Political Strife Caused By Climate Change Doomed The Mayans

Well, we warned them of their carbon emissions. They have no one to blame but themselves.

@cubicle

LOL!

Didn't they know about how much C02 is released during a human sacrifice?

Their scientists pointed to a hockey stick, but they just brushed it off as natural cycles.

We all learn from an early age - folks in my generation did, at least - that stalagmites (the sandcastle-shaped accretions on cave floors) "Stand like mighty pillars", and the stalactites (those are the icicle-shaped guys) "Hang tight to the ceiling". I think Ms. Boyle got them confused there for a minute. Happy to help out!

Well that's about to happen to USA thanks to Obamanomics.

@gizmowiz

"Obamanomics" has nothing to do with the climate change we are experiencing these days. The real issue is this lifestyle we humans have grown so accustomed to, that's killing our environment.

@sanjay228

"The real issue is this lifestyle we humans have grown so accustomed to, that's killing our environment."

Just like what happened to the Mayans. ;)

These comments aren't quite as bad as the ones on facebook, but it still seems like some of you didn't actually read the article, you just saw the words "climate change" and thought it would be a good place to talk about your political beliefs.

The period of drought measured by geologists was part of a naturally occurring cycle in rainfall. The Maya were obviously powerless to cause or to remedy this. It would hardly have been the first (or last) time that drought contributed to the collapse of a civilization. Drought leads to famine, and famine leads to resource conflict (and, you know, starvation).

inb4 kungfujustice starts trolling again

If we all become vegetarians, we live longer, have less cancer, eat obviously less meat, so we have less cows, cow farts and less global warming.

Ok, have a carrot! ;)

"The Maya were obviously powerless to cause or to remedy this."

...just like today's "Climate Change." The arrogance of humans to think the we can actually overpower nature.

@salt: woosh!
That was the sound of all these comments going over your head. Most people in our country don't believe our current climate fluctuations are in our control any more than the Mayans were. And its not just the uber religous super right wing fundamentalists either.

Anyway my joke was going to be something about their civiliaztion collapsing by going broke buying carbon credits. It wouldn't have been funny.

Without being a scientist it always seem apparent to me living next to a stream, river, ocean and maybe even a lake even on the rarest of occasions weather does extreme things and floods will happen. Perhaps it is better to build on higher ground or has society not learn that lessen yet?
But, I digress completely as I channel the recent hurricane and all the conversation of global warming and its mention in this article.

..............

The Mayans calendar is so fascinating to me. Not for when it ends, but in when it begins.

The Mayan calendar starts around 3114 BC or 3374 BC respectively. Extremely prior to the Mayan owns culture existence. It begs the question, why create a calendar prior to your own cultural existence?

..............

With lessons learned from the Mayans and their end, regardless of humanity is or is not responsible for global warming, it does exist and we as a society best prepare for it.

@dontcallmechief & bperetto: Of course our ability to affect the environment pales in comparison to the forces of nature, but post-industrial civilizations have had a measurable impact on the environment, and there is scientific consensus on this. It doesn't make any sense to compare us to a pre-industrial civilization in this matter.

Since the discovery of fossil fuels, we have affected the environment more than all previous generations of humanity combined. Nobody is saying humanity is the sole cause of climate change, but we are a contributing factor, and to suggest otherwise is just plain silly.

Been there! Climbed those stairs. One of the best vacations of my life!

Too Bad Al gore wasn’t around back then, he could have saved them with a carbon tax. NOT!

An interesting illustration of Malthusian priciples at work. Particularly in that is shows that the Malthusian peak might not always appear to be impending, but rather come about abruptly when there is a sudden shift in the quantity or consistance of a resource.

Thus, our own society does not necessarly need to hit a "peak oil" type event (the Myans certainly did not hit "peak rain" - it still rained, only at decreased levels for food production leading to increasing cost and conflict). A signifigant disruption in oil supply could have reactively severe effects on our society.

Resource diversification never seemed so appealing.

bperetto, I guess you don't acknowledge air pollution, man-made islands, large scale mining, deforestation, animal extinctions due to hunting and habitat destruction, polluted water supplies, numerous diseases propagated by overpopulation, etc. to be humans affecting nature's course. Concrete jungle cities were just part of nature's plan to you? Roads and cars covering millions of miles of earth just appeared, right? Man had no affect on the Earth because we don't have the ability to affect or change anything...sure.

