“May you live in interesting times,” goes the saying that is sometimes (wrongly) referred to as a traditional Chinese curse. Well, that is certainly where we are today. When it comes to threats and fears, it is a question of taking one’s pick about which is more serious and which more dangerous: do you choose Putin and the escalation of a ghastly war that has costs hundreds of thousands of lives, perhaps into a nuclear confrontation; or perhaps artificial intelligence is what keeps you awake at night, especially following recent engagements between journalists and chatbot became persistent to the point of obsessive. Maybe it’s the anxiety of another global pandemic, this far more lethal than Covid-19. Some or all of these may be part of the future.
But if you are worrying about risk, then environmental change is the thing to be thinking about most. Much attention is paid to global warming — and not surprisingly so: although Ireland was spared the brunt of the brutal summer that saw temperatures reach 47 degrees in Portugal and not far behind even in the UK, 2022 was still the warmest year on record, according to Met Éireann, which noted that Ireland is “warming in line” with global averages.
But this is only part of a much wider picture of how we are treating the natural environment. Chronic air pollution means that 8 per cent of mortalities can be attributed to particulate matter — tiny particles of dust, dirt and soot that are thrown up into the air by power plants, coal fires, forest fires or from the wear and tear of tyres on roads. In Southeast Asia, 99.9 per cent of the population lives in areas where air quality is below World Health Organisation guidelines; in fact, taking a global average, the impact of particulate pollution on life expectancy is three times greater than that of alcohol, six times that of HIV/Aids and almost 90 times that of conflict and terrorism.
Few know that as much as 930 million tons of food are wasted globally — the equivalent of 23 million fully loaded 40-ton trucks, which if lined up bumper to bumper would circle the earth seven times
Part of the reason for the extreme degradation of ecologies is our profound ignorance about how they are used and abused. Few would realise, for example, that a single pair of jeans requires 7,500 litres of water —enough drinking water, in other words, for someone for seven years. That becomes a problem if clothing is made in regions and countries that suffer from water stress. Few know that as much as 930 million tons of food are wasted globally — the equivalent of 23 million fully loaded 40-ton trucks, which if lined up bumper to bumper would circle the earth seven times. We do not consider whether the needs of high-density populations are sustainable even in a world where energy is plentiful and cheap, let alone one where supply is compromised and expensive.
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This would seem a particularly important time, in other words, to reflect on how we have got to the point where scientists are warning of a “cascading erosion of biodiversity” and “co-extinctions” affecting all levels of flora and fauna. As one recent report spelt things out bluntly: “The scale of the threats to the biosphere and all its lifeforms, including humanity, is in fact so great that it is difficult to grasp, even for well-informed experts.” That is enough to chill the blood.
There have, of course, been mass extinction events in history, five in fact, of which all life on earth today is ironically a beneficiary — as all life forms descend from species that survived these traumas. What is different about the “sixth mass extinction” is different to those that have gone before because this time it is not massive volcanic eruptions or asteroid strikes that led to the deaths of 90 per cent (or more) of all living things on earth as has been the case in the past; rather, an animal species is responsible — humans.
The existential challenges are such that as well as marking a good moment for a historian to reflect on how we have come to find ourselves in this precarious position, it is also important to do so — in order to think through what lies in store and how to prepare for the problems that will confront us, our children and our grandchildren.
Curiously, then, even the very earliest human histories were concerned with the dangers of environmental vulnerability
For my new book, The Earth Transformed, I take us back to the start of time to look at how history has been shaped by climate, by major climate events and by nature. The location of coal fields that powered the industrial revolution, for example, was formed from plant debris in the Carboniferous and early Permian period about 300 million years ago caused by a massive fall in atmospheric CO2 levels that led to large-scale loss of trees and other flora. Likewise, many of the world’s giant hydrocarbon deposits (oil and gas fields holding 500 million barrels or more), are located in a small number of locations that were determined by drops in sea level that led to animal and plant life dying and forming reservoirs that today fuel our cars, heat our homes and charge our phones.
Curiously, then, even the very earliest human histories were concerned with the dangers of environmental vulnerability. The story of Adam and Eve’s being expelled from the Garden of for eating from the forbidden tree is one of divine ecological punishment: from this point forth, in the scriptures that record this event and that are holy to Jews, Christians and Muslims, humans were condemned to a life of having to work lands that were difficult rather than plentiful, where drought, famine and flood were not constant worries. Indeed, another story that not only features in the Old Testament and the Koran, but also in the Atrahasis — an old Babylonian text dating back almost four thousand years, is that of “mortal men” being punished for their immoral behaviour and lack of respect for God (or the gods) and being wiped out as a result, save for a single man who had been warned in advance and commanded to built an ark.
These concerns can be found time and again in history, with the authority of rulers in China directly linked to having a “mandate from heaven”, with astronomers trying to predict the weather in the Middle East, or with human sacrifices in Central and South America being made to try to ensure benign weather conditions.
This deep reading of history, spanning all the continents allows us to look at history in a completely different light: we can see how the globalisation of plants, not least the potato, reduced conflict in Europe and China, spurred urbanisation but also brought catastrophe when human connections also enabled the spread of disease — in this case, blight, which spread from the Andes to Ireland at a horrific cost.
All this provides a rich canvas on which to paint a new picture of the past — and to do so in a way that allows us to understand how we have got to where we are in the 21st century
We can see how genetic mutations that formed resistance to malaria in West Africa was crucial in spurring the trans-Atlantic trade in people who were not “weaker” than their white “owners”, but the opposite: far more likely to survive infection. We can understand how the ideas of the Nazis about “purity” were not only racial but extended to concepts of nature and the supposedly idyllic German countryside.
All this provides a rich canvas on which to paint a new picture of the past — and to do so in a way that allows us to understand how we have got to where we are in the 21st century and to learn from the lessons from history about what happens when climates change, something that has happened on many occasions as a result of natural phenomena such as volcanic eruptions, solar activity or shifts in the El Niño —Southern Oscillation, the cycle of alternating warm El Niño and cold La Niña events that is the dominant year-to-year climate signal on Earth.
For many, history is about battles and revolutions, heroic acts or moments of deep tragedy. But all life on this planet is underpinned by natural and climatic contexts. Taking that as a starting point is a compelling way to write about the past; I hope too that it is an exhilarating, informative — and occasionally — sobering one to read about too.
- Peter Frankopan is Professor of Global History at Oxford University. His new book, The Earth Transformed: An Untold History, is published by Bloomsbury on March 2nd.
