LESSON 4.2
LESSON 4.3
Fagan’s book makes a unique contribution towards understanding of climate change. He provides unique information on the topic of climate change by helping historians to understand what happened in the period between ten and thirteenth century (Fagan, 2009). According to Fagan, climate has transformed human societies either for good or for worse over the years. The irregular warming that took place between 800 and 1250 had beneficial effects to the north Atlantic and Europe, but resulted to prolonged drought in the large part of America (Fagan, 2009). Fagan was able to use the data that climatologists have gathered over the past 30 years, and modern tools such as ice borings, coral and tree rings, computer modeling and deep-sea cores to provide a rough history of the medieval period (Fagan, 2009). Although, there is little evidence about this medieval warm period, Fagan provides a framework for more research to be conducted about this era. First, Fagan has been able to prove that there gainers and losers in this global warming era. For instance, it was a period cultural achievement and abundant harvests among the people the Western Europe, while countries in east Africa, china, and America experienced a long period of famine and draught. Civilizations collapsed, farmers went without food, and many cities were imploded during this period.
FINAL ASSESSMENT
Nature and effect of climate change in human history
Climate change has had positive and negative effects to the human societies over the years that forced affected communities to respond differently. The communities that were affected by the prolonged resulted reacted by relocating the entire population. For instance, Maya people who were subsistence farmers and small-scale hunter and gatherers were affected by the prolonged drought resulting from climate change. Their rulers responded by creating huge facilities for storing water in order to survive the harsh climatic conditions. However, they gave up after the drought continued to occur one year after another (Shi et al., 2013). On their side, chimu lords from the coast of Peru responded by creating sophisticated irrigation works in order to avoid starvation for their people. The draught was persistent that it the “water mountains” to dry even though they were very elaborate reservoirs.
Some parts also experienced catastrophic rainfall that ruined civilization and toppled many dynasties. The Mayan abandoned their temples in Yucatan, and the Angkor Wat fell because of the climatic change. In the Sahara desert, caravan organizers had to change their routes as a way of adapting the changing rainfall patterns (Finkelstein & Langgut, 2014). Only camels and their load-carrying saddles could survive the heat of the desert. On the credit side, climate change resulted to increased crop production in many parts of Western Europe. For instance, England exported wine to France in the thirteenth century, while eastern Prussia and Norway reported flourished vineyards. Western Europe experienced a long mild spell of abundant crops, budget surpluses, and healthy population for a period of one century. People in the northern china experienced the two extremes of the climatic change of the medieval warm period. There was a dramatic climate change that swung from lengthy torrential rainfall to long dry spell (Payne, 2014). Faltering trade winds in south pacific gave way to Polynesian voyagers that finally reached to Rapa Nui in around 1200. According to the author, the climatic weather changes affected all the aspects of people’s life, ranging from warfare, trade, transport, eating habits, among others.
Historians and new thinking
There is a need for historians to incorporate new views and new thinking in their research. This is because new thinking or views will play an important role in advancing knowledge that historians created in the past. This new thinking is another way of gathering information that may help historians to come up with new theories. Nowadays, the world is changing so fast with advancement in new technology making it almost impossible for any single historian to bring all the necessary expertise in regards to a given topic. This implies that there a great need for historians to share information amongst themselves in order to come up with more valid and convincing theories. Incorporating new thinking also help historians to expand their scope of findings that helps them to understand past and present events. For instance, Fagan in his research incorporated modern tools such as computer model that helped to support his new findings. Incorporating new ideas and thinking also help historians not to repeat researches that have already been done and concluded by other researchers in the past. This is what previous researchers have termed as ‘re-inventing the wheel’, to imply that there is no need to spend time and other resources to rediscover what other researchers have already discovered. Historians as well as other researchers are required to conduct literature review in order to know what other researchers have already done in regards to the topic of the study. This helps to identify research gaps that exist in the area, and hence conduct research to fill those gaps. Thorough this procedures, historians are able use the already discovered ideas in order to come up with new historical perspectives or theories.
Therefore, his opinions will matter in the world of history as long as there no better explanation provided by other historians in regards to climatic change during medieval warming period. Although, Fagan leaves much to be researched, at the moment there is no any other better to explain about climatic change during that period. Hence, historians ought to adopt his theory until such a time when a better theory will be developed on the same topic.
