313: Climate Apocalypse

This book by Geoffrey Parker examines the 'General Crisis' of the 17th century, a period marked by revolutions, droughts, famines, invasions, wars, and regicides that affected regions from England to Japan and from the Russian Empire to sub-Saharan Africa and the Americas. Parker uses firsthand accounts and scientific evidence to demonstrate the impact of climate change, particularly the 'Little Ice Age', on global societies. The changes in weather patterns, such as longer winters and cooler, wetter summers, disrupted growing seasons, leading to crop failures, famine, malnutrition, disease, and increased mortality. The book highlights how these environmental factors contributed to social unrest, wars, and revolutions, and discusses the contemporary implications of these historical events in the context of modern climate change.

In this book, Peter Frankopan delves into the intricate relationship between human history and environmental factors, spanning from the dawn of time to the present day. He discusses how climatic events, natural disasters, and human actions have interwoven to shape empires, civilizations, and the modern world. The book highlights the impact of environmental factors on historical events, such as the rise and fall of empires, and cautions about the current and future consequences of human actions on the climate. Frankopan's work is praised for its breadth, depth, and nuanced approach to environmental history[2][3][4].

Published in 1968, 'The Population Bomb' by Paul and Anne Ehrlich predicts catastrophic consequences, including mass starvation and environmental ruin, due to unchecked population growth. The book argues that immediate action is necessary to control population growth to prevent these dire outcomes. Although many of the Ehrlichs' predictions did not come to pass, the book significantly raised awareness about population and environmental issues and influenced public policy in the 1960s and 1970s. The authors emphasize the need for conscious regulation of human numbers and highlight the strain that growing populations place on the natural world[1][4][5].