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07/24/2007: "Climate change caused political chaos in ancient China"

The wars and rebellions that punctuated China's ancient dynasties have
inspired epic books and films. Now it seems the course of the nation's
history may have been influenced by a rather more mundane force: the
weather.

China's archives track the lives of the country's clans over the last
millennium in voluminous detail. This inspired David Zhang at the
University of Hong Kong and his colleagues to scour the documents for
links between conflict and climate. They found that periods of cold
weather preceded 12 of the 15 major bouts of warfare they studied.

The link makes sense, they say, since cold weather would have prompted
food shortages in what was then an overwhelmingly agrarian society.
Peasant uprisings would follow, destabilising governments and inviting
invasions from neighbouring regions (Human Ecology, vol 35, p 403).


http://environment.newscientist.com/article.ns?id=mg19526135.500&feedId=online-news_rss20