[InABunkerUnderSF]

The climate change observation was just a sidebar. Old Eddie was really blaming the fall of the Roman Empire on the rise of Christianity.

Gibbon, good 18th century disestablismentarian that he was, never figured out that what really did in the Roman Empire was illegal immigration. He points out that Septimius Severus abandoned the string of border forts call the Limes to save money and free up troops for his war in Mesopotamia but he never connects that fact to the large scale movement of people from Germany into Gaul. From then on the decline was irreversible.

[chesley]

Not to mention legal immigration in excess.

[gleeaikin]

What was a major factor in the failure of Rome was slave and serf based agriculture with absentee ownership. With a dedicated yoeman stock of landowners, the immigrants would have not been able to control the land.