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Turning Point Archive

The King Who Thought About Forever Three Months Before His Army Got Slaughtered

By Seth D. Carrington— November 21, 2025

Feature image for article: The King Who Thought About Forever Three Months Before His Army Got Slaughtered

May 29, 1346. Philip VI of France issues an ordinance requiring his kingdom's forests to sustain themselves perpetually—forever, the decree says—because France has lost half its woodland in three centuries and somebody needs to think past the immediate crisis. Three months later his army gets butchered and he spends his final years watching everything collapse. What happened to the forest decree? That's where it gets interesting.

Turning Point Archive

The King Who Thought About Forever Three Months Before His Army Got Slaughtered

By Seth D. Carrington— November 21, 2025

May 29, 1346. Philip VI of France issues an ordinance requiring his kingdom's forests to sustain themselves perpetually—forever, the decree says—because France has lost half its woodland in three centuries and somebody needs to think past the immediate crisis. Three months later his army gets butchered and he spends his final years watching everything collapse. What happened to the forest decree? That's where it gets interesting.

Conversations Across Climate Time

An Interview with the Man Who Watched Chicago Burn Twice and Finally Got Mad About It

Conversations Across Climate Time

An Interview with the Man Who Watched Chicago Burn Twice and Finally Got Mad About It

History Echoes This Week

Why Montreal Worked and Kyoto Failed

COP30 wrapped last week with pledges that nudged warming projections from 2.6-2.8°C down to 2.3-2.5°C. Most of that improvement comes from methodological adjustments, not new commitments. The UN Secretary-General's frustrated declaration that "it's no longer time for negotiations" sounds familiar because we've watched this movie before.

The Montreal Protocol achieved something climate negotiations haven't: universal ratification, 98% phase-out of targeted chemicals, a healing ozone layer. It worked because countries agreed to ban specific substances on specific timelines, funded developing nations to comply, and created targets everyone could verify.

Kyoto exempted most of the world from reductions. Seventeen of thirty-six participating countries missed their targets anyway. Global emissions rose 44% during the treaty period. COP30's minimal progress follows Kyoto's pattern, not Montreal's.

History Echoes This Week

Why Montreal Worked and Kyoto Failed

COP30 wrapped last week with pledges that nudged warming projections from 2.6-2.8°C down to 2.3-2.5°C. Most of that improvement comes from methodological adjustments, not new commitments. The UN Secretary-General's frustrated declaration that "it's no longer time for negotiations" sounds familiar because we've watched this movie before.

The Montreal Protocol achieved something climate negotiations haven't: universal ratification, 98% phase-out of targeted chemicals, a healing ozone layer. It worked because countries agreed to ban specific substances on specific timelines, funded developing nations to comply, and created targets everyone could verify.

Kyoto exempted most of the world from reductions. Seventeen of thirty-six participating countries missed their targets anyway. Global emissions rose 44% during the treaty period. COP30's minimal progress follows Kyoto's pattern, not Montreal's.

Universal buy-in:

Montreal got 197 countries by 2009; Kyoto's second phase covered just 11% of global emissions after major emitters walked away.

Concrete mandates:

Montreal banned specific chemicals with hard deadlines; Kyoto set percentage goals that proved unenforceable when countries simply ignored them.

Financial support:

Montreal's Multilateral Fund helped poorer nations comply; Kyoto's proposed emissions trading system never materialized, leaving developing countries without resources.

Measurable results:

Atmospheric CFCs leveled off under Montreal; CO2 emissions jumped 53% during Kyoto despite all the pledges and summits.

Political durability:

Montreal maintained US bipartisan support for three decades; America never ratified Kyoto, and Canada withdrew entirely in 2012.

Six Ways They Adapted

Humans have always adapted to environmental upheaval. We just don't always succeed, and success itself often looks different than we imagined. Sometimes adaptation means building massive infrastructure that becomes a modern wonder but creates new ecological problems. Sometimes it means leaving entirely, discovering that mobility protects people even when the land stays broken. Sometimes it means engineering so sophisticated that civilizations a millennium later still can't quite figure out how it worked.

This week's historical cases span ancient water systems to modern flood barriers. Adaptation takes wildly different forms depending on context, resources, and what you're willing to sacrifice. The timescales alone are humbling. Iceland has been trying to undo three centuries of deforestation for over a thousand years now. What these cases share is a certain honesty about tradeoffs: the Dutch built wonders but had to learn to live with water anyway, Dust Bowl migrants found economic mobility by abandoning agricultural land that never recovered, and London rebuilt fast by abandoning radical visions for familiar patterns.

