14 DAY TRIAL // Though climate change in its current form is a modern issue, instances of global warming did occur in the past. Now, investigators say that studying how ancient people dealt with this problem may provide us with some guidance today.
Historians were especially interested in seeing how people of the North – Vikings from Greenland and Iceland mostly – handled the economic, political and technological challenges associated with the changing world they were living in.
The issue of climate change is not only dangerous for the direct effects it may cause. It also brings about economic turmoil – caused for instance by a scarcity of resources – and cultural upheaval. The latter can be caused by a wide variety of factors, all indirectly tied to warming.
In the case of Vikings, which depended on ice and their existing environment for their very livelihood, changes could have equaled social disaster. Yet, they somehow managed to adapt. The way they did that may help us do the same, centuries later.
One of the primary issues to be concerned about was long-term sustainability. Norse societies that were best able to plan for that end goal were the most likely to succeed. Some of the measures they employed included adapting their trading routes to fit the newly opened passages.
Some economic options, though promising in the short-run, were utterly disregarded. In addition, the Norse populations also sought to diversify their sources of food. They started collecting the bare necessities from both farms and forests, ensuring a steady, safe supply of food.
Details of how these two cultures adapted to a changing climate were presented on February 19, at the annual conference of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS 2012) in Vancouver, during a symposium called “Climate Change and the long-term sustainability of societies.”
“Our future will in part be shaped by climate change, and to prepare for it we can learn valuable lessons from how societies of the past have adapted and even flourished amid a backdrop of difficult conditions,” University of Edinburgh professor Andrew Dugmore explains.
“Most importantly we can understand how a combination of climate and non-climate events can lead to a ‘perfect storm’ and trigger unexpected and dramatic social change,” the expert says, according to Science Blog.