Mr. Green, Mr. Green, that's not history; that's science, and also, I don't think that's even happening.

氣候變遷。

Yeah, two things, Me From the Past: One, uh, contemporary climate change is real.

葛林老師！葛林老師！那又不是歷史，那是科學喔。而且我認為根本沒有氣候變遷這回事。

Uh, two, this isn't the first time the world has experienced disruptive climate change, believe it or not.

從前的我，有兩件事要跟你說。首先，現代的氣候變遷是千真萬確地進行中。其二，

[Theme Music]

這也不是地球首次經歷破壞性的氣候變遷。

So, climate change, of course, can be a very controversial topic, at least here in the US, but we're not discussing today whether contemporary climate change is caused by human activity, although it is.

總而言之，氣候變遷（至少在美國）總是一宗具爭議的話題。

We're talking about history, and history is never controversial. We know that climate change can happen because it has happened.

但今天並非討論現代氣候變遷是否人為因素所致（固然事實的確如此）

In fact, although we're living in an age of global warming today, for most of the early modern period, the globe experienced cool temperatures.

今天我們要討論歷史，而歷史才不會引爭議呢。

Some historians have called this the Little Ice Age, which would make a great animated movie. Someone should get on that.

世上確實有氣候變遷一事，因為以前有發生過。

Anyway, good job, historians, giving something an evocative name for once. I'm picturing a tiny little ice ball, like a snow globe.

如今雖屬氣候暖化的時代，但是近代早期全球氣溫大致反而下降。

Apparently, the Earth was regular-sized back then, but anyway, the Little Ice Age lasted from the thirteenth through the nineteenth centuries

有些歷史學家將此稱作「小冰期」。 這個稱號拿來當卡通電影名稱該多讚啊！

and it was a period when average temperatures were cooler than they are now.

應該照我的意思推出一部。無論如何，要恭喜歷史學家終於取了個

This doesn't mean that it was always cold, though; there were volatile shifts between bitterly cold winters and wet summers and long droughts.

像樣一點的名稱。「小冰期」一詞令我聯想起一個雪景球之類的物品。

Also, weather conditions were not always the same in all parts of the world, kind of like how the winter of 2014 was terribly cold in the United States but still one of the warmest on record worldwide.

製作人說地球當時大小正常。總之小冰期

Climate is not weather.

是於西元十三至十九世紀世界總體氣溫比現代低的一個時期。

So, we know temperatures were colder partly because of science but also because of history.

不過，這並不代表當時氣溫持續寒冷。

Science has shown through the study of stuff like tree rings and ice cores that it really was colder back then.

氣候於嚴寒的冬季、多雨的夏季以及長期的乾旱間劇烈變動。

But we also know this from history. I mean, records kept at the time by monks, and wine-makers, and others also reported cold weather and bad harvests.

再說，天氣也要看位於世界何處。

Bad harvests are crucial to our understanding of the Little Ice Age because they were catastrophic events, bringing hunger and, in some cases, starvation to millions of people.

如同美加二零一四年冬季其寒無比，但當年冬天

And because they were so catastrophic, people wrote about them, which leaves us a historical record.

全球平均可是破紀錄的暖。 天氣絕對不等於氣侯。

Less food meant more disease and also more crime. Poor harvests often led to civil unrest, especially bread riots.

能證明小冰期時氣溫較低的不只有科學，歷史亦有紀載。

For some, a sensible strategy was to hit the road or, in the case of the Norseman, hit the sea.

科學家以研究年輪及冰蓋等物得知當時氣溫較低。

In fact, sometime during this period, their search for better fishing grounds led them to America.

從研究歷史亦可得知此事。例如當時

And humans also prove very innovative when adapting to new climate extremes.

修道士、釀酒師等留下的文獻中均有紀載天氣寒冷及農作物失收之事。

One example near to my heart is the Netherlands,

其中，農作物失收是我們對小冰期的認知的關鍵環節之一，因為

where people developed water control systems and experimented with new agricultural technology to make farms less vulnerable to terrible weather events like floods.

農作物失收引起慘烈的饑荒，有時更奪去數以百萬的人命。

But the Little Ice Age led to unpredictable harvests around the world and without, like, Spam to fall back on, a couple bad harvests in a row was fatal.

