[cfcef]

It's always 'climate change'. Dozens of megafauna disappear? 'climate change'. Whole tribes with fortifications suddenly disappear? 'climate change'. Wholesale population replacement? 'climate change'. It's our age's "peoples don't migrate, pots do". It's gotten to the point that when I read about the latest population genetics result show introgression or replacement and they invoke 'climate change', I no longer know if it's a case where it could be climate change or just the usual total refusal to speculate about pre-historic warfare and predation.

[justinator]

I mean, reason why humans left Africa, walked upright and grew big brains?

Climate change.

Think about how many times you control your local micro climate around you. Think about how many times you talk about the weather with whomever.

It's a big force in the human condition.

[restalis]

"Think about how many times you talk about the weather with whomever."

About as many as the moments in which we have to talk with somebody but lack something better to break the ice!

__________

P.S.: I've read so far about a number of possible cases for which humans started to walk upright and none had climate change as a primary cause.

[agumonkey]

The day to day thermodynamics.

[mcv]

Is the end of an ice age not a form of climate change then?

A fact of the matter is that a lot of evolution is driven by constantly changing climates. The supervolcanos and asteroid impact that killed the dinosaurs also did so through climate change: too much dust in the air and too little sunlight made the land colder, killed much of the plants, and made resources more scarce. Small warm-blooded animals suddenly had the edge.

It is a bit of a catch-all, though. Just "climate change" doesn't tell you much. Receding glaciers and more accessible land tells you a lot more.

[arethuza]

And its not like the last ice age just neatly stopped - there was a significant cooling period during the Younger Dryas which wasn't quite a bad as a full Ice Age but was still pretty severe:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Younger_Dryas

[galago]

These things aren't mutually exclusive. I think there are events that occurred around periods of climate change, which may have caused changes in animal or human migration. This could lead to warfare, or even more simply disease transmission.

[WalterBright]

We've had nearly continuous warfare for the last 2,000 years. I've read a number of history books on it, and none have suggested climate change as being a cause, or even a factor.

[orionblastar]

We see climate change affecting the Middle East as it dries up sources of water and forces people to migrate or move to the populated cities that have a water source.

It has also caused a refugee crisis as people can't get food or water and flee their nation to go some place else to live.

It has also allowed terrorists to rise up in Syria and Iraq and take over weakened cities that had water sources dry up and people left unable to defend those cities from takeover by terrorists.

So I imagine back during the Ice Age, people moved around as well as struggled to survive. Some lost their food and water sources and turned to warfare on other tribes to survive. People who hung out in southern Europe where the climate was not too bad had a better chance of survival than people who lived on ice sheets up north.

[antocv]

I agree, it is kind of obvious, wherever human appear, megafauna disappear, from Europe to South America. Oh must be climate change.

It could be climate change, but that doesnt explain anything, since its so far reaching and general.

Maybe this latest global warming/climate change, is not the first time humans had an impact on climate? Its certainly not the first time any species had an impact on climate, looking at you cyanobacteria.

[oblio]

It's hard to believe that with such a low population, no industry and no agriculture humans could have made a real impact on climate change.

[kafkaesq]

It's always 'climate change'.

No -- if you read their arguments more closely, what they suspect is that some populations were able to adapt to sudden climate change, while others were not.

So really, it's about adaptability.