History /
Climate, weather event and Polish history [23]
While, libertarian as I am, I feel the climate change lobby deserves shooting for inflicting nuclear power on us (Carbons? No thanks!!) I do wholeheartedly thank these poor demented fools for bringing climatic changes to the fore in the context of historical analysis.
My climate/history thesis is twofold:
(i) Inherent stresses in agrarian economies are exacerbated by a worsening climate for various reasons (discussed below), and
(ii) Extreme political events will happen EITHER: (a) immediately after an unexpected one-off event OR (ii) shortly
after the lowest point of a long trend is reached.
Why are inherent stresses exacerbated by worsening climate / bad weather events?
Rulers run out of money. Rulers have problems wielding power over the food-producing (wealth-producing) magnates. War unites aggressor nations, but bad weather can create chaos in tactical terms for both sides. A worsening climate = greater chance of extreme political events: military, power re-distribution, religious turmoil.
According to
pinus sylvestris tree ring records in the period 1430-1490 Poland had a relative climate advantage over much of Europe, i.e. earlier, warmer springs than it had been used to, while much of Europe suffered from generally cold years than it was used to. By this, I don't mean Poles were sunbathing in January - just that in relative terms their growing seasons were better than they were used to, while other regions had worse growing seasons that they were used to.
1430-1490 saw a resurgence in Polish political and military power. Possibly, the Jagiellonians' health improved too - Casimir IV, who lived slap-bang in the middle of this period, married much earlier and had a surviving child much earlier than the rest of them.
1450-55 saw a sharp, temporary downturn - leading to an uprising against the Teutonic Knights as the peasants went hungry.
Interestingly, the nosedive in temperatures in 1500-1510 was punctuated by the Nihil Novi Act of 1505, which passed more power to the barons.
1600-1651 was the Little Ice Age in Europe, caused by the lack of solar activity (that's what we're in at the moment too - expect temperatures to lower over the next 20 years). In England this led to the Civil War, as Parliament took advantage of an impoverished King Charles to make ever-increasing demands. Charlie Boy lost his head in 1649, 2 years before the climatic nadir was reached. In Scandinavia, the Swedes faced financial and religious turmoil. In 1654 they completely ran out of money and decided that war was the answer. As Poland's attentions were elsewhere, they invaded Poland/Lithuania and Poland ended up losing 1/3 of her population.
!830/1 saw a sudden fiercely cold snap in Polish weather. An uprising ensued as a hungry population could no longer stand sending food to Russia.
The 1930s saw mild winters, but 1941 and 1942 were bitterly cold. This compounded bad tactical planning by an incompetent German govt and resulted in Soviet domination of eastern Europe throughout all the cold decades between 1940 and 1980. 1980 was the high-point of Solidarity. Now, I am not saying that Wałęsa was caused by the weather (!!), but it was an added strain to a creaking structure. The collapse came in 1989 - after the end of the long cool period.
Taking a larger viewpoint: AD 400 temperatures (end of the Roman Empire) were only achieved again in the 1880s (heyday of European empires).
Climate change has always happened.
For more information, see Theodor Landscheidt (who successfully predicted major weather events - his admirers forecast this winter's bitter start back in July) and Rajmund Przybylak.