正因為後果如此悲慘，才會要紀錄於筆下，成了現時的歷史文獻。

So, the whole Little Ice Age was pretty bad but the seventeenth century was the worst.

糧食短缺間接有便疾病肆虐及犯罪率提升，

Some historians even refer to it as a period of global crisis. I mean, here are just a few examples of the political instability in the seventeenth century:

也造成暴動。見此況，有些人覺得走為上策。

the English revolutions of 1640 and 1689, Spain's European Wars and debt problems, peasant and urban worker uprisings in Italy,

對北歐維京人而言則是「航海為上策」。 為尋求更佳的捕魚海域，

the fall of the Ming and the rise of the Qing Dynasties in China, a succession crisis in the Ottoman Empire,

維京人甚至抵達美洲。

wars between colonists and Native Americans that nearly destroyed Britain's colonies, the Mughal Wars of Succession, oh, and the Thirty Years War.

而面對極端氣候，人類總是以創新在絕境中求生存。譬如

And that's not even to mention Shakespeare. No Little Ice Age, no Shakespeare.

人們在我心愛的荷蘭建設治水系統

That's what I would argue. Totally a climate-dependent writer. I would be just as good as him if only we were in a period of climate change.

又研發嶄新農業科技以防

Now, obviously, we can't say that all of these upheavals were caused by cooler temperatures,

洪水等天災。

but they did correlate with them, and in many cases, weather contributed to them.

小冰期令全球收成不可預測，

Unrest was often linked to food shortages and taxes.The taxes were high and the food was short because the harvests were bad.

而這又是沒有午餐肉的時代，連續幾年失收可是九死一生。

Now, for many people in the seventeenth century, the cause of the calamitous bad weather was obvious: human sinfulness.

小冰期整體都不怎麼好，期中以第十七世紀最為悽慘。

As Welsh historian James Howell wrote in 1647,

甚至有歷史學家稱此世紀為全球危機時期。我舉幾個當時

"God Almighty has a quarrel lately with all mankind, and given the reins to the ill spirit to compass the whole Earth."

政治動盪的例子：西元十七世紀見證英國革命足足兩次

Others blamed bad weather on witches, always a safe bet, or on natural phenomena like eclipses, earthquakes, comets, or sunspots.

（一六四零年及一六八九年）、西班牙歐陸戰爭及債務危機、

And they might not have been totally wrong. Well, they were totally wrong about the witches,

義大利農民及工人起義、中國明朝滅亡清朝建立、

but- but there were fewer recorded sunspots, especially in 1617 and 1618, when the Thirty Years War began.

顎圖曼帝國繼位危機、美州先住民險將英國

Oh, and there were twelve volcanic eruptions between 1638 and 1644, which produced dust veils that might have made the whole planet cooler.

殖民地摧毀、蒙兀兒帝國繼位戰爭， 喔，對了，還有三十年戰爭。

The weather in the middle of the seventeenth century, right around the time of the English Revolution, was especially bad,

以上還沒講及莎士比亞呢！本人認為沒有小冰期就沒有莎翁。

like in Massachusetts, 1642 was so cold that the bay froze, while in Indonesia, the droughts caused rice harvests to fail.

完完全全是個依賴氣候的作家。 要是我也生於氣候變遷的時代，

Much of Africa faced droughts between 1640 and 1644 and in 1643, flooding in the Low Countries was so bad that cows and chickens ended up in trees.

我也會跟他一樣傑出。

And Scandinavia recorded its coldest winter ever in 1641.

我們很明顯地無法將上述所有災禍歸咎於氣溫下降上，

And these changes in weather were profoundly disruptive because much more than today, people depended directly on agriculture, and thus the weather, for their livelihoods.

不過這些災禍的確與小冰期撞期，並且很多也因天氣所起。

Let's go to the Thought Bubble.

動盪多為糧食短缺和稅務高企所致。糧缺稅高則均以

So, according to historian Thomas C. Smith,

農作物失收為由。

"Farming, with its allied tasks, was the principal occupation and nearly the sole source of income for most families, and its rhythms defined the annual cycle of work, rest and worship.

對多數當時的人而言，氣候轉惡的起因很明顯：

Severe annual variations in the harvest reverberated through family life..."

