Climate change: What environmental risks in history caused

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Reporting on climate change is one of the major journalistic challenges of our time. The climate crisis is also one of the most important issues of humanity for SPIEGEL. For this reason, we support an international initiative that seeks to take a look this week: "Covering Climate Now" was initiated by the Columbia Journalism Review and the Canadian newspaper "The Nation", with more than 200 media companies around the world, including the Guardian, El País, La Repubblica, The Times of India, Bloomberg or Vanity Fair. SPIEGEL is dedicating the cover story of the current issue to the climate crisis this week and every day pays special attention to mirror.de

SPIEGEL: Professor Haldon, you have founded with colleagues an "Initiative Climate Change and Historical Research". What are you doing?

Haldon: The idea came to us during archaeological explorations in the Turkish Avkat, the ancient Euchaita. It's about how landscapes change over time and what that means for humans. Conditions such as climate change and other non-man-made stressors are particularly important to us. There are three key questions: What kind of human reactions have triggered environmental and climate change - be it sudden and violent or rather creeping? In pre-modern eras, how did the perception of such changes affect patterns of behavior and explanation? And: Can a better historical understanding of these relationships contribute to our response to current problems, such as how to cope with climate change?

SPIEGEL: Where and how did you research?

Haldon: In several large case studies of the pre-modern Mediterranean region, decades or centuries ago, we compared whether and to what extent social diversity and population density are prerequisites for resilience in the case of climate stress, ie perseverance and resistance. Dryness, for example, does not necessarily mean societal regression; A favorable climate may be beneficial in the short term, but in the long run can lead to economically unsustainable behavior.

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SPIEGEL: An example, please.

Haldon: Sicily and the southern Levant - ie the region of present-day Syria, Lebanon and Israel - became economically and politically important in the 7th and 8th centuries AD. All around, the old order collapsed as a result of the Arab-Islamic expansion after 640. These peripheral areas of the booming Eastern Roman Empire of Byzantium, however, became "islands of continuity" because the established intensive agriculture continued there. Sicily supplied a considerable amount of food to supply the imperial armies and the capital Constantinople. From the interior of the Levant came most food for the new Umayyad Caliphate of Damascus. In both regions, the climate then became drier, which reduced field yields. In the late eighth century, Sicily and the Levant had lost their importance as sources of supply. The Abbasids, followers of the Umayyads, moved their capital to Baghdad, into the fertile river valleys of today's Iraq.

SPIEGEL: Environmental change can therefore trigger political and economic shifts.

Haldon: Yes, but by combining different research methods you can clearly see that rarely is the climate the only reason for that. Take Caracol, a Mayan city in Central America. Our new climate constructions show that civilization there probably went down differently than previously thought. Not repeated severe droughts were the reason that the city was abandoned, but social conflicts. At the height of the drought, the place even grew: For six centuries, the inhabitants had worked the land so that they could use the rain for irrigation well, public and private water storage helped over droughts. After the 7th century, however, the elites of the city intervened politically in this successful model, which triggered tensions and conflicts. This in connection with war then led to the end of the city, although it was economically successful.

SPIEGEL: Even so smart adaptation to environmental conditions remains useless if politics fatal intervenes?

Haldon: That would be a possible conclusion. In the third case, the matter is even more complicated: in the Carolingian Empire, reports and archeological evidence point to environmental stress - extreme weather and short periods of abrupt climate change. The reports of famines are often, but not completely, consistent with this pattern. Long winters, heavy droughts, then endless downpours brought famine years and increased the death rate. But what about years when the data does not match? If one combines all factors and hints, then it shows: The Carolingian society already knew how to defy such dangers or mitigate them. But success also depended on political-social conditions, such as how well large landowners and state leaders made common cause.

SPIEGEL: Do your surveys show how well pre-modern societies coped with climate change overall?

Haldon: The most important result is that environmental factors alone can never explain social change. There are always interactions; we speak like ecologists of complex adaptive systems. In pre-modern societies, there was traditional knowledge of how to deal with natural hazards. Much of this may seem like superstition, and it did not work - for example, in Peru, before the Incas, certain temples were built in the midst of flood zones. But of course, this strengthened long-term social cohesion.

SPIEGEL: Were certain forms of government better equipped to tackle natural changes?

Haldon: The Eastern Roman Empire of the 7th century is one of the few cases in which a complex state was deliberately simplified. It is commonly said that internal strife, external attacks by "barbarians", climate change and epidemics threatened the empire until it stabilized thanks to a few wise rulers and historical coincidences. However, a closer look at environmental data and other sources shows that farmers responded to climate change by introducing new crops, the state responding to territorial and income losses by other taxation, reorganizing the military and even the elites. As a result, the citizens identified more than before with the state. The environmental threat has actually contributed to the continuation of the Byzantine state.

SPIEGEL: Did people ever think in pre-modern times that they could have triggered environmental changes themselves?

Haldon: There are hardly any hints. However, documents sometimes read complaints that the state or a landowner has ordered innovations that would have led to the lack of certain crops or - for example, dams - to poor water distribution. Each case is different, depending on the world of thought of the epoch, but economic-social feedback effects are as good as ever.

SPIEGEL: What can we learn from historical explanations for the present?

Haldon: Politicians have often misjudged the complexity of previous interactions between society and the environment. This then led to bad strategy and bad planning. The UN has announced sustainability goals, including for cities and societies. Insights from the past can certainly contribute to current discussions, even improving the assessment of risks. For example, a research group recently noted that Israel's north coast was hit by a massive tsunami in the 6th century. As the Israeli government learned, it has included appropriate scenarios in its contingency plans and has also begun to raise public awareness. Our team has specialists in risk and emergency planning - so there is a direct link between our historical research and its potential relevance for today and tomorrow.