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Apocalypso-YouTube t1_j1b34ku wrote

Reply to comment by its_raining_scotch in How did the Romans manage to arm most of their soldiers with swords? by Horror_in_Vacuum

Now I don't feel so bad that pollution seems especially severe nowadays. It appears there's always been at least one society throughout history that contributed significantly to pollution.

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boredsittingonthebus t1_j1ba8n3 wrote

I have a feeling today's pollution is far, far worse.

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Apocalypso-YouTube t1_j1bagpo wrote

That's very likely, but we also don't know exactly what extent it went to in past years.

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Horror_in_Vacuum OP t1_j1bpuxe wrote

You can be pretty sure it never reached the levels we have today. It's a matter of population.

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Horror_in_Vacuum OP t1_j1bpnza wrote

Believe me, you should feel bad. The worst thing is that it's not even just the carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. There's acid rain, plastic pollution, agrotoxics and a probably a hundred other negative ways in which our lifestyle impacts the environment that we haven't even discovered yet.

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notabiologist t1_j1conkt wrote

Totally agree, though the one thing I’d note is that acid rain has been a solved problem (in the west) and I believe isn’t the same magnitude of a problem elsewhere as it was in the west in the past. That’s the one bright thing, we are able to legislate our way out of an environmental problem. This gives some hope to legislation in order to curb climate change, although both the problem and solution to climate change is way more complex than acid rain.

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Horror_in_Vacuum OP t1_j1cx9x6 wrote

We were also able to legislate our way out of the CFC and leaded gasoline crises. Though with the oil industry is gonna be much more difficult. It's not only a matter of technology. And even after we manage to solve that, plastic's probably going to be the next big problem.

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its_raining_scotch t1_j1bkcyp wrote

The Romans were a special breed. Almost like a modern society in ancient times. It’s interesting how similar we are to them and also interesting to imagine what they could have done if they had discovered gun powder, or germ theory, or electricity.

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Apocalypso-YouTube t1_j1bo2v0 wrote

The Romans did have indoor plumbing which wasn't too dissimilar from our own, so you definitely have a point.

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Horror_in_Vacuum OP t1_j1cxix0 wrote

I mean, if the Western empire lasted as long as the Byzantines they'd probably bring about some sort of Industrial Revolution in the Middle Ages.

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