The original climate crisis – how the little ice age devastated early modern Europe

Just as the UK was regaining its strength from the storms EuniceAnd Franklin, scientists of UN’s the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) released a landmark report warning of a future with spiralling weather extremes, fiercer storms, flash flooding and wildfires.

This isn’t the first time that Britain has experienced drastic climate change, however. By the 16th century, northern Europe had moved out of its medieval warm period. It was now in what is sometimes known as the little ice ages.

The average temperature in the British Isles has been increasing since the beginning of the 14th century. cooled by 2°CSimilar Anomalies across Europe. Much colder winters ensued. Rivers and coastal waters froze, bringing an end to trade and communications. Crops and livestock were ruined by downpours that spoiled harvests, causing widespread hunger and hardship.

The early modern climate crisis was just as political-embarrassing as the current one. There were rebellions and revolutions that led to wars and plagues. The witches accused of causing the weather were also made the scapegoats.

The Recent IPCC ReportFuture climate change is expected to have dire consequences for society, especially for the 3.6billion people living in poorer countries that are more vulnerable to the effects of climate change. Studying the impacts of the last climate crisis has on people can reveal a lot about our collective fate.

Fires on the Ice

Researchers have offered many explanations for Little Ice Age. Volcanic eruptionsTo the European destruction of indigenous societiesIn the Americas, this caused forests to reseed on abandoned farmland. Others have suggested the Minimum MaunderThis was the period between 1650-1715 when observed sunspots suddenly became scarce.

No matter what the cause, there are plenty of historical records that document the little-known ice age. London’s River Thames froze numerous times between 1400-1815. The frequency and severity of freezes increased from the early 17th through the early 18th centuries. People seized the opportunity to hold fairs on the river’s icy surface. The first fair was held in 1608, and there were many more. Notable frost fairsIn 1621, 1677, and 1684

During the “Great Frost” of 1608, people played football, wrestled, danced and skated on the Thames. A pamphlet was printed concerning the “Cold doings in London”. A little over a dozen more years later, during The frost of 1621The ice was so thick that teens could confidently burn a gallon of wine on the Thames. A woman asked her husband to immunize her on the frozen river.

The poet John Taylor wrote of that winter’s frost fair:

You might see spiced cakes or roasted pigs.

Beer, ale and tobacco.

Fires made from charcoals, sea-coals, and faggots

Playing and cozening at pidgeon hole:

One for two at the tables, cards, dice, or one for two.

There was also an unusual mixing of social classes at the frost-fairs. Between January and mid-February 1684, thousands of people from King Charles II and the royal family to the lowliest pauper ventured out to “Freezeland”, as one pamphleteer had christened it. The fair stretched for three miles from London Bridge up to Vauxhall. Many market stalls were established in search of making money and no ground rent to be paid.

There were many stalls selling delicious food and drink such as beer, wine, coffee, brandy, beef, pies, oysters, and gingerbread. Entertainment included skating, sledging, dancing, horse racing, bear baiting, and cock throwing. There were puppet plays, peep shows, and fire-eating, knife swallowing, and a lotto.

Behind this fantastic scene was upheaval, an early modern cost-of-living crisis. Taylor, a waterman who ran a river-taxi service across the Thames, saw his livelihoods go. Many of those selling at frost fairs were unemployed watermen. Fuel prices (predominantly) FirewoodAs heating demand soared, so did the ) And in Taylor’s “gnashing age of snow and ice”, the shivering poor begged the rich for charity.

Life for London’s poor and newly unemployed was increasingly desperate, with many lacking money to eat and keep warm. Similar scenes were seen across Europe. As Philip IV of Spain toured Catalonia’s barren fields, an associate observed that “Hunger is the greatest enemy”.

Contemporaries worried over the social implications. The “cryes and teares of the poore, who professe they are almost ready to famish”, wrote John Wildman in 1648, prompted fears that “a sudden confusion would follow”. King Charles II of England authorized the bishop of London in 1684 to collect money from the poor of London and its suburbs. He also donated a sum of money from the royal treasure.

Local parish relief (a mandatory tax on the wealthier residents in each parish to provide for their less fortunate neighbours) reduced hunger and saw England experience fewer deaths. France. Many died in the terrible winter 1684. Because the ground was too difficult to dig, burials were stopped. Trees split apart and some preachers interpreted the events as God’s punishment, for which the people must repent.

History offers lessons for us

400 years ago, climate change was not recognized by a global group of scientists like the IPCC. Natural philosophers, the scientists of the day did, however. Exchange ideasThe shifting climate forced them to consider economic and social shocks caused by temperature changes that were beyond their control.

People were quick to blame their neighbors for bad behavior, and superstitions led to retaliation. For example, women of low socioeconomic status were accused of witchcraft in communities devastated by crop failures.

Some lost their jobs, but made a virtue of it by finding new ways to make ends meet. There are also those who Adapted, notably Dutch navigators who exploited changing wind and weather patterns to establish new international trading routes in their “frigid golden age”.

Most were Less fortunate. As one historian Notes, the little ice age was experienced as “a sharp deterioration in the overall quality of life”.

The history of climate change has shown that it can have lasting consequences for civilisations for centuries. As now, solidarity is the best defense against the unknown.

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