HKU Bulletin November 2005 (Vol. 7 No. 1)

“Global temperatures are expected to rise faster and faster in the foreseeable future and the impact of this will be fairly unpredictable because both natural and anthropogenic forces will be involved,” said Lee. “In spite of technological advances, most of the world’s population still relies on small-scale agriculture, which is just as vulnerable to climatic fluctuations as the historical societies studied here. “Furthermore, in an increasingly populated world, habitat- tracking as an adaptive response will no longer be an option. “In the last century, subject to the speedy advancement of industry, people have often overestimated their power to rule over the nature. One related phenomenon has been the dominance of humanism in the fields of war studies, social sciences, and history in the last few decades. “However, history itself tells us that the vicissitudes of nature have very much dictated at the macro-scale the fluctuating fortunes of human societies, adding a new dimension to the study of Darwinism. And he added: “Even if food supply problems don’t arise in highly developed societies, the shortage of other essential resources due to climatic change, such as fresh water, land, energy and minerals, plus the endless demands for a higher standard of living, could very likely trigger armed conflicts.” The team concluded that further research is needed to assess the possible conflicts that may occur as a response to underlying global warming, particularly at a time when the human population has reached such a dangerously high level in a world where resource supplies are stressed. According to Lee it is only by studying the impact of past climate changes on society that we can hope to be able to predict the future impact of global warming on human societies. The intention now is to expand the study to other parts of the world starting with Europe. 14 RESEARCH The Winters of Discontent A t a time when global warming and its repercussions is becoming a cause for concern for governments across the world, a team of University researchers has revealed the havoc wrought by climate change in China down the centuries. Based on the macro-scale study of the recorded wars in China between 850 and 1911, Associate Professor Dr David Zhang and his team, in the Department of Geography, found that climatic cooling may well be the underlying mechanism in driving the war and peace cycle in history. Their research establishes an important link between man and nature and suggests that in the past the climate has been very influential in shaping human history. When global cooling occurred between the Tang and Qing Dynasties the number of wars in China increased significantly, sometimes doubl ing in number, populations crashed and dynasties were overthrown. The team believes the reason for such chaos can be blamed on failing harvests and the subsequent lack of food. Many studies have attempted to assess the causes of war but none has tackled, scientifically, the relationship between armed conflicts and climatic change. By comparing high-resolution paleo-climatic reconstructions with war records the University team was able to prove the effects of climatic change on China’s past social stability. Researchers at the Nanjing Academy of Military Sciences have compiled a multi-volumed compendium of wars that occurred in China detailing the year of inception of each war, its type and its location. Using this important resource, together with the latest paleo- climatic reconstructions and other related historical records, the team found that populations expanded significantly during warm climatic phases when food was plentiful. But subsequent cold phases caused harvests to fail resulting in ecological stress on societies. This stressed relationship between man and nature led to more frequent wars between states, regions and tribes which often resulted in the collapse of dynasties and a further loss of human populations. The team also found that the association between climatic change and war inception varied from region to region. It is much closer, for example, in Central China than in the north and south. For almost half of the period studied China was controlled by northern nomadic tribes who moved freely to the south. Food was also transported north so that the socio-ecological stress in Northern China during cold phases could be alleviated. In Southern China, although climatic cooling may have been severe enough to affect cropping, non-staple foods were available to alleviate the problem. So social stability in the south was less sensitive to cooling. The situation in Central China, however, was somewhere between the two which made the area relatively vulnerable to the ecological stress engendered by climatic change. The l ivel ihood of China’s people was based mainly of agriculture which was very much dictated by the whims of nature. The yield during a cold phase could drop by 10 – 25 per cent due to a shortened growing season and more frost. “This would trigger famine and rebellions that would have a weakening effect on state power,” explained Harry Lee, a PhD student who collected the data, analysed it and wrote the report. “It is notable,” he said, “that rebellions were predominantly mobilized by peasants. The three highest peaks in the frequency of war were also three of the most notable peasant rebellions in China’s history – the Late Yuan, Late Ming, and Taiping.” A significant effect of the Taiping rebellion, in the 1850’s and 1860’s, was that the country’s population dropped dramatically from 440 million to 360 million in 15 years. This had a huge effect on the agrarian workforce forcing production down even further. The team’s research paper, entitled Climatic Change , Social Unrest and Dynastic Transition in Ancient China , was recently published in China’s most prestigious academic peer-reviewed journal Chinese Science Bulletin . Another research paper, entitled Climatic Change , Wars and Dynastic Cycles in China over the Last Millennium , has also been accepted by Climatic Change , one of the most influential academic peer-reviewed journals in the field. Traditional wisdom explains the fundamental causes of war as economic, political, ethnic and, more recently, environmental. But the team’s findings suggest a new interpretation of the relationship between man and nature and are perhaps an indication of the dire implications of the global warming. 15