I like knowing the facts of a thing but I have to admit the story that Mongols killed enough people that it was noticeable in global temperatures is a really cool story. I imagine that won't go away for a long time.
The incredible story of the extinct birth control plant from the Romans is another cool story. I don't know how true that is, but killing a cool story is harder than spreading it.
I am really skeptic of the claim that the carbon emission effects are this dramatic, just caused by wars. There seems to be some merit to it considering the numerous articles making this claim, but I feel that the author(s) may have a conflated view to how much human populations, especially at that time, could have changed carbon levels. I'm not extremely familiar with the literature on human caused climate change, so I could be wrong. But I'd be much more curious of a volcanic eruption or massive wildfire somewhere that released high levels of green house gasses and cooled the planet. Thanks for sharing this analysis, Prateek!
There's actually an interesting topic on how a volcanic eruption may have caused the Mongol civil war, leading to the end of the united empire. I'll try to look more into it.
Whenever someone takes a hypothesis and calls it a theory and just runs with it, then a bunch of other people start assuming it's a fact, let's call this event "pulling a Joe Rogan."
I can't see any reason scholarly conversation can't happen across social media, except that the fact that the conversation is in the public domain means bad ideas can get just as much (or even more) attention as/than good ideas.
Indeed, and since this is a fairly niche topic with not that many scholars and pop historians lets say compared to Roman and Greek history, some libterties are taken even by credible orgs.
I like knowing the facts of a thing but I have to admit the story that Mongols killed enough people that it was noticeable in global temperatures is a really cool story. I imagine that won't go away for a long time.
The incredible story of the extinct birth control plant from the Romans is another cool story. I don't know how true that is, but killing a cool story is harder than spreading it.
Absolutely, like Genghis Khan being the ancestor of 16 million people or something, without any DNA testing.
I am really skeptic of the claim that the carbon emission effects are this dramatic, just caused by wars. There seems to be some merit to it considering the numerous articles making this claim, but I feel that the author(s) may have a conflated view to how much human populations, especially at that time, could have changed carbon levels. I'm not extremely familiar with the literature on human caused climate change, so I could be wrong. But I'd be much more curious of a volcanic eruption or massive wildfire somewhere that released high levels of green house gasses and cooled the planet. Thanks for sharing this analysis, Prateek!
There's actually an interesting topic on how a volcanic eruption may have caused the Mongol civil war, leading to the end of the united empire. I'll try to look more into it.
Whenever someone takes a hypothesis and calls it a theory and just runs with it, then a bunch of other people start assuming it's a fact, let's call this event "pulling a Joe Rogan."
Funny thing is even historians didn't bother correcting it much, it was a Youtuber, who is doing his PhD on the Golden Horde who pointed it out.
I can't see any reason scholarly conversation can't happen across social media, except that the fact that the conversation is in the public domain means bad ideas can get just as much (or even more) attention as/than good ideas.
Indeed, and since this is a fairly niche topic with not that many scholars and pop historians lets say compared to Roman and Greek history, some libterties are taken even by credible orgs.