Climate Chaos Helped Spark the French Revolution—and Holds a Dire Warning for Today

[rangerrebew]

TIME 2030
Climate Chaos Helped Spark the French Revolution—and Holds a Dire Warning for Today
IDEAS
BY MIKE DUNCAN OCTOBER 20, 2021 10:22 AM EDT

Mike Duncan is a history podcaster and author of the New York Times-bestselling books, Hero of Two Worlds: The Marquis de Lafayette in the Age of Revolution and The Storm Before the Storm: The Beginning of the End of the Roman Republic.

Historians have long observed the links between the natural environment and the fate of civilization. Natural emergencies like droughts, floods and crop failure regularly plunge people into chaos. Long term changes in the earth’s climatic conditions lead flourishing societies like the Roman Empire to wither and fade. But perhaps there is no greater example of the explosive intersection of climate disruption and political upheaval than the period surrounding the French Revolution of 1789.

Starting in the mid-13th century, the northern hemisphere entered a period of prolonged cooling known as the Little Ice Age. This extended chill was not smooth and uniform, however, but marked by intervals of plummeting temperatures in the midst of otherwise stable warmth. Around 1770, one such interval of abrupt freezing began in the Northern Atlantic, wreaking immediate havoc on shipping, transportation and agriculture. In 1775, severe grain shortages in France caused by successive years of poor harvests resulted in bread riots throughout the kingdom. Later dubbed the Flour War, it was a harbinger of things to come.

Compounding the worsening climate, the Laki volcanic fissure in Iceland erupted in June 1783. Over the next eight months, the fissure spewed 120 million tons of sulfur dioxide into the atmosphere. Across northern Europe, a “blood coloured sun” barely showed through a thick persistent haze. In addition to the excess mortality caused by the foul air, the Laki eruption radically altered the atmosphere, causing the climate of the 1780s to become extremely volatile. After a long spell of cooling, the summer of 1783 was suddenly the hottest on record. The unseasonably hot weather triggered severe thunderstorms with hailstones large enough to kill livestock. The scorching summer gave way to an equally extreme winter of severe freezing, followed by a warm spring that rapidly melted the snow and ice which caused extensive flooding.

https://time.com/6107671/french-revolution-history-climate/

[rangerrebew]

The warning comes from a great maharishi:  "As you slide down the ladder of life, beware of the place wherein the cricket sh*ts.

[Smokin Joe]

The French Revolution was not caused by climate disruptions alone. Those disruptions ravaged the economy, destabilized the social order and traumatized the population, but it required a broken political system unable and unwilling to address the effects to tip the scales toward revolution.

No argument, and therein lies the parallel.

This part is BS:

As we enter a new epoch of a human created climate emergency, we have it in our power to mitigate the ecological consequences, but it will not be enough to simply lower emissions or convert to green energy. We must also ensure our political structures can respond to the inevitable social crises caused by global warming and are flexible and resilient enough to weather the coming storm.

All of the economic and social ruin rained upon the French leading up to the revolution was of natural origin, for the most part. But here we are, after the release of SARS-CoV-2, with similar economic distress, rained upon us by the purveyors of lies (Government agencies or sponsored) and policy makers. The climate that is man-made is political.

It isn't the weather we need worry about, but the political climate that wreaks destruction far more impressive than anything nature has done short of extinction level cataclysm. That is the climate we can and must influence, the political one, if rebellion and bloodshed is to be avoided. There is still time to restore the Republic, but no stone must be left unturned seeking out the maggots who have infested it.

[Kamaji]

No argument, and therein lies the parallel.

This part is BS:

All of the economic and social ruin rained upon the French leading up to the revolution was of natural origin, for the most part. But here we are, after the release of SARS-CoV-2, with similar economic distress, rained upon us by the purveyors of lies (Government agencies or sponsored) and policy makers. The climate that is man-made is political.

It isn't the weather we need worry about, but the political climate that wreaks destruction far more impressive than anything nature has done short of extinction level cataclysm. That is the climate we can and must influence, the political one, if rebellion and bloodshed is to be avoided. There is still time to restore the Republic, but no stone must be left unturned seeking out the maggots who have infested it.