ILMA Compoundings - April 2019 - 42

COUNSEL COMPOUND

Climate Change and the
Lessons of History
By Jeff Leiter

I

have written in this column several
times about the "swamp" in Washington, D.C., by referencing French
essayist Julien Benda's 1927 attack on
the intellectual corruption in Western
Europe that led to World War II. In La
Trahison des Clercs (the treason of the
clerks), Benda called out academics,
journalists, pundits, moralists and all
sorts of pontificators for abandoning
the rigors of sound science to advance
political causes and positions.
After the Democrats took control of
the House of Representatives in January, they created a Select Committee
on the Climate Crisis. While the panel
has no legislative mandate or subpoena
power, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi,
D-Calif., says it is needed to educate
the public about the impact of more
frequent extreme weather events and
to work with members, such as freshman Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez,
D.-N.Y., in promoting the "Green
New Deal" and other legislation to
address climate change.
As a policy "wonk," I tend to look at
the political process and how the U.S.
responds to violent hurricanes, devastating forest fires and record weather
events that are attributed to climate
change. If climate change is of our own
doing, then what actions must our
political leaders take after 2018 was the
fourth hottest on record with average
temperatures rising worldwide about
1.8 degrees Fahrenheit? Benda and his
warnings certainly come to mind.
Another way to examine the policy
debate over climate change is to
answer questions by examining history. I just finished (and recommend)
a fascinating book, Nature's Mutiny, by
Philipp Blom, that looks at the "Little

42

APRIL 2019

| COMPOUNDINGS | ILMA.ORG

Ice Age" that took place between
roughly 1570 and 1710, when the
temperatures in the Northern Hemisphere dropped 3.6 degrees Celsius.
Blom, a German historian, examined
what happened to European societies
when their baseline conditions that
were weather dependent changed and
affected everyone from aristocrats to
peasants.
Blom focuses in his book on the
agricultural crisis that started with
food shortages in the countrysides
across Europe and subsequently led
to food riots in the major cities, along
with social, cultural and political
changes that resulted. In addition to
the urban revolts, European countries
were at war with each other throughout this period. Vast numbers of
people died across Europe.
Education at that time was controlled by the church, so crop failures
and food shortages were blamed
on God punishing people for their
"human wickedness." Women were
the scapegoats, with tens of thousands
burned at the stake as "witches" as the
natural disasters continued. Some took
the biblical warnings and fled Europe
altogether, landing at places like
Plymouth Rock and Jamestown.
On the flip side, the agricultural
crisis led to innovation. "Gentlemen
scholars" came forward with proposals
to tackle the climate crisis. We now
refer to these individuals as botanists.
Innovation also became the seeds of
what became the Enlightenment and
the belief that rational thought could
lead to human improvement.
My key takeaways from Blom's book
are that climate has affected human

history throughout time, not just now,
and importantly that we should never
consider nature to be a solved problem.
In the current climate change debate,
there are numerous politicians warning
of apocalyptic changes from the warmer
temperatures, including higher seas, longer heat waves, more catastrophic storms
and increasing insect-borne diseases.
Crop failures and food shortages likely
will spare no one, they say.
While the argument continues over
whether the current climate change
is man-made, scientists still cannot
agree on whether the Little Ice Age
was caused by sunspots. So, while our
politicians will continue to disagree
on the causes of the current climate
change and extreme weather, it would
be foolish for our leaders to ignore the
past while trying to address the future.
While we cannot attribute everything
"new" today to climate change, the
lessons in Nature's Mutiny about crisis
removing biases and forcing innovation should not be lost, as we would
be negligent to ignore them.
One passage Blom wrote sticks
with me. He warns that "Democracy
was born out of ideas first broadly
debated during the Little Ice Age. It
could easily die or be hallowed out to
a mere façade during our own era of
climate change, as living conditions
for ordinary people become harsher
and the very rich take more power for
themselves."
Leiter serves as general
counsel to ILMA, representing
the Association since 1981.
He may be reached at
202-466-6502 or jleiter@bmalaw.net.
http://www.ILMA.ORG
ILMA Compoundings - April 2019

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of ILMA Compoundings - April 2019