7 billion people can do a lot, look around you the evidence is everywhere.

I've seen estimates from 1.3 to 1.4 billion cows worldwide, each producing 500 litres of methane a day and accounting for 14% of all emissions of the gas.

Cow farts really do hurt the enviroment.

Eat a carrot! ;)

Bagpipes.....do you just disagree with anything science related? Why are you even here?

The disappearance of the Mayans is one of archaeology's greatest mysteries, it happened fast, we're not sure of the timeline but we're reasonably sure it took less than century to happen.

Massive cities, cities close to a scale of what we have today just simply abandoned for no apparent reason. In terms of astronomy and medicine they were light years ahead of any other civilization of their time, so you really have to wonder, what the hell happened?

Could have been the drought, but if that's the case why not simply migrate south, or even north for that matter, what compelling reason would they have to stay and let their entire civilization crumble?

I believe there were droughts, but as an argument for the collapse of the entire Mayan civilization, it has some holes.

Wow,all the research gathered from the history of so many iceages (global cooling) that has occurred and will occur again are being ignored in this story,in my opinion. Wolf/sporer,dalton,maunder minimum and the next cooling via low solar activity goes to...lansheidt I think. This cooling climate anomaly directly effects all lattitudes to the equator not just the northern hemisphere. Can't believe science fact(iceages) can be ignored from any climate disaster hypothesis. Droughts lead to starvation of any ancient civilization,no doubt.Keep an eye on our Sun ,she's been quiet and we are starting to see the effects now!let's not be blind,AGW I'm not sure if it exists. I read were all part af a D.N.A. Bottleneck... caused by ..u guessed it,starvation dieoff. Were practically all related from a near extiction. So,its not just the Mayan culture that almost vanished.

I pray and hope in the remote areas of South America, there lives tribes of Mayans and I wish for they culture and religion to continue!!!!!!

Climate change doomed the Mayans?

I wonder how Dan Nosowitz would explain this away. It proves what rational people have been saying all along, that the climate is always changing.
There was never a time when it wasn't Danny boy. But rational people don't really need an article about the collapse of the Mayans to prove it, it's just common sense.
Or didn't they teach you that in any of your English lit. classes?

@ Salt

But if we have a drought today it won't be part of a natural cycle will it Salt?
It'll have to be a result of Man Made Global Warming, or no wait, that's been changed to Man Made Climate Change.
Salt, what people like you need, is to read a fable called 'The Emperor's New Clothes'
I think it should be required reading in any serious literature class (are you listening Dan?)

@bperetto

"The arrogance of humans to think the we can actually overpower nature."

Al Gore and the rest Man Made Global Warming gangsters don't think for a second that they can control climate change, they assume, and correctly so, that they can rope the useful idiots into believing they can.

@Robot - If we got rid of cows, and started eating...I don't know...cabbage instead, wouldn't that be trading one fart for another? And what about all the new tractors we would need? Maybe we should be spending our resources on giving Gas-X to cattle instead. Regardless, it is interesting that cow-farts were big-time news until the Clinton/Lewinsky scandal hit. Can we say "media diversion"?

And you know good and well why Mayans had calendars that pre-dated their civilization: aliens!!

syfyguy
I am most excited for December 22nd 2012 and the NEW Mayan calendars come out, lol. I hear the pictures are out of this world!

All you conspiranazis who think this article is a smoking gun for your anti-climate change agenda seem to always forget the most important factor: no one argues climate change is not natural. Global climate change is very natural, and no scientist refutes that. What the overwhelming majority of scientists do agree is that industrialized humanity is accelerating this natural process. Think of the U-235 atom. In nature, U-235 decays quite nicely on its own, but then we fire a free neutron at it to ACCELERATE this decay.

syfyguy,
The sun cycles are acknowledge by science in global warming in past, current and future cycles of the suns energy output. In addition, yes there is no stopping the sun.

I do agree with our scientist that humans are amplifying global warming and have been doing so, since the industrial revolution, too.

