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Climate Change & Roman History
In 300 B.C. the climate goes warm and moist and food is plentiful again. In Northern Italy the Alpine mountain passes stayed open all year around, and the ancient Romans go on a major conquest of the Meditrerrain area and Europe. The Chinese are doing the same thing in their part of the contient for the same climatic reasons. Trade began between the Roman Empire and Chinese Empire.
In about 450 A.D. the global temperature went down again. In the Northern Hemisphere the temperature dropped -7 degrees. This caused freezing droughts and massive movements towards better growing conditions in the southern and eastern areas of Europe – The Huns and Normadic tribes overran the Roman Empire and ushered in the Dark Ages.
Climate Warming and The Rise of The West
The last climatic warming came in about 1750 A.D. when the temperatures in Northern Europe rose +4 degrees. England had the best growing conditions for perhaps 3 decades in the past 1000 years. Wealth was created by the surplus and prosperity spread throughout the region- improved agricultural inventions increased the crop size more than 4 times and this created more work and more wealth and more people. Traditionally, when wages go up and prices go down people get married at an earlier age and have more childern ..so the population shot-up creating greater demand for housing, and home furnishings and household goods, which in turn created factories and a greater standardization of forms and molds. This period developed the start of the steam engine and the conversion of raw energy into industrial efficiency.
After The Crash by Geoffry F. Abert, PH.D. The Roman Empire and U.S. Social Parallels
The similarities between the histories of Rome and the Unitied States may already be obvious to you. Consider, for example, that Rome’s time ran out when she:
1. Rome moved most of her people off the farms and into the cities, where they more rapidly communicated counterproductive demands and disastrous panics;
2. Rome stressed standardization and comformity amongest it’s people. Higher education emphasizes training to “fit the system”. A striving for identical life styles. Also, alot of common names.
3. There was religious tension between ruthless materialism and idealism existed.
4. In both Rome and America team sports were stressed (like the NFL);
5. Rome declared that every member of society was equal and deserved to have whatever any other member had;
6. Rome saw the emphasis on the “people to be pleased” move down from the aristocracy to the middle class and then to the lower class;
7. had everybody adopting the values of the lower classes instead of modeling after and aspiring for the upper classes;
8. Later years, Rome was faced with reluctant trading partners in other countries of her world;
9. Rome lost a steady stream of food and essential supplies because of weather reverses;
10. Both Rome and US found themselves importing more than she was exporting;
11. Successive Roman emperors fought economic decline by tax and spending policies. This added to monetary manipulation had yielded chronic stagflation..and finally price and wage controls;
12. There was continuously escalating inflation resulted in the public assumption that such economic spiraling was normal and natural;
13. Rome gave up the pursuit of artistic and technical superiority;
14. Rome became burdened with social welfare efforts to support the masses who were becoming harder to please and ever more antagonistic;
15. There was declining general safety and protection for the citizens because of ever-increasing groups that took the law into their own hands;
16. After foreign wars there was wide spread begging, when the social system broke down;
17. Divorce was very common in the last days of Rome;
18. Rome had a rise in superstitious beliefs, astrology, religion, and any other escape philosophies that promised a better world to come;
19. There was entered a time of political purges and revenge;
20. They allowed a single essential group to take control ( in Rome, it was the army. For us it could be the military-industrial complex, the labor unions, or simply the poor );
21. Then began a final era of corruption and intrigue that left a society in which no one could be trusted or depended upon.
22. In the Second Century B.C., there was no greater revolution in Rome than that of woman’s rights. They became emancipated in every way, including economically.
The growing role of women in the U.S. has led to many changes in public opinion, including the following: the desire for freedom to be replaced by security, the tendency to focus on the child, and the youth worship syndome, the suspicion of individualism, the desire to avoid risk, and the emotional personalization of issues. (pg. 103 Cycles of War)
23. Romans could no longer keep their aqueducts repaired. Much of western civilization doesn’t seem to have will to correct it’s …water and sewer systems, bridges, and road repair either.
24. ” Family limitation played some part in the history of Greece and Rome. It is amusing to find Julius Caesar offering (59 B.C.) rewards to Romans who had many children, and forbidding childless women to ride in litters or wear jewelry. Augustus renewed this campaign some forty years later, with like futility. Birth control continued to spread in the upper classes. “(Durant pg.23)
Of the thiry-two civilizations the earth has seen, Toynbee says that over half have collapsed and half of the rest are in a terminal condition. The distinguished historian himself concluded after his impressive study ” …Death the Leveler will lay is icy hand on our civilization also. ”
The American historian Crane Brinton has analyzed four major historical revolutions. These are the French Revolution, the American Revolution, the Russian Revolution, and the Glorious Revolution of England in 1688. Crane found that conditions preceding each of these revolutions had a commonality. Among these were:
1. Later in Rome there was the presence of bitter class antagonisms;
2. There was a breakdown and ineffective operation of government machinery;
3. In late Rome there was approaching bankruptcy of the government;
4. There was a loss among the ruling class of confidence about their traditions, with many members of the upper class moving over to support the values of attacking groups.
All of these conditions sound strikingly familiar to the observer of Western civilizations.
“By the time Jesus was born, the Roman Empire extended from germania in the north to the sarhara in the south. Roman banners flew over cities from the Atlantic to the Euphrates.
The great roads the Romans first built to move troops swiftly to battle also enabling the population to travel about the empire.
After peace was established throughout the Roman Empire a few years before the birth of Christ, open routes and sea lanes promoted commerce. Improvement in navigational aids increased the safety of sea transportation.”
“A stable and uniform currency, the construction of good roads, a laissez-faire policy on the part of the government, and the revival of great trading cities such as Corinth and Carthage were added stimulants for a healthy expansion in commercial actvity.” Bourne, A history of the Romans, pg- 359
According to the Club of Rome report ( 1972 ), economic population growth has to stop almost immediately, or shortly after the arrival of the next century the population, food production, and pollution curves, along with the supply of natural resources, will converge for a catastrophic collapse. The life style of those who survive will center on getting food and maintaining life at the simplest possible levels.
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