Incidentally, the fact that the middle east was lush forest within written history (the epic of gilgamesh talks about the great cedar forest in the middle east), and that northern europe was covered in ice helps us understand that climate change happens without our help, and from that perspective it becomes something we need to learn how to live with rather than something we should assume we can totally nullify.
Interestingly, even in the era of Uruk, killing the guardian of the great cedar forest was seen as something of a sin, and if the Gods hadn't granted their blessing then a great curse would have been cast upon them, similar to how killing the great bull of heaven ultimately led to Enkidu's death. It's a narrative far older than modernist thought.
The bronze age collapse was caused in part by a changing climate, and not just in Europe. The Harappan civilization in the Indus Valley in India was buried under a desert, but it existed for a thousand years in a place where agriculture was practiced.
Arguably, some of these changes were caused by humans to an extent. The soil was degraded by agriculture in the Indus Valley, and the cedar forests were deforested. However, it was more than just that or something could have remained.
We obviously don't want to destroy our home ourselves and we need to do what we can to prevent those outcomes, we also obviously live on a planet that has changed without our help for billions of years and will continue to change without our help. Therefore, rather than just complaining that the climate is changing because we aren't sacrificing enough of our enemies to the Gods, we need to find ways to be resillient in the parts of our world that are presently "uninhabitable" because if history is any indication, the regions considered "inhabitable" and "uninhabitable" are inevitably going to change whether we sin against the environment or not. Given the past, it's equally likely that most of what we consider the "civilized world" today is under a kilometer of ice in another 1,000 years and we're all living in the lush Sahara basin region.
Interestingly, even in the era of Uruk, killing the guardian of the great cedar forest was seen as something of a sin, and if the Gods hadn't granted their blessing then a great curse would have been cast upon them, similar to how killing the great bull of heaven ultimately led to Enkidu's death. It's a narrative far older than modernist thought.
The bronze age collapse was caused in part by a changing climate, and not just in Europe. The Harappan civilization in the Indus Valley in India was buried under a desert, but it existed for a thousand years in a place where agriculture was practiced.
Arguably, some of these changes were caused by humans to an extent. The soil was degraded by agriculture in the Indus Valley, and the cedar forests were deforested. However, it was more than just that or something could have remained.
We obviously don't want to destroy our home ourselves and we need to do what we can to prevent those outcomes, we also obviously live on a planet that has changed without our help for billions of years and will continue to change without our help. Therefore, rather than just complaining that the climate is changing because we aren't sacrificing enough of our enemies to the Gods, we need to find ways to be resillient in the parts of our world that are presently "uninhabitable" because if history is any indication, the regions considered "inhabitable" and "uninhabitable" are inevitably going to change whether we sin against the environment or not. Given the past, it's equally likely that most of what we consider the "civilized world" today is under a kilometer of ice in another 1,000 years and we're all living in the lush Sahara basin region.
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