Almost everything I've read says the Mayans didn't simply cease to exist. They just left the major cities and lived a rural life. So yeah, they migrated. Coincidentally, there is evidence that suggests that converting so much forest to farmland may have inhibited the natural cycle or precipitation. So it's possible that Mayans contributed to the drought, and their own downfall.

syfyguy,
Let’s not forget that as the Vikings, Spanish, Portuguese and eventual Europeans venture about the North and South America's their showing up on the beaches and introducing themselves wipe out all sorts of tribes of natives with disease.

They could of had a meet and great one day with the Vikings and they Vikings left, unknown to them, they just wipe out a whole civilization a year or so later, thousands of years ago.

WoW, kind of puts it in perspective when the Annunaki return and the Armageddon happens.

What a joke, every time climate change is mentioned its always warm and dry. Why not cold and wet? Earth is currently cooling into a cooler wetter period. All this CO2, climate change global warming bs is making be sick. Way too much tax money goes to it, this is retarded. A 3rd grader could read a simple picture book with a few words and predict we are heading back into an ice age. So much for IPCC and their false million dollar climate models that have not and are not going to come true.

I have my own theory about why the Mayan's disappeared and come December 22nd I should have a pretty good idea whether or not I'm right.

But in the mean time I'll pose a question, answer or don't answer, entirely up to you.

Would you sell your house or apartment to go live among the Amish? Because the Mayans abandoning their cities, and simply tossing out their vast knowledge of medicine, astronomy, and mathematics to lead an agrarian life would be a far more extreme transition, although in fairness I do acknowledge it is possible, as are several theories that I've read so far. (Kudos on everyone making this a substantive discussion)

kungfujustice,
Did they abandon their homes or did they leave a place full of disease of which all died. If humans fall dead in the forest, our bones and remains will not be found, It is only luck if we die in some unique location, mud or get petrified that human remains gets preserved. If the Mayans were visited by the Vikings or Portuguese, in one or a few visits they could of been wiped out by disease easily.

And so little visit came to the Americas from other countries, they could of been long gone, since the next visit.

Robot

Like I said, pretty much anything is possible. But the Mayan civilization collapsed around 900 A.D. 200 years before the first crusade and during a time in which the Portuguese were still in the dark ages. Vikings could have visited them, however there isn't any historical record of them venturing that far south, and if they had I imagine they would have made an impression.

There really aren't many theories I've encountered that can be discredited; we know so appallingly little about what went on in that part of the world during that time period.

There are however a couple blaring holes in most that people tend to ignore.

1.) The Mayans had virtually zero competition, as they were literally the only real civilization of their time in that part of the world, so war as the cause of their downfall, is kind of a weak lead to go on.

2.) If there were a drought, which I don't argue there was, they would have simply done what anyone with a working brain would have done, which would be to establish farms and settlements outside the areas affected.

3.) Disease as the cause of their downfall, possibly the least likely of all. A percentage of every population is always immune, plus with the Mayans knowledge of rain forest medicine they could have easily treated and contained any outbreak. Fun fact, well over have the pharmaceuticals we have today come out of the South American rain forests.

kungfujustice,
Perhaps the Mayans of 900 A.D. were teleported to the intergalactic space craft and then relocated on some other planet for being such good citizens of the Annunaki Overlords?

Maybe the Mayans are doing really fine on Planet X and we will learn about them, as planet x ventures close to Earth, every 3600 years.

According to the Sumerians, who noted the Sun in the center of our solar system and we having 10 planets, the Earth is the 7th planet, as the Sumerians counted from the outside in, towards the Sun. The Sumerians knew about Pluto, Uranus and Neptune. They knew the relative distance of the planets and they knew the color of Uranus and Neptune as well. Recently as NASA finally figured out a few years ago the mass\weight of Pluto, they said something else further out is influencing our solar system in the outer regions, because Pluto just does not cause enough influence. Hence, they are currently looking to find the mysterious planet X!

Robot

You jest, but I actually don't think you're too far off.

The Mayan disappearance was abrupt enough that I think we can safely rule out a natural decline, such as the one the Roman Empire experienced over the course of several centuries.

Stone carvings have been unearthed in Mayan ruins that display technological concepts that no civilization of their time had any right knowing about. People wearing what appear from just a casual glance to be flight suits complete with helmets. And even a carving of what appears to be a Mayan king operating an honest to god rocket ship, and there are still Mayan ruins out there that even after centuries are still mostly uncharted.