Six Ways They Adapted

Humans have always adapted to environmental upheaval. We just don't always succeed, and success itself often looks different than we imagined. Sometimes adaptation means building massive infrastructure that becomes a modern wonder but creates new ecological problems. Sometimes it means leaving entirely, discovering that mobility protects people even when the land stays broken. Sometimes it means engineering so sophisticated that civilizations a millennium later still can't quite figure out how it worked.

This week's historical cases span ancient water systems to modern flood barriers. Adaptation takes wildly different forms depending on context, resources, and what you're willing to sacrifice. The timescales alone are humbling. Iceland has been trying to undo three centuries of deforestation for over a thousand years now. What these cases share is a certain honesty about tradeoffs: the Dutch built wonders but had to learn to live with water anyway, Dust Bowl migrants found economic mobility by abandoning agricultural land that never recovered, and London rebuilt fast by abandoning radical visions for familiar patterns.

Flood Infrastructure

Netherlands Built Wonders, Then Reconsidered

After 1,836 deaths in 1953's North Sea flood, the Dutch spent 33 years building the Delta Works: 700km of jagged coastline became 80km of barriers, dams, and levees at 20% of national GDP. They created one of the Seven Wonders of the Modern World. They also killed the tides, suffocated ecosystems, and learned you can't just keep water out forever.

Climate Migration

Dust Bowl Refugees Found Unexpected Mobility

When drought and poor farming devastated the Great Plains in the 1930s, 2.5 million people migrated, mostly within their own states rather than to California. Migration protected wage incomes despite permanent agricultural collapse. Many farmers left the land for better-paying skilled work. The land never recovered. People adapted by leaving.

Water Engineering

Petra's Invisible Systems Supported 40,000

The Nabataeans built 200km of clay pipelines and carved rock canals at precisely calculated two-degree angles, supporting up to 40,000 people in a desert receiving six inches of annual rainfall. The sophistication baffled later Roman engineers who borrowed their techniques. A 363 AD earthquake destroyed the system. The city was abandoned by 700 AD.

Urban Reconstruction

London Rebuilt Fast, Not Radically

After the 1666 Great Fire destroyed 13,200 houses and left 70,000 homeless, grand Baroque rebuilding schemes poured in. London rebuilt mostly along old street patterns: wider streets, brick instead of wood, familiar boundaries. A special Fire Court resolved property disputes within days. Most private rebuilding was complete by 1671. Resilience favored speed over radical reimagining.

Resource Depletion

Iceland's Forests: Still Gone After 1,150 Years

First settlers cleared 25-40% forest cover to nearly zero within three centuries for fuel, ships, and sheep grazing. By the 1880s, massive sandstorms prompted reforestation efforts. After 100+ years of intentional replanting, 3 million seedlings annually, coverage stands at 2% today. Sheep still browse new growth. Ecosystems can't truly recover from large-scale deforestation.

Historical Climate Insights

Archaeology Shows Successful Climate Adaptation Worth Copying

June 2025 framework bridges climate science with archaeological evidence of past adaptations. High-resolution climate reconstructions now reveal human-scale responses to environmental change. Researchers argue many historical strategies succeeded precisely because cultural diversity enabled flexible responses—lessons Earth models currently ignore.

The practical upshot?

Past societies developed adaptation strategies we could actually use today, not just study.

What's missing from models?

Cultural systems and human responses, despite archaeology's rich evidence of what actually worked.

Infrastructure Fails When Disasters Exceed Design Limits

Analysis of 45 paired flood and drought events reveals a brutal pattern: risk management works until it doesn't. When second events exceeded infrastructure design parameters, impacts almost always increased. Europe's 2015 drought cost €2.2 billion versus €17.1 billion in 2003 through better governance, not better levees.

The infrastructure trap?

Building for historical extremes leaves you vulnerable when climate exceeds those parameters.

What actually reduced impacts?

Governance improvements and integrated planning, not just bigger infrastructure investments.

