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Climate change and civilizational collapse
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Climate change and civilizational collapse
Climate change and civilizational collapse refers to a hypothetical risk that the negative impacts of climate change might reduce global socioeconomic complexity to the point that complex human civilization effectively ends around the world, with humanity reduced to a less developed state. This hypothetical risk is typically associated with the idea of a massive reduction of human population caused by the direct and indirect impacts of climate change, and also with a permanent reduction of Earth's carrying capacity. Finally, it is sometimes suggested that a civilizational collapse caused by climate change would soon be followed by human extinction.
Some researchers connect historical examples of societal collapse with adverse changes in local and/or global weather patterns. In particular, the 4.2-kiloyear event, a millennial-scale megadrought which took place in Africa and Asia between 5,000 and 4,000 years ago, has been linked with the collapse of the Old Kingdom in Egypt, the Akkadian Empire in Mesopotamia, the Liangzhu culture in the lower Yangtze River area and the Indus Valley Civilization. In Europe, the General Crisis of the Seventeenth Century, which was defined by events such as crop failure and the Thirty Years' War, took place during the Little Ice Age. In 2011, a general connection was proposed between adverse climate variations and long-term societal crises during the preindustrial times. Drought might have been a contributing factor to the Classic Maya collapse between the 7th and 9th centuries. However, all of these events were limited to individual human societies: a collapse of the entire human civilization would be historically unprecedented.
Some of the more extreme warnings of civilizational collapse caused by climate change, such as a claim that civilization is highly likely to end by 2050, have attracted strong rebuttals from scientists. The 2022 IPCC Sixth Assessment Report projects that human population would be in a range between 8.5 billion and 11 billion people (median - 9.75 billion people) by 2050. By the year 2100, the median population projection is at 11 billion people, while the maximum population projection is close to 16 billion people. The lowest projection for 2100 is around 7 billion, and this decline from present levels is primarily attributed to "rapid development and investment in education", with those projections associated with some of the highest levels of economic growth. However, a minority[citation needed] of climate scientists have argued that higher levels of warming—between about 3 °C (5.4 °F) to 5 °C (9.0 °F) over preindustrial temperatures—may be incompatible with civilization, or that the lives of several billion people could no longer be sustained in such a world. In 2022, they have called for a so-called "climate endgame" research agenda into the probability of these risks, which had attracted significant media attention and some scientific controversy.
Some of the most high-profile writing on climate change and civilizational collapse has been written by non-scientists. Notable examples include "The Uninhabitable Earth" by David Wallace-Wells and "What if we stopped pretending?" by Jonathan Franzen, which were both criticized for scientific inaccuracy. Opinion polling has provided evidence that youths across the world experience widespread climate anxiety, with the term collapsology being coined in 2015 to describe a pessimistic worldview anticipating civilizational collapse due to climate anxiety.
Archeologists have identified signs of a megadrought which lasted for a millennium between 5,000 and 4,000 years ago in Africa and Asia. The drying of the Green Sahara not only turned it into a desert but also disrupted the monsoon seasons in South and Southeast Asia and caused flooding in East Asia, which prevented successful harvests and the development of complex culture. It coincided with and may have caused the decline and the fall of the Akkadian Empire in Mesopotamia and the Indus Valley Civilization. The dramatic shift in climate is known as the 4.2-kiloyear event.
The highly advanced Indus Valley Civilization took root around 3000 BC in what is now northwestern India and Pakistan and collapsed around 1700 BC. Since the Indus script has yet to be deciphered, the causes of its de-urbanization remain a mystery, but there is some evidence pointing to natural disasters. Signs of a gradual decline began to emerge in 1900 BC, and two centuries later, most of the cities had been abandoned. Archeological evidence suggests an increase in interpersonal violence and in infectious diseases like leprosy and tuberculosis. Historians and archeologists believe that severe and long-lasting drought and a decline in trade with Egypt and Mesopotamia caused the collapse. Evidence for earthquakes has also been discovered. Sea level changes are also found at two possible seaport sites along the Makran coast which are now inland. Earthquakes may have contributed to decline of several sites by direct shaking damage or by changes in sea level or in water supply.
More generally, recent research pointed to climate change as a key player in the decline and fall of historical societies in China, the Middle East, Europe, and the Americas. In fact, paleoclimatogical temperature reconstruction suggests that historical periods of social unrest, societal collapse, and population crash and significant climate change often occurred simultaneously. A team of researchers from Mainland China and Hong Kong were able to establish a causal connection between climate change and large-scale human crises in pre-industrial times. Short-term crises may be caused by social problems, but climate change was the ultimate cause of major crises, starting with economic depressions. Moreover, since agriculture is highly dependent on climate, any changes to the regional climate from the optimum can induce crop failures.
As early as in 2004, a book titled Ecocriticism explored the connection between apocalypticism as expressed in religious contexts, and the secular apocalyptic interpretations of climate and environmental issues. It argued that the tragic (preordained, with clearly delineated morality) or comic (focused on human flaws as opposed to inherent inevitability) apocalyptic framing was seen in the past works on environment, such as Rachel Carson's Silent Spring (1962), Paul and Anne Ehrlich's The Population Bomb (1972), and Al Gore's Earth in the Balance (1992).