If you follow the ancient alien theory, which I know you do, then I'm sure you've heard the claims that human evolution may have had a jump start from an outside source.

That the reason we cannot find the missing link, the evolutionary ancestor that links modern humans to hominids, our closest known genetic ancestors is because it doesn't exist.

Someone took the hominids, tweaked their DNA, and out sprung humanity, the people who believe in this theory site evidence such as unique genetic markers that no other species on Earth share and the fact that we lost all of our fur right as an Ice Age was setting in, and were in fact forced to kill other animals and harvest their own fur in order to survive.

Whether or not you believe this yourself, assume for a moment the theory is correct. If it is, and humanity really is the product of a scientific experiment then every experiment requires at least one control group.

Unfortunately there isn't anyway to keep humans isolated from one another if we're all sharing the same planet, eventually we will meet, interbreed and any control group there was would be polluted. The only solution would be to move any control group off world and completely isolate them from the rest of humanity.

kungfujustice,
In addition, following evolution, the human brain was growing bigger in size and the Neanderthal is the largest of the primate brains; our human brains are in fact a little bit smaller.

Yes, spontaneously we humans had some tweaking done to our DNA to make use more able to communicate with our Gods\Aliens, since the Aliens made us to work for them and they found our fur ugly not being like them. The sudden loss of fur in evolution terms did not help us; it was a cosmetic update via our DNA engineers. We humans designed made to serve the Gods as well to appear like their image in appearance.

A natural problem with human culture is our natural superstitions, so we have our Gods and call our alien visitors Gods as well. We put our own beliefs with the truths we learned from our alien visitors, as well not having a technical vocabulary to explain what we saw accurately.

The Sumerians drew a clear picture of our Solar system correctly and describe clearly in their written history how our solar system looked in the beginning and how our Earth and moon later came into being. It was also several Gods and they had conflicts and wars; some aliens lost power and still exist. Even the Gods\aliens that lost have extreme long lives and influence humanity now.

I am thankful that one God loves us and is so merciful. An alien return will happen and they may come from planet x, with a new cleansing of planet Earth.

There are powers from the Heavens much greater than our Earthly selves and they will return.

We are judge by our actions, our human language just confuses things. Be a person, you know of your own heart, that our dear Lord wants you to be!

LOVE, CARE, SACRIFICE and FORGIVE!
These are action words.

Jumping on board the conspiracy train.

If the aliens were to invade I don't think it would be through military means, if that was their strategy I'm sure they would have carried it out before we developed the means to destroy this planet and every living thing on it.

My guess, were it to happen, they would attempt to get the job done by taking control of our economy or manipulating our religious beliefs, or both.

Why wage a military war when you could wage an economic one? Flood the market with advanced technology that we would instantly not be able to ever live without and then control the patents and manufacturing of said technology. Not only would we have zero means of defending against such an assault, we wouldn't even have the desire to.

Or launch an attack on our religious foundations, they would certainly have everything they need to get the job done, clear evidence of their hand in our evolutionary past, and possibly, if they've been monitoring us all this time actual video footage of our most historically important religious leaders committing horrific atrocities.

You think the Catholic Church would continue to have much of a following if people could actually see the horrendously evil acts they committed during the Inquisition?

And all they would need to set the entire Middle East on fire would be one video of the Prophet Muhammad with his 6 year old wife. (Please don't issue a Fatwa against me, that's an actual historic fact)

Basically, should the aliens ever set their sights on conquest, the current world order would be completely fucked, whether or not that's a good or bad thing, I have no idea.

Oh and side note, I'm not an atheist, I do have views on the afterlife and God, but I'm not going to talk about them...except to say I'm not going to talk about them...

kungfujustice,
Depending who they want for survivors and the kind of message they want to leave for the survivors, will dictate how they eliminate the majority of the people.
They have used the flood in the past and they have used the black plague. The aliens have many tools in their box and they are an absolute exteme smart folk.

I just got paid $6784 working off my laptop this month. And if you think that's cool, my divorced friend has twin toddlers and made over $9k her first month. It feels so good making so much money when other people have to work for so much less. This is what I do...Mel7.Com