气候:17—19世纪欧洲社会和政治抗争的一个因素?

Climate:One Factor of Social and Political Contestation(XVIIe-XIXe centuries)in Europe

社会与政治抗争是一个复杂的问题。在法国旧制度时期,不同的使用者赋予"叛乱""造反"甚或"骚乱"这样的术语以不同的含义。近年来,联合国政府间气候变化专家小组提交的报告,不断强调气候变化在加剧世界范围内社会和军事冲突方面扮演的角色。学者们也用复杂的数学模型比较了长时段里的历史事件系列与小冰河期气候剧烈波动之间的关系。基于法国过去500年连贯的气候数据和历史学家让·尼古拉梳理的法国旧制度时期抗争年表,我们可以推测出,社会暴力的高峰期往往与极端气候事件的出现相重合。通过对1709年"大寒冬"、法国大革命爆发初期和1816至1817年坦博拉火山喷发时法国和瑞士社会与政治抗争的分析,我们发现,气象状况影响农业生产,造成粮价高涨,引发生计危机,民众骚乱总是在这种状况下爆发。但往往是在面对严重的社会危机,各种政治斗争汇聚到一起时,气候问题才会演化成大规模的社会运动。

During the Old Regime of France,some words centering on the social and political contestation like"rebellion","revolt"or even"riot"were given different meanings by different persons.In recent years,the reports posed by Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change have emphasized ceaselessly the role played by climate change in intensifying social and military conflicts in the world.Scholars have compared historical series events in the long term with severe climate fluctuations relying on complicated mathematical models.Based upon coherent climate data of the past 500 years and chronological table of contestations in France Old Regime collected by historian Jean Nicolas,we can conjecture that the climax of social violence occurs coincidentally with extreme climatic events.Analysis of the social and political struggles in the Great Winter of 1709 in France and Switzerland,at the onset of the French Revolution and at the eruption of Mount Tambora in 1816-1817 shows that climate has an impact on agricultural production,causes high food prices,livelihood crises,and even leads to civil unrest at all times.However,the climate issue will not become a large-scale social movement before political struggles converge in the face of serious social crises.