I have heard that the climate has only been stable for 10,000 or so years, since the ice age. A sort of climate anomoly. That strange balance may now be ending, given further impetus by man-made causes.
Interestingly, it may well be that it is precisely that strange constancy which gave civilization the chance to develop, for it allowed our widespread agriculture. If it fails now... well, not the end of the world. But there could be massive famine. Fortunately, we've become advanced enough to be able to cope with that sort of thing. It might hit us hard and take a massive toll, but we're not going to go backward, of that I'm certain.
And no, I don't think it's the end of the world, any more than I think that this generation is the most wicked to ever walk the earth. It is natural tendancy to see one's own generation in the worst light, and in hand with this goes the idea that the world is coming to an end because of natural disasters. However, that's not the case. Sure, the climate may be turning about a bit, but there's no cause for doomsaying in that - if anything, it should be a wakeup call to be more careful with the environment. Yet, natural disasters have always happened, and it's just reactionary to think that suddenly the world is going to end because of a climate fart here or there. Here's an example. In the year 1600 or so, mount Santorini blew up. And literally, blew up. This wasn't like Vesuvius. The volcano very violently exploded, taking half the island of Thera, a flourishing Minoan state, with it. They say the power was five times greater than Krakatoa, and could be easily heard in Krete. Was it the end of the world? The Trojan War hadn't happened yet. The Hebrews were only just beginning to be subdjugated in Egypt. It certainly was not.
Or here, not quite natural, but a disaster enough, and maybe it had a natural catalyst: the Sea Peoples. In the year 1200BC, pirates suddenly began raiding the Mediterranean. We're still not certain who they were, but the ideas are that they were a loose confederacy of groups from the north-Mediterranean coasts, from Greece to Sardinia... perhaps themselves driven out of their homeland by Indo-European invaders (these theories are questioned.) What did happen, though, was that Egypt was invaded, and only barely fought these invaders off - invaders sailing ships with crow's nests, and sporting iron armour - partially by hiring some as mercenaries. Unable to land in Egypt, they take to the Levant, settling in the region just when the Hebrews are arriving, and are known in the Bible by the name of one of their tribes, the Peleset, or Philistines. But the entire north-Mediterranean had suffered drastically in this time. Hattusis, capital of the mighty Hittite empire, the rivals of Egypt, was sacked - never again did the Hittites hold any great power, they who had at one time been masters of the Middle East. Further south, the city of Ugarit is also burned, and records just before the destruction shows them living in fear of imminent invasion by peoples from the sea. In the land of Hellas, the great Mycenean citadels were burned, and Greece was thrown into a veritable Dark Age for four hundred years. Writing, which had existed in the form of Linear B, ceased to be used, and not until Homer in 750 BC would it return. The complex palace cultures and kingdoms of the Mycenaeans fell in favour of minor regional lords and chieftains. Oh, it must have looked to those Greeks like the end-times, to be sure. The great powers overthrown, and relegated to a more primitive existance. Where then the heroes who fought at Troy? Hesiod in later years laments his age, which he calls that of Iron, which is the worst of all, as he sees it. But wait! Was that the end? Certainly not! For not yet had that bright star of Classical Greece arisen, one that far outshone old Mycenae. So maybe it is that, in despite of the seeming turmoil, the best is yet to come. We'll have to wait and see, but history seems to argue in favour of this.