Fagan’s work analyses
According to Fagan, the great warming brought draught that affected humanity from Peru to china (Fagan, 2009). He contends that the most dangerous effect of global warming to humanity in the world today is drought, though it has been given much attention. Fagan posits that draught can easily lead to starvation of more than one billion people if the world does not take the necessary precautionary measures. It is important to note that Fagan analyzed climatic change from his perspective as an anthropologist. He bases his argument on methodological procedures that he observed in order to support his views. Some of the evidence he provided include tree rings, coral samples, deep-sea cores, satellite photos, computer weather models among others. His explanation helps in understanding changes that have occurred in human society for many years. This information is importance since scientists have provided little explanation on the climatic occurrences such as La Nina and El Niño (Velez et al., 2014). Fagan has been able to provide a good account on the way climate have changed over the years, and the consequences these changes has caused to the human society. The author is able to re-create traditional societies in an engaging and lively manner, with the help of climatological data in order to support his argument. He brings out nature in the global historical discussion in a fascinating way.
The draught lasted for many decades, and if it would happen in the present times, it would endanger the lives of many people globally. I agree with the author that the modern world is more exposed to draught than those living in the medieval warm period due to climatic changes, as well as the rapid population growth. This draught may be severe in the developing countries and the highly populated regions such as southwest Asia and Arizona.
Fagan’s argument concurs with current research on the effects of climate change to the human society, right now and in the future. Escalating climate changes have already started causing disastrous impacts to the human population. These impacts have occurred in the form of flooding, frequent draughts, spread of tropical diseases, strong storms such as Catalina, among others in different parts of the world. Coral reefs are facing extinction as they continue to die than ever before in the human history. Oceans currents are also changing, resulting to changes in seasons. For instance, winter climate in Britain is becoming colder as the time goes by. Ocean acidification is also increasing causing serious impacts to the phytoplankton, coral reefs, shell fish among other marine creatures. This occur as more carbon dioxide is dissolved into the oceans; hence raising the levels of carbonic acid. Tropic diseases such as malaria, Lyme, and leishmaniasis, are likely to spread more due to changing climatic conditions. Therefore, Fagan provides an important link between the current and past impacts of changing climatic conditions to the human societies (Verner et al., 2013). By focusing on the climatic change during medieval warming period, Fagan provides important information that modern historians and other stakeholders can use in addressing the current problem of global warming. Modern climatologists can use the evidence that Fagan provided in order to analyze how climate has changed overtime, and hence develop better strategies to address the problem of global warming.
Therefore, his work is an important step forward towards understanding the pattern of climate change since medieval ages. In fact, he does not overstate the impacts of climate to human societies. What he has done is to provide a chronological analysis of climatic changes in different parts of the globe. He also provides the positive effects of climatic change during medieval warm period, a fact that is not common in the modern literature. Nowadays, the researchers have focused most of their attention on the negative side of the climatic change, forgetting that it may also has positive impacts as it was witnessed during medieval warm period. Therefore, fagan’s work challenges other researchers to broaden their scopes when analyzing the impacts of climate to human societies.
References
Böhm, O., Jacobeit, J., Glaser, R., & Wetzel, K. (2014). Flood history of the Bavarian Alpine Foreland since the late Middle Ages in the context of internal and external climate forcing factors. Hydrology & Earth System Sciences Discussions, 11(7), 7409-7440,
Fagan, B (2009). The great warming: climate change and the rise and fall of civilization. London: Bloomsbury Press.
Finkelstein, I. & Langgut, D.(2014). Dry Climate in the Middle Bronze I and Its Impact on Settlement Patterns in the Levant and Beyond: New Pollen Evidence. Journal of Near Eastern Studies, 73(2), 219-234.
Payne, James L. (2014). The Real Case against Activist Global Warming Policy. Independent Review, 19(2), 265-270.
Shi, C. Ji, Y., Liu, L., Wang, L., & Zhang, D.(2013). Impact of climate changes from Middle Miocene onwards on evolutionary diversification in Eurasia: Insights from the mesobuthid scorpions. Molecular Ecology, 22(6), 1700-1716.
Velez, I., Escobar, J., Brenner, M., Rangel, O., Betancourt, A., Jaramillo, A., Curtis, J., & Moreno, J. L. (2014). Middle to late Holocene relative sea level rise, climate variability and environmental change along the Colombian Caribbean coast. Holocene, 24(8), 898-907.
Verner, D., Wilby, R., Ashwill, M., Lee, D. R. (2013). Increasing Resilience to Climate Change in the Agricultural Sector of the Middle East : The Cases of Jordan and Lebanon. World Bank:Washington, D.C.
