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Is Modern Civilization Fragile?
Reason ^ | June 9, 2006 | Ronald Bailey

Posted on 06/10/2006 6:43:49 PM PDT by RWR8189

Caltech—Our ancestors made themselves and us more vulnerable to the vagaries of nature and the weather once they switched from hunting and gathering to farming. So says Brian Fagan, emeritus professor of anthropology from University of California at Santa Barbara, who spoke on the impact of climate change on ancient societies at the Environmental Wars conference of the Skeptics Society last weekend. Fagan's chief claim is that Farming in this case stands for the advent of more complex and interconnected societies. Fagan argues that nimble hunter/gatherers could respond to environmental changes faster than farmers and urbanites who are tied to their land and their cities.

Fagan began his talk by describing his sojourn as a young man in a village of subsistence farmers in the Zambezi Valley in Africa. These farmers lived on the edge. In September and October, the farmers cleared and burnt the land in preparation for planting. Once the land was ready, they waited for the rain and when it came they hurried to plant their crops. The year Fagan lived in that village, the rain failed after the crops were planted and the village granaries emptied and the villagers suffered starvation. He noted in passing that he did not have any trouble getting food. "I have never forgotten what I learned about vulnerability," declared Fagan.

Fagan posits that human societies increased their vulnerability to natural catastrophes over the past 10,000 years (evidently more fully described in his book, The Long Summer: How climate changed civilization). Thus, climate change is responsible for humanity's shift to farming. Farming, according to Fagan, began in the Fertile Crescent after temperatures plunged during a global cold snap known as the Younger Dryas period. People living off abundant forests of pistachio nut trees and other plant foods had actually settled into permanent villages. As temperatures fell, the forest began to disappear and Neolithic people could no longer depend on its bounty. But instead of moving on, people in the area began the deliberate cultivation of wild plants; in other words, they became farmers. Fagan argues that farming led to "radically enhanced vulnerability," even though the new economy "spread like wildfire" and dominated the region by 8000 BC.

Fagan turns next to ancient Egypt where the Pharaonic system was established on the basis of abundant grain harvests. The Pharaohs claimed authority based on their ability to intercede with the gods to supply the annual Nile River floods that nourished Egypt's bountiful grain fields. Fagan notes that a good flood was a mere nine feet. However, a 60 year period of gradual drying began around 2180 BC as an El Nino drought struck the Ethiopian headwaters of the Nile. In fact the river became so dry that people could walk across it. In the face of these grain shortages, Egypt fell apart and local warlords seized control. It took 100 years for Egypt to reunify and later Pharaohs massively invested in irrigation and grain storage in order to avoid the fate of their improvident predecessors.

Fagan then considers the rise and fall of the Moche on the north coast of Peru between 200 and 600 AD. Northern Peru is one of the driest areas on earth, but the Moche thrived by settling in river valleys that laced the region. These irrigation societies were headed by a caste of warrior priests who were treated by their people as infallible gods, according to Fagan. However, around 600 AD a major earthquake wiped out the Moche's irrigation systems. After the earthquake an intense El Nino drought finished off the Moche, and the culture's rigid, inflexible leaders were overthrown.

Fagan's final dolorous example of human vulnerability to climatic events is Europe in the year 1315. Medieval life was set by the passage of seasons and never seemed to change. Ninety percent of Europeans lived from one harvest to the next. The only noises heard in this bucolic world were those made by the wind, birds, and church bells. Then one day it started to rain and rain and rain. The fields turned to mud and marginal soils washed away. By Christmas people were hungry. The stormy period lasted for seven years and by 1321 one and half million Europeans had died of starvation.

Fagan argues that modern human societies are as vulnerable as the earlier ones. But is that so? Let's go back to his account of the invention of agriculture. What happened is that our ancestors exchanged one set of vulnerabilities for another when they switched from gathering wild nuts and berries to farming.

Of course, there are always tradeoffs. Some archaeologists argue that early farmers were in general less healthy than their hunter/gatherer ancestors resulting lower life expectancies. They claim that farmers suffered more epidemic diseases from living in close quarters with others and that their limited grain-based diets fostered malnutrition. However, these claims are disputed, and in any case, even if ancient farmers experienced lower life expectancies than hunter/gatherers, they must have also experienced higher fertility rates because human populations began to grow after the invention of agriculture.

Farming produced storable food surpluses that freed some portion of the population from having to spend every day all day scrounging for their subsistence. True, many of these people wasted a lot of effort on religious mumbo jumbo, but some spent their time inventing pottery, writing, weaving, metal working and so forth. Rather than increasing vulnerability these new arts and technologies helped make people more resilient rather than more vulnerable. On balance, the switch made humanity less vulnerable to the vagaries of nature. Farming increased the security of food supplies, and allowed the creation of larger scale societies in which people could trade surpluses. Dynasties and even cultures pass into history, but farmers and farming remain.

