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How many civilizations did the MWP cause to collapse?
The climate conditions that brought the Medieval Warm Period, while giving Europe some nice weather that encouraged more productive crops and helped create one of the conditions that produced the Renaissance, also produced a 500 year drought in the Americas that brought about the collapse of at least 2 civilizations, the Anasazi and the Classical Mayans. This cursory look leads to the question of just why some claim warming is good for us, as by my initial count, the warming, spotty as it was, helped 1 civilization, the Europeans, and killed off 2 others, making the total -1, or a net loss of one civilization. How is this good? To those who've said it is, will you explain or renounce your positions?
"A 3,000-year record from 52 of the world’s oldest trees shows that California’s western Sierra Nevada was “droughty and often fiery” from 800 to 1300, the University of Arizona said"
http://newswatch.nationalgeographic.com/2010/03/18...
"Droughts, Floods, the Medieval Warm Period and the Rise and Fall of Civilisations in Central and South America" https://sites.google.com/site/medievalwarmperiod/
Well, so far, I've gotten 1 stream of consciousness answer that grazes the question peripherally, 2 good answers, and 3 that are just elfshot crazy, as far as I can see. I guess it's significant that only affirmers can actually answer the question. What does that say about "the other side"?
6 Answers
- Hey DookLv 78 years agoFavorite Answer
Jared Diamond's book Collapse is quite informative on this subject.
As important as climate is, civilizations generally rise or fall for multiple reasons. By analogy, one could not soundly conclude that having one's cities bombed to rubble causes economic booms by generalizing from the case of Germany and Japan in 1945.
- KanoLv 78 years ago
Well you have just answered two questions 1. was MWP just a regional effect, and 2. does extreme climate change occur without the effects of man made Co2.
Wow I never ever thought that it would ever come about that I would give Hey Dook a thumbs up, but I just did.
- MoeLv 68 years ago
I am sorry I cannot answer this question because the MWP didn't happen therefore I cannot endure your rhetoric about civilizations collapsing because of natural changes in the earths climate. What is the point in rewriting climate history if all of you aren't going to stick to that story?
Let me help you out joe, don't think, it's going to be a lot easier for you to accept the intentional ambiguity, rampant contradiction, and massive uncertainty values if you simply drool. The drooling is simply a distraction and to keep you occupied when someone starts filling your head with non-sense about preindustrial age climate changes.
- 8 years ago
Any good psycho therapist would recognize that this is a good step in the right direction. Admission of the facts (that there was truly a medieval warming period) leads to rehabilitation. God bless you in your recovery from AGW-ism.
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- Anonymous8 years ago
The "warming good, cooling bad" mantra would almost make sense, if every square inch of Earth were like Russia and Canada. The truth is that most of the inhabited world is warm enough or even too hot.
And did I say "would almost make sense"? Even Russia and Canada are not immune to killer heat waves
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2010-08-10/russia-ma...
drought
http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/edmonton/story/2011/...
and rising sea levels