4.2 kiloyear event

Template:DocumentInfobox The 4.2 Kiloyear Aridification Event

From B.T. Odhiambo's Anthropocene Dilemmas:

The Akkadian Empire, forged in violence by Sargon the Great and his sons, reigned supreme over the city-states of old Sumer. Enriched by trade with distant lands, fed by the plentiful wheat-fields of Mesopotamia, the empire bestrode the world with confidence and pride. Who could oppose the chosen of Anu and Enlil, the masters of the four corners of the world?

Then the weather changed.

The crops stopped growing. Trade collapsed. The empire fell, its capital forgotten.

The most likely culprit at the time of writing is the 4.2-kiloyear aridification event, the beginning of the Meghalayan age. A non-anthropogenic drought that may have lasted almost two centuries, causing many of the earliest civilizations around the planet to collapse.

This is where our ordinary understanding of time, measured on the small scales of human history, collides with the reality of deep time and our existence within a much bigger picture. We live on a changing planet in a changing universe. Climatic optimums are temporary, extinction is the norm.

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The Akkadians, like the more egalitarian inhabitants of the Indus Valley Civilization, could not understand why the rivers dried out and the rains stopped coming. Even if they could, they lacked the tools to do something about it. A few short millennia later, we are on the brink of having that understanding and those tools. What can we learn from the tragedies of the past?

Notes

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