SBS presentation: 'How Climate Made History'

What do the rise and fall of the Roman Empire, the Thirty Years’ War and the Renaissance have in common? For one, they were all starkly affected by extreme weather conditions.

This feature-length documentary combines natural sciences and history, including a journey from the Big Bang to Iceland’s volcanoes - to provide a gripping narrative that explores little-known connections between the Earth’s climate and major historical events. Are these extremes of weather really a 21st-century phenomenon? Or has climate determined the fate of humanity ever since amphibians took their first steps on terra firma?

Watch the SBS presentation – “How Climate Made History.”

(I watched this feature with a degree of apprehension as it appeared to be giving little more than oxygen to the arguments of the deniers in that it pointed out several times how climate change had unsettled and effectively destroyed civilizations throughout history.

However, in the closing minutes of the show, modern industrial society was considered and the voice-over said that we, “humanity”, was causing climate change of a dimension never before seen. It was argued that the disparate and disturbing weather events around the world were little more than a warning from nature that something was wrong, there is a serious imbalance in the earth’s climate systems, and we needed to take note – Robert McLean).