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Two scientists have linked climate variations to the collapse of societies around the globe. Sometimes slight, sometimes intense, the scientists argue in last months <i>Science</i>that the changes were enough to forever<br>alter the lifestyles of the people living under changed conditions. This is a news story brought to you by nationalgeographic.com and the National Geographic Society."><!--- Copyright: (c) 2001 National Geographic Society URL: Minor<img src="//news/2001/01/images/0101millennium.jpg" height="308" width="245" border="0" alt="">Summary Two scientists have linked climate variations to the collapse of societies around the globe. Sometimes slight, sometimes intense, the scientists argue in last months <i>Science</i>that the changes were enough to forever<br>alter the lifestyles of the people living under changed conditions. 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Sometimes slight, sometimes intense, the scientists argue in a recent issue of the journal <i>Science</i> that the changes were enough to forever alter the lifestyles of the people living under changed conditions.<br><br><b>A Culture Killer</b><br><br>An article in a 1995 issue of <i>Nature</i> pointed to drought as one cause of the demise of the Maya civilization. Its writers argued that internal factors, including population growth and environmental degradation, worked with climate change and led to the Maya collapse.<!--- deckend ---> <p> </div> </td> <!-- ########### Gutter --> <td bgcolor="#ffffff" background="/web/20021025065715im_/http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2001/02/0227_climate4.html" width="5%" valign="top"><img src="/web/20021025065715im_/http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/images/global/space_trans.gif" suppress="true" alt="" width="20" height="1" border="0"> </td> <!-- ########### Photo, 180px wide maximum --> <td bgcolor="#ffffff" background="/web/20021025065715im_/http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2001/02/0227_climate4.html" width="182" valign="top"> <!--- major.html ---><img src="/web/20021025065715im_/http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2001/02/climate40227.jpg" height="237" width="180" border="0" alt="Mayan temple"> <div align="right"> <p class="cutline">This crumbling Mayan temple, long since abandoned, is in the Lacandón rain forest of Guatemala. Scientists believe that climate change might be one of the causes leading to the collapse of the Mayan civilization.<br><br><br><br> <i>Photography by Otis Imboden/NGS</i><br> </div> <!--- end major.html ---><img src="/web/20021025065715im_/http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/images/global/space_trans.gif" suppress="true" width="180" height="1" border="0" alt=""> </td> <!-- ########### Gutter --> <td background="/web/20021025065715im_/http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2001/02/0227_climate4.html" width="3%" valign="bottom" bgcolor="#ffffff"><img src="/web/20021025065715im_/http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/images/global/space_trans.gif" suppress="true" alt="" width="10" height="1" border="0"> </td> <!-- ########### Right Margin --> <td background="/web/20021025065715im_/http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/images/backgrounds/nav_left.gif" width="14" valign="bottom" bgcolor="#006666"><img src="/web/20021025065715im_/http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/images/global/space_trans.gif" suppress="true" alt="" width="14" height="1" border="0"> </td> </tr> </table> <!-- ########### STORY BOTTOM TABLE --> <table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" width="100%"> <tr> <!-- ########### Left Margin --> <td bgcolor="#336666" width="12" valign="bottom" background="/web/20021025065715im_/http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/images/backgrounds/nav_left.gif"><img src="/web/20021025065715im_/http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/images/global/space_trans.gif" suppress="true" width="12" height="1" border="0" alt=""> </td> <!-- ########### Left Navigation Table. 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href="/web/20021025065715/http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/outthere.html">National Geographic Out There</a><br><br> <a href="/web/20021025065715/http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/volvonews.html">Volvo Ocean Race</a><br><br> <a href="/web/20021025065715/http://news.nationalgeographic.com/aig.html">Mount Everest Expedition</a><br><br> <img src="/web/20021025065715im_/http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/images/global/space_trans.gif" suppress="true" alt="" width="130" height="7" border="0"><br> <!