Author(s)

Zijun Wan, Jia Han

Corresponding Author

Zijun Wan

ABSTRACT

The correlation between societal collapse and environmental factors is worth researching since it provides us with insights on to what extent environmental factors can impact society. In the essay, we choose Holocene collapses and more recent collapses (or rapid decreasing of populations) examples, including the 4.2aBP event, 3.2kaBP event, the Ming dynasty, India, Darfur, Syria, and the United States, to seek into the correlation. We found that climate, especially the megadrought, does lay an important foundation and has a large impact on agriculture, given the cases of the Ming Dynasty, India, Darfur, Syria and the United States. During a climate change, especially a drought, the agricultural products of a given society may decline significantly, leading to famines which cause conflicts and reduction of population. In modern societies, however, such as the United States, governments may have macroeconomic control over production of agriculture, and thus the severity of the result of climate change may be lessened. In this article, we study the result of climate change by researching cases of societal collapse. In conclusion, we find that reduction of agricultural production caused by climate change is an important cause for the collapse of societies. Nevertheless, in recent days, the government's responses have begun to play a role in the result of climate change.

KEYWORDS

Societal Collapse, Environmental Factors, The Government Response