The Great Warming: Climate Change and the Rise and Fall of Civilizations

books:


	• The Great Warming: Climate Change and the Rise and Fall of Civilizations Brian Fagan Bloomsbury Press, 2008 - 304 pages average customer review:based on 14 reviews view larger image
	for more information click here

The Great Warming: Climate Change and the Rise and Fall of Civilizations

This book makes two key observations.

The first is that while a few degrees rise in temperature may or may not be particularly significant (with one polar bear, more or less, on a melting iceberg), the much greater danger to us is the drought that usually accompanies such warming. Most discussion of global warming seems to focus on the temperature, not on the drought that arrives with warming. Fagan supports his observation with some compelling evidence of "generations-long droughts" in history - not the puny dry year or two that most of us think of when we think of drought. He also links drought not only to our requirement for water to drink, but for the many other uses we make of water, such as growing our food.

The second observation of the book is that when such devastating droughts do occur, there is virtually nothing that past civilizations could do about it, and our civilization may not be much more effective in combating it, either. While we have advanced substantially in the last thousand years, a drought affecting half the world is still far beyond our ability to deal with it.

This book is a great dynamic duo with Barlow and Clarke's Blue Gold, published in 2001. Both books are rich in facts and data, and both are well researched.

Sit down with a cold glass of water and enjoy The Great Warming. While you can.

for more information click here

We've been through it before...

To many, the debates revolving around climate change and global warming may seem new and unprecedented. Why wasn't the mass media crammed with debates about global temperatures twenty or thirty years ago? Why the seemingly sudden inundation of shocking warnings and bitter arguments between naysayers and devotees? Should people agonize and prepare for Armageddon? Is this the end?Brian Fagan's latest in a growing litany of books, "The Great Warming" (which stands one consonant away from "The Great Warning"), provides both palliative and stimulant for alarmists. Along the way, it contributes to the voluminous debates that swish and swirl through today's political and scientific world. Fagan, a retired archaeologist and self-proclaimed generalist, argues that humanity has already dealt with climate change in the past. It's nothing new. Been there done that. Following the lead of Hubert Lamb, who Fagan calls "one of the little-known heroes of climatology," the book traces an era stretching from approximately 800 to 1200 CE. During this time, according to ice cores, coral analysis, dendrochronology, and written records, the world's climate became generally warmer. The book's first footnote points to the often misunderstood distinction between "climate" and "weather." As such, during the discussed epoch, the climate, not the weather, became warmer. Fagan does not stop there. In fact, he finds the climate change itself secondary or tertiary in importance to the impact the change had on human populations. As for most things in existence, the historical "Great Warming" produced both winners and losers. Some lost big. Some lost everything. Others thrived.

Each chapter examines a particular culture or society, or contiguous units of cultures, and juxtaposes climate data with sociological or political changes in those cultures. Unlike today, nearly all of earth's inhabitants then lived on subsistence. Harvest to harvest, boon to bust. Bad growing seasons often trickled up to the elites. As the climate warmed, England and much of Europe, thanks to geography, saw higher yields. Their populations soared. This was also the time of the great Norse voyages to Greenland and Newfoundland. But rising populations brought deforestation and the stability of the 13th century lead to the crop failures and plague of the 14th. Nonetheless, the warm centuries spawned a new Europe. Other parts of the world didn't fare as well. China, Peru, and the North American Chaco Canyon cultures experienced devastating multi-generational drought and famine. The Maya kingdoms fell during this time, with evidence of drought pervading their ruins. People living in Cambodia's Angkor Wat abandoned the now dessicated paradise on earth. Rapa Nui (Easter Island) saw political upheaval, depopulation, and chaos. In short, as the climate changed, some civilizations rose and others fell. People dealt with changes to their water supplies and crops in various ways. Throughout, the book emphasizes that the underlying issue remains not temperature change, but drought. The final chapter, called "The Silent Elephant," relates past warming to our current situation. Fagan sees massive drought in our future if warming continues. As before, some areas will fare better than others. The earth's arid regions, including the southwest United States, will likely witness devastating droughts, possibly as severe as those that occurred a thousand years before. Of course many assumptions underly these arguments and experts disagree on the extent and cause of the damage that may ensue from climate change. Nonetheless, Fagan's emphasis on drought over climate change does provide a more ominous perspective. If good evidence exists corollating warming to drought, and many will argue whether it does or does not, then our current situation is not one to take lightly. Right now the debate thunders. We shall see.

