If you don’t think climate change produces winners as well as losers, consider this: In the 12th and 13th centuries England exported wine to France. Vineyards also flourished in improbable regions like southern Norway and eastern Prussia. A centuries-long spell of mild, predictable weather blessed Western Europe with abundant crops, healthy populations and budget surpluses sufficient to finance projects like Chartres Cathedral.
This is the credit side of a global balance sheet carefully itemized by Brian Fagan in “The Great Warming,” his fascinating account of shifting climatic conditions and their consequences from about A.D. 800 to 1300, often referred to as the Medieval Warm Period. The debit side is appalling: widespread drought, catastrophic rainfall, toppled dynasties, ruined civilizations. Abandoned Maya temples in the Yucatan and the desolation of Angkor Wat, supreme achievement of the Khmer empire, bear witness to climatic change against which royal power and priestly magic proved impotent.
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