人間的罪惡。如同威爾斯歷史學家James Howell於一六四七年寫道:

According to Geoffrey Parker, a fall of two degrees Celsius during the growing season,

「萬能的神近來與世人對立，故放縱惡靈行遍全世界。」

precisely the scale of global cooling in the 1640s, reduces rice harvest yields by between thirty and fifty percent.

也有一些人將氣候變遷怪罪於何時都被怪的女巫，

"In latitudes north of the temperate zone,' each fall of 0.5 degrees Celsius in mean summer temperature decreases the number of days on which crops ripen by 10 percent,

或是自然現象，如日月蝕、地震、彗星和黑子。可能這些人也不完全錯，

doubles the risk of a single harvest failure, and increases the risk of a double failure six fold."

當然女巫是錯得很離譜，但黑子數量的確有減少，

Harvest failures led to food shortages which led to everything from stunting via malnutrition to rising food prices.

尤其在三十年戰爭之際的一六一七及一六一八年間。 (黑子有助暖化地球，所以言之並非完全無理。)

A 30 percent reduction in the grain harvest often doubled the price of bread, whereas a fifty percent reduction quintupled it.

這些因素還要外加在一六三八年及一六四四年間全球火山爆發高達十二次，

And when people have to spend more on food, they don't have money to spend on other stuff,

火山灰煙羽也助氣溫下降。

which means the people who make that other stuff are suddenly unemployed and hungry.

十七世紀中旬，約英國內戰之時，

And then, hunger itself reduced the amount of available food by diminishing people's capacity to work,

氣候最為惡劣。一六四二年冷到連麻省海灣都結了冰。

since a decrease from 2,500 to 2,000 calories halves our ability to work efficiently because the body's basic metabolism still requires 1,500 calories.

印尼則面臨乾旱，稻米失收。非洲也於一六四零及一六四四年間面臨乾旱。

And hungry people are also more susceptible to disease.

一六四三年在低地諸國水災嚴重到生畜都要爬樹求生。

Add together floods, droughts, harvest failures, and disease, and you get a vicious cycle leading to population decline, which is exactly what happened in the seventeenth century.

一六四一年北歐錄得其史上最冷的冬季。

Thanks, Thought Bubble.

當時的人比現代更直接依賴農業維生，而農業很看

So, all of that is pretty horrible, but human suffering in the seventeenth century wasn't just caused by cold and drought.

天公的臉色，所以天氣變化帶來的是根本性的困擾。

There was also a lot of war going on. And these wars between and within states multiplied the effects of hunger as soldiers looted wherever they went.

來看看Thought Bubble動畫教學吧。

Like the Chinese even coined a word for soldiers' bad behavior: binghuo, which means "soldier calamity".

歷史學家Thomas C. Smith寫說:「耕農和其連帶作業是

And then, to add injury to injury, the costs of most of these wars were borne by the peasants, who suffered doubly as their taxes went to pay for the king's wars, which brought soldier calamity.

多數家庭的首要職業兼唯一收入源。其自然韻律左右了人們年度

These taxes were often on staples like bread, and so they often led to bread riots, which were not great for morale.

勞動、休息及膜拜的作息。收成不穩定對家庭生活具有嚴重的影響。」

And yes, terrible weather could even contribute to the fall of dynasties.

Geoffrey Parker研究說農作物若生長時氣溫下降攝氏兩度，

The 1641 drought in China was so bad that the Grand Canal began to dry up for the only time in history, which reduced rice shipments to China's capitol.

也就是一六四零年代全球冷卻的幅度，稻米收成

Unable to feed the people, the Ming emperor surrendered to the Qing in 1644.

會下降三至五成。「於溫帶以北的緯度

Drought and cold had also encouraged the Qing to overthrow the Ming in the first place as poor harvests in Manchuria convinced their leaders that invading China was the only way to avoid catastrophe.

平均夏季氣溫每下降攝氏零點五度，農作物熟成的時間則減少一成，

And then the Qing got to China and they were like, "Where's all your food?"

當年失收機率則翻一倍，連兩年失收機率

and they were like, "Yeah, the whole planet is colder, not just Korea."

