Re: RE: Foster responds

[Stephen E Philion <philion@xxxxxxxxxx>]

Now Foster is one of the bad guys? Gosh, gotta get out my scorecard...that
was a quick switch if there ever were one.
A fat head who doesn't know anything? That kind of characterization of a
comrade is bizarre...

Steve




On Fri, 29 Jun 2001, Mark Jones wrote:

> El Nino events were most probably behind the rise and decline of both
> ancient and classical Peruvian civilisations. Foster seems completely
> unaware of this. 'Nature' recently ran a piece on this:
>
> Culture rained off
> Ancient Peruvian civilization may have fallen foul of El Niño.
> 25 June 2001
> PHILIP BALL
>
>
>  El Niño may have put Peruvian culture under monumental strain
>
>
>
> El Niño events may have altered the course of prehistoric civilization.
> Around 3,000 years ago rainfall seems to have put paid to the Peruvian
> progress it kicked off 3,000 years earlier, US researchers now report.1
>
> The coast of Peru is dotted with the remains of temples built between 5,800
> and 2,800 years
>
> ago, during the Preceramic and Initial Periods. Predating Egypt's pyramids,
> and often decorated with elaborate art, these monuments attest to a highly
> organized civilization with its own religious and political systems. At the
> end of this period, the temples seem to have been abandoned.
>
> A shift in climate patterns around 3,000 years ago may have triggered this
> change, Daniel Sandweiss, of the University of Maine, and his coworkers
> argue.
>
> Now Peru's coast is strongly affected by El Niño events, which bring
> torrential rainfall. Such floods would not have occurred before 5,800 years
> ago. That's when El Niño events started, Sandweiss' team point out.
>
> The coincidence of the onset of El Niño with the building of the first
> temples implies that wetter episodes might have made agriculture possible,
> and so helped to nurture a civilization.
>
> Yet the shells of temperature-sensitive molluscs in coastal marine sediments
> imply that El Niño may also have had a destructive side. These shells record
> that the frequency of El Niño events increased roughly 3,200 years ago.
>
> A bit of rain is a good thing. But too much of it, it seems, placed a fatal
> stress on the temple-building civilization, which, as archaeological
> evidence bears out, was literally washed away.
>
> Indeed, the youngest temple, at Manchay Bajo, which was occupied until 2,800
> years ago, was protected by a wall built to redirect water and mudslides
> from two ravines that otherwise would have disgorged their contents onto it.
>
> Climate-related rise and fall of civilizations has been seen elsewhere. In
> 1993, Harvey Weiss, of Yale University, and his colleagues claimed that
> abrupt climate change about 4, 200 years ago caused a prolonged drought in
> the Middle East, affecting civilizations from the Aegean Sea to the Indus
> River and leading to the collapse of the Akkadian Empire in the Euphrates
> valley.
>
> for more see: http://www.nature.com/nsu/010628/010628-5.html
>
> see also:
>
> Lessons From Mesopotamia, Egypt, and the Maya: Abrupt Climate Change Can
> Cause Societal Collapse.
> (1/26/2001)
> American scientists warned on Friday of "unprecedented social disruptions"
> that could result from global warming, after linking the collapse of
> societies throughout history to climate change. There is "mounting evidence"
> that the demise of some civilisations was climate-driven, report Prof.
> Harvey Weiss of Yale University and Prof. Raymond Bradley of the University
> of Massachusetts, Amherst.
>
> Scientists are now able to link the rise and fall of societies recorded in
> the archaeological record with evidence of the timing and magnitude of
> climate change held in ice cores, corals and sediments. "We find a very
> precise coincidence between the abrupt climate changes and the
> archaeological record of collapse," says Prof. Weiss.
>
> Studies of ancient coral reefs in New Guinea show that the climate
> phenomenon El Nino, which disrupts rainfall patterns worldwide, is more
> intense these days than at any time in the past 130,000 years - possibly as
> a result of global warming.
>
> Sediments from Lake Titicaca, which straddles the border between Bolivia and
> Peru, reveal that South America has endured alternating periods of heavy
> rainfall and severe drought over the past 25,000 years. Societies from the
> Classic Maya of the New World to the prehistoric hunting and gathering
> Natufians of south-west Asia were drastically affected by sudden, prolonged
> and intense temperature and rainfall changes which disrupted agriculture.
>
> "These events were abrupt, involved conditions unfamiliar to the inhabitants
> of the time, and persisted for decades to centuries," say the professors in
> the journal Science. "They were therefore highly disruptive, leading to
> societal collapse."
>
> The demise of the Classic Maya society in the 9th century AD coincided with
> the most prolonged and severe drought of the millennium. The
> pyramid-constructing Old Kingdom of Egypt, the Akkadian empire of
> Mesopotamia, and Early Bronze civilisations of Palestine, Greece and Crete
> all peaked in 2300 BC, then declined when catastrophic drought and cooling
> struck a decade or so later. The Late Uruk society that flourished in
> southern Mesopotamia in 3500 BC collapsed between 3200 and 3000 BC, again
> due to drought.
>
> The professors suggest that modern societies, faced with prospects of global
> warming, may not be immune to social disruptions triggered by abrupt climate
> change. In spite of technological change, most of the world's people will
> continue to be subsistence or small-scale market farmers, vulnerable to
> climate fluctuations. But unlike ancient societies, who could migrate to
> where cultivation of crops was possible, the world is now too crowded for
> such migrations.
>
> "We do, however, have distinct advantages over societies in the past because
> we can anticipate the future using computers," say the authors.
>
> more at:
> http://www.eces.org/articles/static/98048880029007.shtml
>
>
>