--<a href="/news/kids.html">Kid's News</a><br> <img src="/news/images/global/space_trans.gif" suppress="true" alt="" width="130" height="16" border="0">--><br> <!-- <a href="(Empty Reference!)"><b>Complete Archive</b></a> --> </p> <img src="/web/20021025065715im_/http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/images/global/space_trans.gif" suppress="true" width="130" height="1" border="0" alt=""> </td> <!-- ########### Gutter --> <td background="/web/20021025065715im_/http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/images/backgrounds/nav_right.gif" width="4%" valign="bottom" bgcolor="#ffffff"><img src="/web/20021025065715im_/http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/images/global/space_trans.gif" suppress="true" alt="" width="25" height="1" border="0"> </td> <!-- ########### Story Main Body. Main text in plain <p>s, crossheads in plain s. --> <td background="/web/20021025065715im_/http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2001/02/0227_climate4.html" valign="top" bgcolor="#ffffff" width="70%"> <div class="storybody"> <p>Last month's <i>Science</i> article, coauthored by Harvey Weiss of Yale University and Raymond Bradley of the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, explored other prehistoric, ancient, and premodern societies, and found natural climatic variations often corresponded with the societies' collapse.<br><br>In Mesopotamia, a canal-supported agricultural society collapsed about 3,400 years ago. The paleoclimatic record, write the authors, suggest a severe 200-year drought may have caused the society to collapse.<br><br>With wetter conditions, civilizations thrived in the Mediterranean, Egypt, and west Asia. Ten years after their economic peak in 2300 B.C., however, catastrophic drought and cooling hurt agricultural production and caused regional abandonment and collapse.<br><br> <b>Society at Risk</b><br><br>The worst case scenerio, said Will Burns of California's Pacific Institute for Studies in Development, Environment, and Security, is if the world does not make any changes in its activities—inaction that would cause an 11-degree temperature change. "That would have some pretty horrific implications," he said.<br><br>The scientists note that although some of the world's population—expected to reach up to 10 billion by 2050—lives in a different manner than past societies, most of the world's people live as subsistence or small-scale farmers.<br><br>Fluctuations in the weather, the scientists write, can have a dramatic impact on these agricultural societies. Like civilizations of the past, today's may be unable to cope with droughts or monsoons that hinder crop growth.<br><br>Thousands of years after the collapse of the societies profiled in the <i>Science</i> article, the authors note that an increased human population may cause coming climate changes to have a greater—and more dangerous—impact. Whereas past societies could have migrated to unaffected areas, the crowded Earth may hinder migration.<br><br>"We do, however, have distinct advantages over societies in the past because we can anticipate the future," the scientists write. "We must use this information to design strategies that minimize the impact of climate change on societies that are at greatest risk."<br><br> <p> </div> <!-- ########### End of Story text --><a name="related"> </a><!-- ########### Related Stories --> <table border="0" cellpadding="1" cellspacing="0" width="100%" bgcolor="black"> <tr> <td valign="middle" align="center" width="100%"> <table border="0" cellpadding="5" cellspacing="0" width="100%" bgcolor="#ffffff"> <tr> <!-- Yes, use the <font>tag here so it will appear on all browsers. --> <td bgcolor="#339999" valign="top"> <div class="inline" style="margin-top: -2px;"> <font color="white"> Related Stories</font> </div> </td> </tr> <tr> <td valign="top" background="/web/20021025065715im_/http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/images/backgrounds/shadow.gif"> <div class="boxed"> <p class="inline">•<a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20021025065715/http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2001/02/0220_climate3.html"> Bolivian Montane Yields Climate Change Clues </a> <i></i><br>•<a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20021025065715/http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2001/02/0212_climate2.html"> Soot Identified as Major Contributor to Global Warming </a> <i></i><br>•<a href="https://web.archive.org/web/20021025065715/http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2001/02/0206_climate1.html"> U.N. 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