則翻五倍。」農作物失收導致糧食短缺，

But then they were already there so they decided to have a dynasty for a while.

後者又導致營養不良成長不全以及食物漲價。

I am your history teacher.

穀糧收成減少三成會令麵包價格翻一倍； 穀糧收成減少五成則會令麵包價格翻四倍

So, obviously, protests and rebellions were public responses to the hunger and war, but many people confronted the problem of hunger by trying to reduce the number of mouths they had to feed.

可想而知當人們必須花更多金錢換取食物，他們就不會有錢

They could do this by reducing the number of births through postponed marriage or, in more extreme cases, through infanticide.

花在其他商品上，那麼製造其他商品的工人就會忽然失業、沒飯吃。

And the most desperate resorted to suicide.

飢餓更會使糧食存量銳減因為飢餓使人無法勞動。

Now, we don't have many records of suicide rates, but a Qing decree of 1688 forbidding widows from killing themselves suggests that it was widespread.

一但每日攝取營養由二千五百大卡跌至二千大卡，工作效率則剖半，

And speaking of widows, wars compounded the problem by creating lots of them, like in Europe, the Thirty Years War led to a rise in the number of households headed by women.

因為人體基本代謝仍需一千五百大卡。

Women also took the lead in reducing the number of mouths to feed by delaying marriage.

再說，人飢餓時防禦疾病的抵抗力驟降。水災、乾旱、

Like, whenever bread prices rise, rates of marriage fall.

失收及疾病正好組成適合人口下降的惡性循環。

And the last thing that I'll mention here is that bad weather and poor harvests also prompted migration.

十七世紀確實是見證死亡的時代。

Like, in the first half of the seventeenth century, perhaps one half of all adult Scotsmen left Scotland.

謝了，Thought Bubble動畫教學。 這一切的確可怕，但是

Many Chinese left for the Philippines, Indonesia, and Taiwan.

苦難不完全怪天災：其中也有不少人禍

So, we have a world that's dramatically different because of the climate change of the Little Ice Age.

多國戰爭連綿使飢餓更要命。

Women head more households, many communities are more ethnically diverse, population growth slowed dramatically,

軍隊普遍到處隨意搶掠。中文甚至創

and there was widespread political unrest and wars and starvation.

「兵禍」一詞以做比喻。 戰爭惡果大由百姓承擔：

And, of course, looking at the history of the Little Ice Age is relevant for us today as we face a change in climate and the extreme weather that comes with it.

百姓繳稅給君王打仗，雪上加霜的是

Sometimes, we like to imagine that math and science don't really have much to do with the humanities, that, like, how we live in the world isn't really shaped by our environment.

戰爭卻帶來不絕的兵禍。當時稅務大從

But, of course, it is. We are shaping our environment. Our environment is also shaping us.

像是麵包的必需品抽取，所以常有暴動導致士氣低迷。

To end on a hopeful note, the agricultural innovations that developed in the face of tremendous weather-related challenges

天氣惡劣還能改朝換代。中國一六四一年

should remind us that it is possible to adapt to changing climates if we make the effort and take the time.

的乾旱嚴重到連京杭大運河都空前絕後地乾涸。

We don't know what the cast iron plows of the future are going to be, but we do know that we're going to need them.

結果大米運不到京城。一六四四年明朝無法餵養子民

Thanks for watching. I'll see you next week.

投降於清。其實天災也是清兵伐明的理由之一，

Crash Course is made with the help of all of these nice people and it's possible because of your support at subbable.com.

滿州農作物失收，滿清領導者認為必須

Here at the Chad & Stacey Emigholz Studio in Indianapolis, we've got lots of stuff going on with Crash Course.

入侵中原才能自救。但是清兵入關後說：

We're trying to, like, educate the world for free. And that, of course, requires money,

「欸，你們的食物呢?」 中國就回：「現在又不是只有你們變冷，

so if you want, you can go to subbable.com and subscribe to Crash Course and pay the monthly fee of your choosing.

是全球氣候變遷。」但既來之則安之，滿清就順便立朝一陣。

Thank you so much for supporting Crash Course and for watching

我是歷史老師哩。

and as we say in my hometown, don't forget to be awesome.

示威和革命是公眾對飢餓及戰爭的反彈，