Sunday, October 20, 2024

Mind the climate change. Destroyers of dynasties

An interesting bit from Dan Jones's Power of Thrones. Climate change was one of the chief reasons for destruction of Roman Empire. We all know that it was the Goths and its offshoots who were eventually responsible for the end of Western Roman empire. But how did Goths arrive at the gates of this empire. As per the books it had to do with the Huns, who also had famous run ins with the Roman Empire. The Huns were nomadic pastorals who inhabited the central Asian steppes. Destruction of livestock due to years of severe climate forced them to move westwards which disrupted the goths who were present in the areas bordering the Roman empire. This bought in conflict between the two and Huns were able to assert which forced the equally warlike Goths further into Roman territories. Initially they were accommodated and then over further periods there were turbulences here and there which eventually manifested into trouble for the Romans. Mind you this happened over decades and centuries.

Corollaries maybe also found in case there is proper research done on Tukic hordes invading the subcontinent which may also be due scarcity factor attributed due to climate change. It is also important to note that most of these tribes like Huns, Goths, Turks originated or were present in the Central Asian region where the climates may not be as predictable as in the rest of the settled world at that time. But in an important lesson is that the same might cause destruction of modern nations if once can analyze the contemporary times. What if waves of cyclones inundate low lying areas of Bangladesh, what can incessant flooding of Indus in Pakistan lead to. Such incident s can cause mass displacement especially for the weaker section of the countries. And with the government usually out of option or even paralyzed in such situations won't mind offloading its population at the expense of the richer and so-called accommodating neighbor (as the liberals like to call our country and not that we have problem of our own). So, it's not only the social aspects like unstable governments, the religious zealots, terrorist in the neighborhood who we should be mindful of. The climate may throw a surprise which can further amplify the social reasons.

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