As evidence of our increased modern vulnerability to nature's whims, Fagan cites the devastation of Hurricane Katrina. Katrina proves many things—among them, don't trust governments to build levees or organize effective emergency responses—but does it demonstrat increased overall vulnerability? Hardly. Katrina killed more than 1,800 people (there are hundreds more still missing), destroyed billions of dollars of property, and disrupted energy supplies, yet the American economy shrugged off the blow and continued to expand. Our elaborate globe-spanning networks of energy supplies, computers and trade actually buffer us against the effects of natural disasters.

Look back at Fagan's experience living in a village in the Zambezi Valley, where the anthropologist actually missed the lesson he should have learned. Recall that Fagan said that he never lacked for food. Didn't he ask himself: Why are the villagers starving while I'm not? Unlike the Zambezi villagers, Fagan had access to the outside modern world that could supply him Nestle chocolate, canned Spam, rolled oatmeal, powdered milk and whatever else he needed. He was less vulnerable to starvation because he did not depend on the rains falling at a specific time in a specific place.

The good news is that when the rains fail in southern Africa today, the villagers have greater access food and other supplies from across the globe—much as Fagan had five decades ago. For example, four years ago, when famine threatened (due to drought and unbelievably stupid government policies) grain was rushed to Zambia and Zimbabwe and starvation mostly averted. It is very unlikely that droughts or floods will devastate every agricultural region across the globe all at once. Mother Nature can still be a bitch, but Fagan is simply wrong when he claims that modern societies are more and more vulnerable to her caprices. Our interconnected and globalized world provides more and more of humanity with radically enhanced security rather than increased vulnerability.alt

Ronald Bailey is Reason's science correspondent. His book Liberation Biology: The Scientific and Moral Case for the Biotech Revolution is now available from Prometheus Books.


TOPICS: Culture/Society; Editorial; Government; News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: civilization; climatechange; environment; godsgravesglyphs; security; thewest; west; westernciv
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To: BenLurkin
LOL. I'm presently watching The Little Ice Age on The History Channel and Brian Fagan is one of the people featured on the program.
21 posted on 06/10/2006 7:28:55 PM PDT by blam
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To: JimSEA
"We can return to be hunter/gatherers if we will accept high infant mortality, short life spans, and the loss of ten thousand years of accumulated knowledge."

Only if the population is reduced by about 95%.

22 posted on 06/10/2006 7:31:23 PM PDT by blam
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To: Donald Meaker
"New Orleans is still there! "

With less than half of the original population and many of them are 'living' very close to the edge, even now.

23 posted on 06/10/2006 7:35:42 PM PDT by blam
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To: strategofr
Yea we have great immunity against: AIDS, Hanta Viruii, TB, Small Pox...glad you brought it up...besides them we now have new things popping up...morphing viruses like the avian flu...which leads one to ask...which came first the disease or the immunity to it?

Actually the first worlders OVER USE of antibiotics, (for example in laundry, dish and body soaps)it is actually weakening our immune systems while disease continues to morph and spread among third worlders to only become a strain that the first worlders have to re-address...

24 posted on 06/10/2006 7:37:42 PM PDT by antivenom (If you're not living on the edge, you're taking up too much damn space!)
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To: antivenom
"Just finished reading "Collapse" by Jared Diamond...I find this type of history fascinating...thanks for the post."

Jared has some interesting ideas in 'Collapse', however, he's a bit to PC for me.

25 posted on 06/10/2006 7:38:20 PM PDT by blam
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To: cripplecreek
Take away the food in a city like LA for a week
and it becomes a Snake Pliskin movie in a hurry.

LOL! I hope I live long enough to see the Great Wall of New York constructed.

26 posted on 06/10/2006 7:39:24 PM PDT by trickyricky
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To: cripplecreek
I think urban civilization is very fragile. Take away the food in a city like LA for a week and it becomes a Snake Pliskin movie in a hurry.

Government, at any level, is incapable of handling any disaster involving more than a few thousand people. Or at least, not handling it before much harm is done.

Katrina convinced me. I used to have this simple bailout bag:

bag1.JPG

Now I've included this backpack with some additional tools (made possible by changing from a hunter/gatherer society to a farmer/factory worker society):

number2.JPG

The main addition to my survival kit should let me reach out 250 yards further than your average gangbanger with his average AK47.

number1.JPG

27 posted on 06/10/2006 7:42:29 PM PDT by 300winmag (Overkill never fails)
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To: antivenom
Actually the first worlders OVER USE of antibiotics, (for example in laundry, dish and body soaps)it is actually weakening our immune systems while disease continues to morph and spread among third worlders to only become a strain that the first worlders have to re-address...

rememberh earing back in the 1970's when I was a kid to where one day, we will run into a roadbock in fighting anti-biotic resistant bacteria because of our overuse of anti-biotics, even at that time. I know myself, I ended up hospitalized three years ago because I got my left hand cut open on the pinky side only to get it infected with strep. I was in hospital for five days including surgery to clean out my hand before the infection got to the bone. Had it gotten to the bone, I might have lost part or all my hand. Luckily it was successful although I have a huge scar left over, nerve damage to where it is numb on the pinky side (feels awkward but everything works OK) and when rain/snow comes, my hand starts to stiffen up and/or ache. My aunt had a similar case with her foot as a result of a cortisone shot where she had a staph infection, she almost lost her foot. I remember in my case, they had to use a special anti-biotic on IV, I was hooked on it for 24/7, it was a pain in the butt getting around lugging an IV tree with me when I was in hospital to therapy and such. After I got out, I had to take anti-biotic pills for month or so.

