Sunday, May 6, 2007

Climate Change in the early modern period – Co2? Really?

Writing in the 1980s, Braudel, makes a nonsense of L. Ron Gore and human induced climate change.

by StFerdIII

The best historian of the past 100 years is never taught in university. His name is remarkably unknown. He eschewed anti-Western Marxist rewriting; slavish fascination with totalitarianism; rejected cults; reported facts; described reality and detailed the innumerable minutia which lead to the creation of modern civilization. This is apparently why he is not lauded.

Though ostracized by the liberal-socialist educational system, the Frenchman Braudel, with his longue duree [long view] concept of historical processes is a remarkably thorough, accessible and relevant narrator. He even details climactic cycles in remarking how natural climate change has impacted the development of modern capitalism. His great historical works should be required reading.

In Braudel’s first volume on early modern capitalism [The Structures of Everyday Life], he paints a portrait of society at the common, everyday level. How did people live? What tools did they use? Where did the tools come from? How and where were they invented? What metals, agriculture, industry and manufactures were in evidence during the period? How did they evolve from past periods? What were the houses, water and food quality like? How open was trade and the exchange of ideas? What evolutionary processes lead to ‘revolutionary’ irruptions in agriculture, business and war?

There is no ante- or neo- Marxian analysis in Braudel’s work. He does not apologize for capitalism, globalization, the conflicts of culture, or the preoccupations of war and enterprise. He simply discusses how events evolved, what processes and inputs are evident in the creation of the modern world economy, and why certain results were achieved [why did the Mongols for instance overrun Russia and parts of Eastern Europe and forever change the course of Russian history, or why did the English in the 17th century create coke smelting and not the Chinese who knew of coal and furnace blasts 18 centuries earlier, or how did climate cooling impact European development between 1400 and 1700?].

On page 48 Braudel asks a key question in trying to understand why, between 1400 and 1700, human developments across the globe seemed to move together in many ways. From China to North America changes in society, culture, warring, economics, exploration and trade can be seen as moving essentially in the same direction. ‘The real question is: why did these phenomena occur at the same time throughout the world when the space [he means land] had always been available? The simultaneity is the problem. The international economy, effective but so fragile, cannot assume sole responsibility for such a general and powerful movement. It too is as much consequence as cause.’

Indeed. What forced political-economic development in the early modern capitalist period between 1400 and 1700 was as Braudel states, climate change. ‘One can only imagine one single general answer to this almost complete coincidence: changes in climate.’ The change in the world’s climate over this three hundred year period affected everything from rainfall, to agricultural output, to the levels of rivers and seas, to the migrations of people, to the opening and closing of trade routes. As the earth noticeably cooled during this period the term ‘the little ice age’ was coined. Co2 emissions were apparently not a factor in this climate transformation.

In a world in which 90% of the population was agricultural peasantry, a shift in climate provoked wide ranging societal change. Harvests and social rhythms depended on a stable climate. In the 14th century there began a general cooling of the world’s temperature. Glaciers and ice sheets advanced. The Vikings were cut off from Greenland by large ice floes. Corn, needing longer to grow than wheat, could not be harvested leading to yearly famines across much of Europe. Peasant uprisings in the 16th and 17th centuries became common as harvests failed. Droughts brought on plagues, locusts and more famines in China and Asia. Mankind was under siege from nature.

Climate’s impact on foodstuffs had enormous consequences on the rest of society. The prices of various products, and society’s general wealth were quite dependent on the cycles of nature in the early modern period. Until the late 18th century, man was still a slave to the calendar and to nature’s whims.

Writing in the 1980s Braudel cautions that climate cycles are incredibly complicated and cannot be oversimplified. ‘But we would also do well not to forget the damage inflicted by the drought of 1976 in France and Western Europe, or the abnormal change in wind patterns which caused catastrophic drought east of the Rocky Mountains…in 1964..’ Certainly. We can add that snow in London in July of 1976, or in Moscow in July of 2003, or in North Africa in 2006, or the worst winter on record in 2003 in Eastern Europe, or the highest snowfall on record during 2007 in parts of Canada and the US, also entails an appreciation of nature’s sudden and dramatic shift in climate and temperature.

In the early modern period there was a rush of activity in addition to the usual list of famines, uprisings and plagues. Between 1400 and 1700 agricultural reforms, the improved use of husbandry and new techniques in labor division, production, and capital formation presaged the English industrial revolution of the mid 18th century. Trade increased, ideas were exchanged and innovations in shipping and transport started the formation of the modern form of globalization in trade and commerce we recognize today. The Dutch through the creation of limited companies began the process of modern capital formation so important to the modern political economy. As Braudel states there is evolutionary change before a so-called revolution is allowed to appear.

But climate was vital. All sorts of empires and epochs have been affected by climate change in times past. The Hittite empire of 1200 BC literally disappeared over night as a warming trend caused drought, famine, destroyed water supply and emptied the large Hittite centers of their populations. The Roman empire experienced climate upheaval many times, which impacted agriculture, taxation, and ultimately the ability to sustain large enough armies to protect its ever expanding borders. Climate is not stable, linear, nor is it predictable.

This is a most important lesson from reading Braudel’s work. Climatic patterns, which seem to us so personal and close today, have been of course the center of human experience forever. We don’t understand natural climate patterns nor can we explain why between 1400 and 1700 we had a little ice age, and why between 1945 and 1975 we experienced cooling temperatures. We can’t explain what caused the devastation of the Hittites, nor why ancient Rome went through climactic upheavals which shook the foundations of the state and changed the very nature of the Roman system including which colonies were won or lost.

But historical perspective is irrelevant in a world of sound bites. The maudlin predations of today’s eco-prophets is predictable enough premised as they are on power, regulatory control and money. The ravings of the eco-cult have, however, little basis in reality. Climate change has always existed and Co2 emissions have nothing to do with natural cycles. In fact of course Co2 levels follow such cycles.

The eternal narcissism of humans makes debating a topic such as climate change rather difficult. It is always ‘act now!’ with the eco-cult to save Mother Earth or propitiate this and that demand of the earth goddess. It is hardly an intelligent way to carry on. Maybe taking a long view of history, processes and issues might help society restore some sanity. After all the cleanest societies in the world, are the richest, the most technologically advanced and the most democratic. If you don’t believe that, then take a tour of the former Soviet Union, Latin America, China or Africa. Why anyone would want to impair modern development to satiate a Marxist cult is truly unfathomable and a most inconvenient nonsense.