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Our human history is of great violence and quiet times of foretfulness. It is important to see the past accuratley as harbngers of future times. Climate destruction falling unevenly on the earth will produce many mega tragedies. Toynbee in his Study of History writes:
In 639, for example, Elam was dealt such an annihilating blow that her derelict territory passed under the dominion of Persian highlanders from her eastern border and became the jumping-off ground from which the Achaemenidae made themselves masters of all South-Western Asia a century later. Immediately after Asshurbanipal’s death in 626, however, Babylonia revolted once again, under the leadership of Nabopolassar, who found in the new kingdom of Media a more potent ally than Elam; and within sixteen years Assyria was wiped off the face of the map.
It is hard to imagine such events then but even harder now despite our being vaguely aware of the numbers of lives brutally vaporized by the flow of force on the 20th century. What should we imagine about resource and climate wars in the ever nearer future? If we come to understand accurately what 8 bilioin anxious people in motion will be doing perhaps it will nudges us to do more. Does any government have a problem solving approach adequate to the problem?