Climate lessons learned from ‘The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire’

OPINION:

With the growing fear that the United States may be entering a period of decline, as part of my effort to better understand our current situation, I recently expressed a desire to read Edward Gibbon’s “The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire.” My daughters apparently heard me and for my last birthday, they kindly gave me a set of Mr. Gibbon’s lengthy work.

I have now begun to absorb the intricate text of the massive six-volume history written in the 1770s. Reading “The Decline and Fall” is a daunting enterprise and, after several weeks of diligent reading, I am through only the first of the six volumes. Yet, in spite of my slow progress, I am already finding some gems in Mr. Gibbon’s text, including unexpected observations only distantly unrelated to the actual demise of the Roman Empire.

In one of the early chapters of the first volume, Mr. Gibbon analyzes the development of the northern European Germanic tribes that would become violent and would ultimately contribute to the destruction of Rome. He delves into the history of those tribes and speculates as to why they became such a threat to Rome and were ultimately able to prevail over the then-preponderant power in the world.

In describing the role of those tribes and of the growing threat they posed to the Roman Empire, Mr. Gibbon makes reference to “some ingenious writers.” He ascribes to those writers the belief that in the early years of the Roman Empire, northern Europe “was much colder formerly than it is at present” and that the cold weather of earlier times made the northern tribes physically stronger and better able to fight against Romans who were unaccustomed to the cold while they sought to defend the northern borders of their vast empire. As the Romans challenged the Germans, they faced an enemy particularly accustomed to cold weather and undaunted by it while they, the Romans, who came from a much warmer area, had great difficulty in fighting in a climate colder than their own.

Mr. Gibbon then goes on to add some details about the evolution of the climate, noting that “the most ancient descriptions of the climate of Germany tend exceedingly to confirm the theory.” In other words, Mr. Gibbon is documenting what he perceives to be a steady warming of northern Europe that, it must be agreed, long antedated industrialization and today’s vast reliance on fossil fuels.

Mr. Gibbon’s description seems enlightening. It suggests that global warming is not a recent phenomenon, but may have taken place periodically, and certainly centuries ago, even millennia ago. Although Mr. Gibbon’s work is hardly a scientific treatise, minimally, Mr. Gibbon’s observations suggest questions that could challenge contemporary conventional wisdom and currently accepted scientific “facts.”

Until just a few centuries ago, world population, including European population, was a mere fraction of what it is today. The inhabitants of the world, including those of Europe, largely depended upon wood as their principal source of fuel. Beyond that material, they had very few alternatives, and fossil fuels were mostly beyond their ability to extract.  And yet, if Mr. Gibbon’s sources are to be believed (and they are assuredly not cited by Mr. Gibbon for the purpose of rebutting any contemporary theories), then a very consequential global warming occurred well before any fossil fuels could have impacted the globe.

Even cursory research into the history of Europe tends to suggest that the continent has experienced frequent and sometimes dramatic changes in its climate over the course of recorded history. There are indications that by the fourth-century progression of temperature had reversed and temperatures had begun to fall, perhaps contributing to the fall of the Roman Empire and leading to the Dark Ages. Later, the Renaissance was likely partially the result of a warming of the climate that made farming easier and thereby increased wealth. That greater wealth permitted people to focus on enhancements to life rather than mere subsistence thereby helping to give us the scholarship and arts of that era.

There are also indications that, at various times, Europe experienced significant cooling and very turbulent weather. That less felicitous change made life more difficult and tended to set back human progress. Notably, in the mid-18th century, there are indications that reductions in temperature resulted in lower outputs of farm produce with more generalized poverty. It has often been noted that one of the factors that caused the French Revolution was the violence of the weather in the years immediately preceding that event.

Thus, based upon a simple awareness of history, we can understand that certain natural phenomena that appear unique to us and seem so dire, may actually be part of a pattern that likely is an ordinary function of nature itself.

In describing the circumstances that ultimately led to the demise of the greatest power the world had known to that time, Mr. Gibbon provides some significant insights into one of today’s most important issues. He reminds us of the power of nature, but also of the dynamics of climate evolution. He subtly issues a warning to us, alerting us not to be too hasty in making judgments about current global warming.

Perhaps, instead of jetting to Sharm el-Sheikh to the COP 27 climate change conference in their polluting private jets, world leaders and important personalities would do better to stay home and join me in reading Mr. Gibbon’s lengthy opus.

• Gerard Leval is a partner in the Washington office of a national law firm. He is the author of “Lobbying for Equality, Jacques Godard and the Struggle for Jewish Civil Rights During the French Revolution,” published earlier this year by HUC Press.