Dunno what we would do if we start losing the anti-biotic war, maybe go back to sulfa drugs maybe, which were used for infection prior to anti-biotics.
28 posted on 06/10/2006 7:46:21 PM PDT by Nowhere Man (Go Team Venture!)
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To: blam; strategofr; pierrem15

I think I will keep my water buffalo, plow, seeds and books (along with 95% of my neighbors - as irritating as they frequently are). The author of this piece can take Noam Chomsky and gather nuts to their hearts content.


29 posted on 06/10/2006 7:47:11 PM PDT by JimSEA (America cannot have an exit strategy from the world.)
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To: BenLurkin; blam; FairOpinion; StayAt HomeMother; Ernest_at_the_Beach; 24Karet; 3AngelaD; ...
Thanks BenLurkin!

To all -- please ping me to other topics which are appropriate for the GGG list. Thanks.
Please FREEPMAIL me if you want on or off the
Gods, Graves, Glyphs PING list or GGG weekly digest
-- Archaeology/Anthropology/Ancient Cultures/Artifacts/Antiquities, etc.
Gods, Graves, Glyphs (alpha order)

30 posted on 06/10/2006 7:48:16 PM PDT by SunkenCiv (All Moslems everywhere advocate murder, including mass murder, and they do it all the time.)
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To: antivenom
Actually the first worlders OVER USE of antibiotics, (for example in laundry, dish and body soaps) it is actually weakening our immune systems ...

You are 100% correct.

31 posted on 06/10/2006 7:48:19 PM PDT by annie laurie (All that is gold does not glitter, not all those who wander are lost)
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Catastrophism

32 posted on 06/10/2006 7:49:34 PM PDT by SunkenCiv (All Moslems everywhere advocate murder, including mass murder, and they do it all the time.)
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To: blam

As we are now in hurrican season again, it is interesting to try to imagine what it must have been like to be set upon by a hurricane unannounced.


33 posted on 06/10/2006 7:51:47 PM PDT by ClaireSolt (.)
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To: JimSEA
"I think I will keep my water buffalo, plow, seeds and books (along with 95% of my neighbors - as irritating as they frequently are). The author of this piece can take Noam Chomsky and gather nuts to their hearts content."

Yup. Me too.

34 posted on 06/10/2006 7:52:23 PM PDT by blam
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To: wintertime; cripplecreek
Wintertime, you're dead on. And here's a big factor:

5 A morally sound populace with the goodwill to cooperate with each other and a commitment to make it work.

Cripplecreek is right, if you cut off the food from L.A. it would look like a Snake Pliskin movie in a week...but consider that the people who make the food would never want to starve a city. That's why famine is a way of life in Africa and pretty much unknown in the West.

35 posted on 06/10/2006 7:56:04 PM PDT by Mr. Silverback (Try Jesus--If you don't like Him, satan will always take you back.)
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To: blam

Yes I think the population of the world was only about 10 million before agriculture.


36 posted on 06/10/2006 7:56:16 PM PDT by Daralundy
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To: JimSEA
We can return to be hunter/gatherers if we will accept high infant mortality, short life spans, and the loss of ten thousand years of accumulated knowledge.

Bingo.

37 posted on 06/10/2006 7:59:29 PM PDT by Mr. Silverback (Try Jesus--If you don't like Him, satan will always take you back.)
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To: RWR8189
Our ancestors made themselves and us more vulnerable to the vagaries of nature and the weather once they switched from hunting and gathering to farming.

THIS is news?

Anyone with two brain cells knew that. Seesh, with experts like this we're doomed.

38 posted on 06/10/2006 7:59:55 PM PDT by Balding_Eagle (God has blessed Republicans with really stupid enemies.)
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To: Mr. Silverback

The cities would fast become a source of labor for growing crops. It's not a big deal for us to grow food for ourselves but if the cities need food they would have to supply huge ammounts of labor.


39 posted on 06/10/2006 8:02:15 PM PDT by cripplecreek (Never a minigun handy when you need one.)
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To: antivenom

Keep in mind when reading Diamond that he's one of these folks who doesn't believe Western civilization is special in any way. He really believes we got lucky and hit the right resources, and that our values had nothing to do with our rise. A silly premise.


40 posted on 06/10/2006 8:05:20 PM PDT by Mr. Silverback (Try Jesus--If you don't like Him, satan will always take you back.)
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