This story was originally appeared in grist is part of climate desk collaboration.
The Roman Empire fell over 1,500 years ago, but it still has a strong grip on people’s imaginations, as recent trends on TikTok prove. Women began filming men’s lives to record their answers to a simple question: “How often do you think about the Roman Empire?”
“Strictly speaking, I think it’s almost every day.” a boyfriend said, when his girlfriend gasped in surprise, “What?” An avalanche of Twitter posts, Instagram reels, and news articles revealed that he wasn’t alone.meanwhile drive on the highwaysome couldn’t help but think about the extensive road system the Romans built. Still in use today.They are pondered A water system made of concrete that hardens underwater.
Gender considerations aside, there are many reasons why people are fascinated by the rise and fall of ancient empires. One of the things driving that interest, he said, is the question: “How can something so big and advanced fail?” And, more pressingly, could something similar happen to us? In between raging wildfires, Increased political violenceand general Trust in government is at a record lowIt doesn’t seem so far-fetched that the United States would be engulfed in smoke.
Theories that climate change will cause the collapse have proliferated in recent years, fueled by Jared Diamond’s 2005 book and others. collapse: How does society choose whether to fail or succeed?. For example, the Roman Empire Unraveled during bout of volcanic explosion, which led to a period of cooling and caused the first pandemic of bubonic plague. The decline of the ancient Maya people of Central America is associated with major droughts. The collapse of Angkor Wat in current Cambodia is fixed in the following period. wild swing between drought and monsoon floods. So if small-scale climate change caused the collapse of these great societies, how are we supposed to survive today’s more fundamental changes?
Focusing too much on catastrophes can lead to a biased view of the past, overlooking societies that have overcome environmental disasters and survived unscathed.a literature review In 2021, we found that 77 percent of studies analyzing the interaction between climate change and society focused on catastrophe, while only 10 percent focused on resilience .Historians, anthropologists, and Archaeologist Lately, I’ve been trying to fill that gap. The latest entry is a study that analyzes 150 crises that occurred in different periods and regions. Comprehensive dataset It covers more than 5,000 years of human history, dating back to the Neolithic era. Research has found that while environmental factors often play an important role in societal collapse, they cannot do it alone.
Researchers at the Complexity Science Hub, a Vienna, Austria-based organization that uses mathematical models to understand the dynamics of complex systems, have documented numerous examples of societies that have survived famine, cold snaps, and other forms of environmental stress. discovered. Several cities in Mesoamerica, including the Zapotec settlements of Mitla and Yagul in present-day Oaxaca, “not only survived in the same drought conditions that contributed to the collapse of the Maya civilization in the 8th century. It flourished.”And Maya was weathered by that point past 5 droughts And it continued to grow.
of new researchThe paper, published last month in the Royal Society’s peer-reviewed journal of biological sciences, suggests that resilience is an ability that societies gain and lose over time. The researchers found that stable societies can withstand dramatic climate shocks, but small shocks can cause disruption in fragile societies.