Byzantine Prosperity During Climate Stress, Then Collapse

Byzantium peaked economically around 1150 CE during adverse climate conditions, proving sophisticated societies can handle environmental stress. Constantinople fell in 1204 anyway. Climate contributed but political tensions and external pressures determined vulnerability. Resilience and collapse can coexist in the same system.

The complexity lesson?

Societies withstand climate stress until compounding political and social tensions overwhelm adaptive capacity.

Why this matters now?

Climate impacts never operate separately from the political and social systems determining vulnerability.

Medieval Europe Avoided Famine Through Agricultural Diversity

Review of European famines from 700-1800 CE challenges climate determinism. Food crises peaked during Little Ice Age but required pre-existing vulnerabilities to become catastrophic. Resilient societies diversified agriculture and introduced drought-resistant crops like potatoes and maize. Climate triggered crises but didn't determine outcomes.

The adaptation pattern?

Even medieval societies avoided climate-driven famine through agricultural diversity and economic flexibility.

What caused actual famines?

Climatic extremes combined with societal vulnerabilities, rarely climate stress alone.

Historical Climate Insights

Archaeology Shows Successful Climate Adaptation Worth Copying

June 2025 framework bridges climate science with archaeological evidence of past adaptations. High-resolution climate reconstructions now reveal human-scale responses to environmental change. Researchers argue many historical strategies succeeded precisely because cultural diversity enabled flexible responses—lessons Earth models currently ignore.

The practical upshot?

Past societies developed adaptation strategies we could actually use today, not just study.

What's missing from models?

Cultural systems and human responses, despite archaeology's rich evidence of what actually worked.

Historical Climate Insights

Infrastructure Fails When Disasters Exceed Design Limits

Analysis of 45 paired flood and drought events reveals a brutal pattern: risk management works until it doesn't. When second events exceeded infrastructure design parameters, impacts almost always increased. Europe's 2015 drought cost €2.2 billion versus €17.1 billion in 2003 through better governance, not better levees.

The infrastructure trap?

Building for historical extremes leaves you vulnerable when climate exceeds those parameters.

What actually reduced impacts?

Governance improvements and integrated planning, not just bigger infrastructure investments.

Historical Climate Insights

Byzantine Prosperity During Climate Stress, Then Collapse

Byzantium peaked economically around 1150 CE during adverse climate conditions, proving sophisticated societies can handle environmental stress. Constantinople fell in 1204 anyway. Climate contributed but political tensions and external pressures determined vulnerability. Resilience and collapse can coexist in the same system.

The complexity lesson?

Societies withstand climate stress until compounding political and social tensions overwhelm adaptive capacity.

Why this matters now?

Climate impacts never operate separately from the political and social systems determining vulnerability.

Historical Climate Insights

Medieval Europe Avoided Famine Through Agricultural Diversity

Review of European famines from 700-1800 CE challenges climate determinism. Food crises peaked during Little Ice Age but required pre-existing vulnerabilities to become catastrophic. Resilient societies diversified agriculture and introduced drought-resistant crops like potatoes and maize. Climate triggered crises but didn't determine outcomes.

The adaptation pattern?

Even medieval societies avoided climate-driven famine through agricultural diversity and economic flexibility.

What caused actual famines?

Climatic extremes combined with societal vulnerabilities, rarely climate stress alone.

Past Articles

The Second Knock

Lois Gibbs's hand rose toward her neighbor's door in spring 1978. The petition trembled. Who was she to demand acti...

When the Sky Made the Case

My mother tracked storm systems days out—pressure gradients, trajectory calculations, knowing when weather would hit be...

When the Water Judges Arrived

Keep circling back to those Spanish water judges in 1570s Peru who looked at fourteen-century-old canal systems and ...

When Adapting Meant Giving Up the Right to Adapt

The man offered fifty cents an acre for rocks you couldn't see and couldn't use. Your corn was bringing thirty cents...

Past Articles

The Second Knock

Lois Gibbs's hand rose toward her neighbor's door in spring 1978. The petition trembled. Who was she to demand acti...

When the Sky Made the Case

My mother tracked storm systems days out—pressure gradients, trajectory calculations, knowing when weather would hit be...

When the Water Judges Arrived

Keep circling back to those Spanish water judges in 1570s Peru who looked at fourteen-century-old canal systems and ...

When Adapting Meant Giving Up the Right to Adapt

The man offered fifty cents an acre for rocks you couldn't see and couldn't use. Your corn was bringing thirty cents...