The 500-Year History of Climate Concern

Jean-Baptiste Fressoz, a French historian of science & technology, shares how European societies grappled with climate change centuries before modern science proved the scale and breadth of its impact, revealing a forgotten saga where colonial ambitions and volcanic winters shaped our earliest understanding of Earth's shifting climate.

Grounding our discussion is his Fressoz’s 2024 book "Chaos in the Heavens: The Forgotten History of Climate Change," co-authored with Fabien Locher.

Episode title on podcast apps: The Forgotten Climate Debate

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Chapters:
00:00 Introduction
02:01 Historical Perspectives on Climate Change
03:13 Deforestation and Its Global Impact
03:53 Climate and Political Stability in Early Modern Societies
09:38 The Little Ice Age and Its Implications
11:29 The Orbis Spike Hypothesis
15:48 Colonial Narratives and Climate Change
25:35 Theories of Climate Zones and Human Impact
42:06 Impact of the Tambora Explosion on Climate
46:08 Early Scientific Research on Climate Change
49:32 Deep Time Perspective and Ice Age Discovery
54:35 French Environmentalism and Key Thinkers
01:02:17 Climate Regulation and Private Property
01:06:09 Shift from Climate to Microbiology and Sociology
01:12:51 Nuclear Scientists and Modern Climate Understanding
01:22:34 Final Thoughts

[itsureishotout-itshotterin]

Tremendous conversation. A line of study that I had never thought of or heard of - a good midweek mind expansion. It truly affects the way I think about the climate and mankind’s response to it. Some good depth added to my head.

[alib]

Love that you are talking about climate concerns, deforestation etc, while surrounded by your plants.

[stefanbernardknauf]

What a man, I think his knowlege and wisdom is at least as big and strong as his French accent. Thanks for the interview, very interesting!

[jasonneugebauer]

I think most people throughout all human history understood that if the plants and animals are removed or changed by people then the " Climate will be changed "

This is not a difficult theory to understand. I think modern people are very ignorant thinking that past people who lived on the land didn't understand the impacts of changing the environment on at least a local level.

I would say that ancient Chinese and other societys that studied the effects of human activities on the biome would often have had a decent understanding of the subject.

[jeffbenton]

I appreciate the discusion of "natural theology" in the second half. It's an under-appreciated part of the development of Western Thought.

[alib]

I just ordered his book, Chaos in the Heavens. Kindle for me, hard copy for brother-in-law. Hope to share a good conversation with him.

[ГеоргиКолев-шя]

Even the Sumerians were concerned about climate change of fertile farmlands

[shawnnoyes]

Jean-Baptiste Fressoz - "Why do you think he has that outrageous accent" LOL :)

[thomasgreene]

The real Green Revolution, which began after WWII and began to make significant strides in the 1960s and 1970s, was improvement in grain yields pioneered by people like Norman Borlaug. The widespread famines that routinely occurred in places like Africa and India no longer occur. Today, if there is famine, it is usually caused by war or dysfunctional national governments.

[WithCanadianVoices]

Volcanic winter starting 536 AD. Possibly 3 volcano eruptions.

[Theldgat]

The variability of food production has been in Civilization history for millenia. Remember the myth of Pharaohs dream of 7 fat cows followed by seven lean cows, . Remember the Goddess Ishtar going to her father asking for the celestial Bull to start her war on Gilgamesh. She had to insure her father that the Temple granaries were full to prevent the famines that would result in devastated farm lands.

[MrBallynally]

The irony of colonialism is that it produced deforestation, like in Ireland. Now, centuries later, the british LOVE their trees and the irish overall cut them. I took my wife's catholic mother for a drive. She pointed out protestant lands, very leafy. Btw, it is not just colonial times that produced mass cutting of trees. It also happened in the medieval warm period with forest clearing and new towns often with the name 'new' in it. And it is my understanding that the original inhabitants of Australia were responsible for a lot of tree cutting as well as animal slaughter. Before anyone calls me a bigot please provide counter arguments..

[stefanbernardknauf]

When saying we didn't have any hunger crisis in the last 20 years, you are forgetting the Ukraine crisis. OK, didn't turn into actual high death rates, but we shaved close to a major crisis there! And no, no chance we won't face dramatic hunger in the coming decades in my opinion. Unfortunately!

[DavidL-iiyn]

This seems to conflict with what is written in 1491 and 1493 where the the post-Columbian reforestation of the Americas is discussed. Deforestation would have been centuries later.

