A Paradox From Climate Change Past

The Golden Age of the Dutch Republic spanned the harshest years the Little Ice Age.

Human history is rife with stories of environmental catastrophe and powerful civilizations felled by climate change — the Mayans, the Egyptians, the Sumerians. But while countless scholars have scoured the historical record to understand the risks of climate change, few have looked to the past for answers to how modern societies will need to adapt.

“Climate change causes crisis, and a generation of scientists and historians have now reconstructed that essential relationship,” said Georgetown University historian Dagomar Degroot. “But very, very few people have looked at stories of successful adaptation or resilience in the face of climate change, and I think those are the stories that we need more than anything right now.”

Degroot studies the Little Ice Age, a period of global cooling from around 1500 to 1850, during which temperatures dropped 0.6 degrees Celsius in the Northern Hemisphere. The Little Ice Age wreaked havoc across most of Europe, leading to mass starvation, war and social upheaval — but not in the Netherlands. The Golden Age of the Dutch Republic spanned the harshest years of the Little Ice Age.

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