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Climate change and civilizational collapse
Climate change and civilizational collapse refers to a hypothetical risk that the negative impacts of climate change might reduce global socioeconomic complexity to the point that complex human civilization effectively ends around the world, with humanity reduced to a less developed state. This hypothetical risk is typically associated with the idea of a massive reduction of human population caused by the direct and indirect impacts of climate change, and also with a permanent reduction of Earth's carrying capacity. Finally, it is sometimes suggested that a civilizational collapse caused by climate change would soon be followed by human extinction.
Some researchers connect historical examples of societal collapse with adverse changes in local and/or global weather patterns. In particular, the 4.2-kiloyear event, a millennial-scale megadrought which took place in Africa and Asia between 5,000 and 4,000 years ago, has been linked with the collapse of the Old Kingdom in Egypt, the Akkadian Empire in Mesopotamia, the Liangzhu culture in the lower Yangtze River area and the Indus Valley Civilization. In Europe, the General Crisis of the Seventeenth Century, which was defined by events such as crop failure and the Thirty Years' War, took place during the Little Ice Age. In 2011, a general connection was proposed between adverse climate variations and long-term societal crises during the preindustrial times. Drought might have been a contributing factor to the Classic Maya collapse between the 7th and 9th centuries. However, all of these events were limited to individual human societies: a collapse of the entire human civilization would be historically unprecedented.
Some of the more extreme warnings of civilizational collapse caused by climate change, such as a claim that civilization is highly likely to end by 2050, have attracted strong rebuttals from scientists. The 2022 IPCC Sixth Assessment Report projects that human population would be in a range between 8.5 billion and 11 billion people (median - 9.75 billion people) by 2050. By the year 2100, the median population projection is at 11 billion people, while the maximum population projection is close to 16 billion people. The lowest projection for 2100 is around 7 billion, and this decline from present levels is primarily attributed to "rapid development and investment in education", with those projections associated with some of the highest levels of economic growth. However, a minority[citation needed] of climate scientists have argued that higher levels of warming—between about 3 °C (5.4 °F) to 5 °C (9.0 °F) over preindustrial temperatures—may be incompatible with civilization, or that the lives of several billion people could no longer be sustained in such a world. In 2022, they have called for a so-called "climate endgame" research agenda into the probability of these risks, which had attracted significant media attention and some scientific controversy.
Some of the most high-profile writing on climate change and civilizational collapse has been written by non-scientists. Notable examples include "The Uninhabitable Earth" by David Wallace-Wells and "What if we stopped pretending?" by Jonathan Franzen, which were both criticized for scientific inaccuracy. Opinion polling has provided evidence that youths across the world experience widespread climate anxiety, with the term collapsology being coined in 2015 to describe a pessimistic worldview anticipating civilizational collapse due to climate anxiety.
Archeologists have identified signs of a megadrought which lasted for a millennium between 5,000 and 4,000 years ago in Africa and Asia. The drying of the Green Sahara not only turned it into a desert but also disrupted the monsoon seasons in South and Southeast Asia and caused flooding in East Asia, which prevented successful harvests and the development of complex culture. It coincided with and may have caused the decline and the fall of the Akkadian Empire in Mesopotamia and the Indus Valley Civilization. The dramatic shift in climate is known as the 4.2-kiloyear event.
The highly advanced Indus Valley Civilization took root around 3000 BC in what is now northwestern India and Pakistan and collapsed around 1700 BC. Since the Indus script has yet to be deciphered, the causes of its de-urbanization remain a mystery, but there is some evidence pointing to natural disasters. Signs of a gradual decline began to emerge in 1900 BC, and two centuries later, most of the cities had been abandoned. Archeological evidence suggests an increase in interpersonal violence and in infectious diseases like leprosy and tuberculosis. Historians and archeologists believe that severe and long-lasting drought and a decline in trade with Egypt and Mesopotamia caused the collapse. Evidence for earthquakes has also been discovered. Sea level changes are also found at two possible seaport sites along the Makran coast which are now inland. Earthquakes may have contributed to decline of several sites by direct shaking damage or by changes in sea level or in water supply.
More generally, recent research pointed to climate change as a key player in the decline and fall of historical societies in China, the Middle East, Europe, and the Americas. In fact, paleoclimatogical temperature reconstruction suggests that historical periods of social unrest, societal collapse, and population crash and significant climate change often occurred simultaneously. A team of researchers from Mainland China and Hong Kong were able to establish a causal connection between climate change and large-scale human crises in pre-industrial times. Short-term crises may be caused by social problems, but climate change was the ultimate cause of major crises, starting with economic depressions. Moreover, since agriculture is highly dependent on climate, any changes to the regional climate from the optimum can induce crop failures.
As early as in 2004, a book titled Ecocriticism explored the connection between apocalypticism as expressed in religious contexts, and the secular apocalyptic interpretations of climate and environmental issues. It argued that the tragic (preordained, with clearly delineated morality) or comic (focused on human flaws as opposed to inherent inevitability) apocalyptic framing was seen in the past works on environment, such as Rachel Carson's Silent Spring (1962), Paul and Anne Ehrlich's The Population Bomb (1972), and Al Gore's Earth in the Balance (1992).