[rapauli]

Wake up historian -- the global heat of the last 3 years has NEVER ocurred in human history. You know that. We may as well regard our world today as totally new. Next year will likely set a record. And each month thereafter will set records. What good is your history except to say this is unprescendented and we need a totally new approach to survival ...

[MrVorpalsword]

"how European societies grappled with climate change centuries before modern science proved the scale and breadth of its impact, " sorry, they have 'proved its impact' have they, I didn't notice that?

[pascalbercker]

500 years might be a stretch. 200 years is more reasonable - and 120 years is absolutely certain. What does chatGPT say:

The idea that climate change has been a concern for 500 years is not accurate in the way we understand the term today. Awareness of climate-related changes in the past was different, primarily because modern concepts of "climate change" — driven by human activities such as fossil fuel burning — are rooted in 19th and 20th-century scientific discoveries. Here's a bit of a timeline to clarify:

### **1. Pre-modern Observations (500+ years ago)**
- **15th - 18th centuries**: Some European writings noted changes in weather patterns, but these were often attributed to natural or divine causes, not human influence. For example, during the **Little Ice Age** (1300-1850), colder temperatures in Europe and North America were noticed, affecting agriculture and leading to speculation about natural climate variability.

### **2. 19th Century: Early Scientific Ideas**
- **1824**: French physicist **Joseph Fourier** suggested that the Earth's atmosphere could trap heat like a greenhouse, laying the groundwork for understanding the greenhouse effect.
- **1856**: American scientist **Eunice Foote** demonstrated that carbon dioxide can absorb heat, indicating that increases in CO2 could potentially affect Earth's temperature.
- **1896**: Swedish chemist **Svante Arrhenius** first quantified the relationship between atmospheric CO2 levels and global temperatures, introducing the idea that burning fossil fuels could lead to warming.

### **3. 20th Century: Modern Climate Science**
- **1950s**: Studies by scientists like **Roger Revelle** and **Charles David Keeling** (who began monitoring atmospheric CO2) confirmed rising CO2 levels due to human activity.
- **1970s onward**: The term "global warming" entered popular discourse, and concern about anthropogenic climate change became more mainstream, leading to major international efforts like the formation of the **Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC)** in 1988.

### **Citations:**
- Joseph Fourier's early greenhouse effect theory is discussed in scientific history texts, such as **"The Discovery of Global Warming"** by Spencer Weart.
- Svante Arrhenius’s work on CO2 and temperature is detailed in many historical accounts of climate science, such as the book **"A Vast Machine"** by Paul N. Edwards.
- The Little Ice Age is explored in **"The Little Ice Age: How Climate Made History 1300-1850"** by Brian Fagan.

In summary, while there were observations of weather patterns changing over centuries, the understanding of **human-caused climate change** specifically began in the 19th century, not 500 years ago.

[dadsonworldwide]

This is such deep their They're There conversations but is really disheartening that it's still reneging resurfacing as many tie in loose generalizations get computed out it's making many go after our strong identifiers.
So many just got hurt over monastic vows 200k yr unbroken linage rationing math evidence of haplo groups faster mutation rate that desputed those miss aligned beliefs. Gradualistic evolutioniat went from opposing all code of life measure phenotypic epigenetic to thinking they would by pass all we know and create one size fits all gene therapeutic Treatment by hi jacking credibility from a proven method of vaccination that honers different & separated measurements defined by objects, interaction, substate.
Or.1 for=eign enVIRALmental injection 2 thru = interactions between cells 3 by = stimulated code of immunity = vaccinated 1 bad boost 2 good simulation ..
Obviously specific targeting of gend therapy must account for 1 dietary objects 2 regional conditions/ environmental interactions 3 ethnic substrate haplo groups mutation rate = Treatment can be in alignment will what even non experts knows to be true rinse repeat no matter ecosystem feedback loop.
Usa is such a mirrored thermodynamically moasic, by for thru = nicean creed everything is xyz manmade time hierarchy knowledge of good evil equations we send kids to kinder gardens, el = ementary school.
3 towns make county, 3 body gov of selfless actors can reach truest known standard.
Just like how we tuned all precision instruments .
Because even before 1776 it's designed experiment is very specifically tasked with future generations guns loaded with whatever nature permits. One day morphology is subject to change without further notice.
They know everything we know other than details steps by step specific technical data.
They know how hard ethics will be and cross reference