Did Climate Change Cause The Fall Of The Roman Empire?

Did Climate Change cause the Fall of the Roman Empire? No hey, it makes a great story in these times of climate confusion.

The entertainment magazine, New Scientist, carried a story on 26 January 2024 penned by Alec Luhn, titled: "Plagues that shook the Roman Empire linked to cold, dry periods" with a subtitle of "A study reconstructing the climate of Italy during the Roman Empire based on marine sediments shows that three pandemics coincided with cooler, drier conditions".

"But Harper says the study should raise questions about climate change in the Roman era, as well as our own: 'It gives you perspective to understand that two to three degrees [Celsius] of change is absolutely enormous and puts tremendous strain on human societies.'".

"While this new sediment record advances our understanding of Roman Italy, we don't know enough about the rest of the empire to say climate change triggered or amplified the plagues, says Timothy Newfield of Georgetown University in Washington DC. He has argued that the effects of the Plague of Justinian have been exaggerated."Whether these three Roman pandemics specifically brought down Rome is in my opinion hard to argue," he says.

The New Scientist piece manages to get in Climate Change and Pandemics while covering one study on "based on marine sediments" which posits "three pandemics in the Roman Empire coincided with abnormally cold and dry periods" thus causing of the Fall of the Roman Empire, adding to the list of 200 other causes previously identified.

The Climate Crisis Media cabals might try to use a line like "periods of drought, like today, brought down the Roman Empire" - the IPCC says "it ain't necessarily so".

The ability of society of adjust to, to adapt to, to mitigate the challenges of weather and climate determine the success of that society - the same today as it was for the Roman Empire. 

https://wattsupwiththat.com/2024/01/29/did-climate-change-cause-the-fall-of-the-roman-empire/