investigation; historical patterns; archeological and ice core evidence; non-land based temperature readings; and anything that challenges its orthodoxy.

In Braudel’s vision of history the earth cults were shattered by more advanced and rational economies and societies. Ossified, impervious to meaningful change, hierarchical and anti-reality, the earth cults stretching from Assyria to Egypt and beyond were doomed by more advance and less hubristic empires.

If you want to save mother earth and appease the earth goddess Braudel and others would suggest you do something concrete: privatise the oceans to stop over-fishing; clean up your cities; protect your rivers and lakes; and ensure that your society is wealthy and able to use technology to protect natural resources. Setting up an intolerant earth cult to rail and snarl against natural climate patterns, would be as Braudel would say, a completely ignorant view of history’s ‘longue duree’.