"The Great Warming" serves as a fascinating introduction to the relatively new field of paleoclimatology. Familiar terms, such as "El Niño" and "La Niña," sit side by side with less familiar ones like "Pacific Decadal Oscillation" and "Intertropical Convergence Zone." Numerous sidebars provide adequate explanation of these concepts. No background in climatology, ecology, or history is assumed. Fagan does believe strongly in anthropogenic global warming, but this only receives meager attention as the bulk of the text concerns the pre-industrial world. The entire book wisely steers pretty clear of contemporary debate. Regardless, the book's arguments carry implications for our controversial and potentially precarious condition. In any case, "The Great Warming" tells a very human story very much worth reading. Will it happen again? That remains to be seen.

for more information click here

Interesting perspective on climate change

The Great Warming progresses through space and time; each chapter a different geographic region in the Medieval Warm Period (MWP). Nearly all the chapters start out with a description of a typical day of a random person in the MWP then extends out to a description of the larger society and the climate of the time. The chapters usually provide a little history and what happened to the culture as a possible consequence of climate change. Some of the chapters are accompanied by a map showing locations of places mentioned within the text. Water, not necessarily temperature, seems to drive the changes mentioned in the book - for better or worse. The book provides a nice balance showing that climate change was a boom (expanding populations) for some and a bust (millions dead of starvation and warfare) for others. I appreciate the effort that Fagan puts into synthesizing how biology, geology, soils, and society interact and I would this the best part of the book. You will find it similar to Diamond's Guns, Germs, and Steel: The Fates of Human Societies. I wish there was were more diagrams (e.g., time lines) available but a more intelligent person won't find them necessary. In all, a very enjoyable read.

for more information click here

Disappointing

I'm afraid this book was a little disappointing. If the subtitle, "Climate Change and the Rise and Fall of Civilizations," makes you think you're going to get some Jared-Diamond-like tour de force, you're in for a little letdown.

The book basically takes a previous climatic period of increasing warmth around the 11th to 14th centuries and shows how it affected different parts of the globe. If you've never heard any of this before, you may find the whole book rather interesting. If you've been exposed to it, however, there's simply not a lot there. Yes, drought may have gotten the Mongols on the move. Yes, Greenland wasn't once so cold. Yes, the Sahara wasn't once so dry. Beyond that, though ... The author tries to pad out each chapter with novel-like vignettes ("As soon often happens, your mind goes back deep into the past, in this case to the generations of foragers who once visited this place and looked out over the same arid vista"), tenuous connections(drought and Mande social memory), and straight conjecture (iron moving across the Canadian North, from the Bering Straight to Greenland). A lot of the material is also covered much more interstingly in Jared Diamond's Collapse.

It is well-written, however, and there is plenty of food for thought. I just wish there had been more focus, more tying together, and maybe some bigger ideas. The book was good enough, though, that I will probably try the Little Ice Age.

for more information click here

Entertaining, but must be read with discernment

Global warming alarmism has now become both a cult and an industry. It is unclear whether or not Brian Fagan is fully of one camp or the other, but he definitely has a foot in both. Early in his book, he says the "prolonged debate over anthropogenic global warming is over, for the scientific evidence documenting our contribution to a much warmer world of the future is now beyond the stage of controversy." Ignoring controversy is not the same as controversy not existing. Just a week ago, for example, Kerry Emanuel, a climate scientist at Massachusetts Institute of Technology and a well known expert on hurricane prediction reversed his views on global warming and hurricane formation. Emanuel now says "The [computer] models are telling us something quite different from what nature seems to be telling us." In short, the issue of antropogenic contribution to global warming is far from settled.

Fagan is an anthropologist and an entertaining writer. He is also preening, as he frequently interjects entirely irrelvant asides on his travels. He appears to be competing with Jared Diamond in trying to explain the rise and fall of societies.

Here, Fagan, speaks of the five centuries between 800 to 1300 referred to as the Medieval Warm Period. Not unexpectedly, Fagan keeps trying to link his history with global warming alarmism. There are numerous references to (non-scientist) Al Gore's "An Inconvenient Truth" without mentioning all the inaccuracies, if not outright lies, in that so-called documentary. (A British court has verified some of the falsehoods in that movie.) One of the more laughable references Fagan makes is using Gore's claim about Mt. Kilimanjaro melting because of global warming. Several serious scientific studies have proven this wrong. Likewise, Fagan relies on Gore's claims of massive rises in sea level, which are also rebutted by serious scientists.

Fortunately, Fagan spends much of his time recounting the actual history, as far as it is known, of that period and the impact of the natural warming on human societies and it is in this area that Fagan shines. Some of his "history" is quite speculative and to his credit, Fagan acknowledges this, though sometimes in a sly way.

He covers the world and some of his narratives, such as on the Mongols and how the planet's warming and resultant droughts may have driven the Mongol tribes to conquer much of the known world are fascinating. Likewise his explanaton of medieval travel across Africa is fascinating.

Overall, Fagan has produced an interesting history of the medieval warming. As long as you are careful and check his facts, it is an enjoyable and informative read. Just don't fall for his global warming alarmism and carefully note the many instances where he acknowledges that he is speculating in his conclusions.

Jerry

for more information click here

reviews: 1, page 2, 3

hot

not?

What's your opinion?

Write a review and share your thoughts!

recommendations

Wolves at the Door, my reading of Summer 08

search for books
climate change, change, civilizations, climate, fall, great, rise, warming

Impressum / about us