William R Thompson - Climate Change in the Middle East and North Africa: 15,000 Years of Crises, Setbacks, and Adaptation

One of the more fascinating questions in Big History is why do people in some parts of the world essentially get ahead of others who reside in other parts. It is argued, for instance, that the number of large mammals suitable for exploiting for transportation and other work made a major difference in which regions developed early. So, too, does the potential for EastWest interaction patterns. Yet for every putative advantage there are also corresponding disadvantages. South America had few large mammals that could be exploited for much besides their wool. Sub-Saharan African interaction patterns tended to work from north to south. Change, as a consequence, moved very slowly through deserts, jungles, and long distances. India had and has access to large deposits of coal but lacks the appropriate climate that might have encouraged using coal extensively for heating purposes when that was an important prerequisite to innovating novel approaches to generating energy elsewhere in the world. Now that it is ready to use its fossil fuel inheritance, coal has gone out of fashion.

From this perspective of auditing pluses and minuses, what can we say about the rise and demise of the Middle East and North Africa (MENA)? After all, many of the initial breakthroughs to greater complexity in human affairs had their origins in southern Mesopotamia. Writing, urbanization, wheels, the secondary products revolution, large-scale irrigation projects, armies, states, empires to say nothing of beer (but not wine) all can be traced to Mesopotamia. For all of its precocities, Sumer and its predecessors and immediate successors no longer exist and have not been around for thousands of years. Its early lead may have owed a great deal to environmental variety (Algaze, 2008) but its Achilles heel has long been its environmental fragility. In the MENA, abrupt climate changes periodically set back the early leaders in greater complexity innovations. Ubaid, Uruk, and Akkad represent early peaks of innovation of different kinds. Ubaid traits spread throughout the immediate region. In the Uruk period, an extensive regional network was established to funnel resources back to southern Mesopotamia, making it possibly the first economic empire. Akkad constituted the first coercive empire buttressed by a standing army of 5,000 soldiers. Each movement toward greater complexity, however, was set back by climate change. Moreover, it turns out that this inherent fragility was not simply a southern Mesopotamian characteristic. It was and remains a liability characteristic of much of the MENA and one that has established significant parameters on what can be achieved and sustained in that part of the world. Contrary to what was mentioned earlier, South America no longer needs large mammals for transportation purposes. NorthSouth interaction patterns in Africa can be overcome by planes, trains, trucks, and shipping. Coal has turned out to be more of a bane than a cure for generating energy. Middle Eastern environmental fragility, however, persists and could lead to the region, or large portions of it, becoming virtually uninhabitable in the current bout of climate deterioration.