Technological Progress

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Societal Evolution,
Climate Change
and

• Technological Progress

Dr Benny Peiser Liverpool John Moores University,
UK
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Key Issues

• Growing apocalyptic fears about imminent climate
  catastrophes
• Contemporary anxiety often based on the belief of
  global climate disasters in ancient and
  prehistoric times.
• Societal evolution and climate change during the
  Holocene
• Hyper-complex civilisations and the growing
  technological capability to cope with climate
  change.

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The New Apocalyptic Age

• Growing fear of imminent global catastrophe - and
  belief in global salvation as a result of the
  triumph of good over evil.
• Modern apocalypticism biggest economic and
  political threat to the survival of free and open
  societies in the 21st century
• Religious apocalypticism
• Political apocalypticism
• Environmental apocalypticism

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• "We are risking the ability of the human race to
  survive."
• --Rajendra Pachauri, Chairman of the IPCC,
  The Independent,
  23 Jan 2005

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Some say the world will end in fire
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Some say in ice --Robert Frost
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The Tipping Point is nigh!

• Many scientists are now warning that we are
  moving closer to several "tipping points" that
  could -- within as little as 10 years -- make it
  impossible for us to avoid irretrievable damage
  to the planet's habitability for human
  civilization.
• --Al Gore, 18 September 2006
• We have a window of only 10-15 years to
  take the steps we need to avoid crossing
  catastrophic tipping points.
• --Jan Peter Balkenende Tony Blair,
  20 October 2006

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No empirical foundation for imminent tipping
points

• Since our knowledge of the real world
  climate system variability and change remains
  limited, we do not know if human activity moves
  us closer or further from any tipping points.
• --Roger Pielke Sr., March 2006
• Throughout history, prophets of doom have
  set dates for imminent global calamity only to
  be disproved and discredited. Tipping point
  prophets risk the same ignominy within the next
  10-15 years.

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Apocalyptic fury and intoleranceAttacks on
heresy and scepticism

• Episodes of apocalyptic fervour and hysteria have
  often led to witch-hunts, civil wars and social
  upheaval.
• Heresy and scepticism are dangerous a perceived
  menace to true believers.
• For almost 2000 years, the apocalyptic paradigm
  (i.e. predictions of global catastrophe) was
  aggressively enforced as the unanimous
  consensus in much of Europe.
• Edmond Halley, accused of anti-apocalyptic
  heresy, presented a paper to the Royal Society in
  1691 on The necessity of the world's coming to
  an end, - to prove that I am not guilty of
  asserting the eternity of the world".

Janet Horne, Last witch burned in Scotland 1727
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Societal evolution and climate change during the
Holocene
The Holocenes relatively stable climate
climatic fluctuations during the last 10,000
years similar to variations experienced during
Little Ice Age and Medieval Warm Period
episodes that even agrarian societies were able
to cope with.
Climate changes in central Greenland over the
last 17,000 years, at 100 years intervals.
Reconstructions of temperature (black line) and
snow accumulation rate (white line). Main climate
events are highlighted 1) Little Ice Age 2)
Medieval Warm Period 3) Iron Age Cold Epoch 4)
8k2 episode 5) Younger Dryas. Adapted from
(Committee on abrupt climate change 2002).
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Holocene Climate Fluctuations
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(No Transcript)
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End of the Little Ice Age and onset of Modern
Warm Period
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The rise of complex societies adaptation to
climate change

• Emergence of complex societies in the 6th and 5th
  Millennia BC linked to deteriorating
  environmental conditions in parts of the world.
• Emergence of some complex societies coincided
  with or followed a period of increased aridity
  (8 kyr BP) but chronology highly contentious
• Episodes of accelerated aridification 6 kyr BP
• --Brooks, Quaternary International, 2006 

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Climate change and the rise of riverine
civilisations
Riverine civilisations were not only
extraordinarily fertile - but also
extraordinarily famine-prone.
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Marginal Environments Location of abandoned
settlements and failed ancient societies
Marginal, self-reliant agricultural societies are
extremely vulnerable to environmental change
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Revival of Environmental Determinism

• Climatic changes implicated in the collapse of
  many past civilizations.
• Belief that the observed cultural transitions can
  be causally related to the magnitude of climatic
  change.
• Assumption of causality in most of these cases
  highly questionable.
• Numerous instances where cultures survived rapid
  environmental change unscathed
• --Coombes and Barber (2005)
•  

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Revival of Environmental Determinism

• Many associations may be purely coincidental.
• others collapsed without any environmental
  forcing
• If causality is to be demonstrated, one must show
  that environmental change was the critical factor
  in the cultures collapse.
• These conditions not given due to poor data and
  chronological constraints
• --Coombes and Barber (2005)

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Paleo-climatic downturns(based on ambiguous
proxy data)

• Younger Dryas, ice-age-related cooling in parts
  of northern hemisphere
• 8200 BP cooling event
• 5200 BP cooling event
• 4400 BP cooling event linked to collapse of
  Akkadian, Egyptian, Indus Valley and Yankze River
  civilisations
• 2200 BP cooling event, linked to collapse of
  Mediterranean Bronze Age civilisations
• 536 AD cooling event, linked to the fall of
  Roman Empire
• Cooling events have been largely detrimental to
  societies.
• Warm periods - considerably benign for social,
  economic and technological progress.

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An alleged climate disaster in ancient Britain

• Claim Climatic downturn at the Bronze Age/Iron
  Age transition (850 BC) resulted in settlement
  abandonment in parts of Britain and the whole of
  Europe
• Recent research shows no evidence for wholesale
  land-use change at this time the overall picture
  is one of continuity of land use or even
  increased agricultural activity.
  --Petra
  Dark, Journal of Archaeological Science, 2006

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How reliable are paleo-climatic proxy data?

• Very little confidence can be assigned to
  statements concerning the hemispheric mean or
  global mean surface temperature prior to about
  A.D. 900 because of sparse data coverage and
  because the uncertainties associated with proxy
  data and the methods used to analyze and combine
  them are larger than during more recent time
  periods.
• --Surface Temperature Reconstructions for
  the Last 2,000 Years, National Research Council,
  2006

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Temporary breakdowns and recovery

• A number of complex societies fell apart during
  the last 4000 years. Many temporary breakdowns
  are never unmitigated or total.
• Most unsuccessful ancient societies recovered
  after a period of marked decline and regularly
  emerged more robust and dynamic.
• General trend of cultural evolution during the
  last 10,000 years has been technological
  progress, increased social complexity and
  improved protection against forces of nature.

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Fruits of the Industrial Revolution Global life
expectancy today
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The rise of hyper-complex, high-tech
civilisations
Desalination plant in Jedda
Desalination plant in Ashkalon
Greening the desert
Future energy
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Hyper-complex, high-tech civilisations

• Hyper-complex societies are able to withstand
  prolonged droughts thanks to technological
  advances and economic resilience.
• Todays high-technology global civilisation is
  much better sheltered from possible catastrophes
  due to international monitoring and mitigation
  technologies and support systems.

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Hyper-complex societies more resilient than ever

• Our ancestors have survived 5 million years of
  recurring onslaughts from ice ages,
  mega-droughts, cosmic impact disasters, plagues
  and epidemics.
• Technological and societal evolution has now
  reached a level of complexity that renders the
  probability of human survival for the next 1,000
  years drastically higher than at any previous
  stage of our long history.
• There is no reason to believe that we wont be
  able to cope with climate change.