It's Come to This: Climate Change Contributed to Rise and Fall of Roman Empire

Here all this time I thought it was Sarah Palin and the incendiary rhetoric of rightwing talk radio that brought them to their knees.

Some House Democrats blamed their defeat in November’s mid-term elections partly on Speaker Nancy Pelosi's decision to force a vote on a climate change bill.

A new study suggests that climate change has claimed bigger political victims in the past. Much bigger.

The study published in the journal Science suggests climate change contributed to the rise and fall of the Roman empire.

“Climate change seems a factor in the rise and fall of the Roman empire, according to a study of ancient tree growth that urges greater awareness of the risks of global warming in the 21st century,” Reuters reports.

The study's lead author said climate shifts affected farming, and amplified other political, social and economic crises.

Reuters seems to downplay the role of barbarians, or as they're more commonly known, liberals.

"Distinct drying in the 3rd century paralleled a period of serious crisis in the western Roman empire marked by barbarian invasion, political turmoil and economic dislocation in several provinces of Gaul," it said.

Temperatures and rainfall only returned to levels of the Roman period in the early 800s, around the time when new kingdoms consolidated in Europe.

The Black Death bubonic plague of the mid-14th century, for instance, was during an unstable, wet period. "From other studies we know that a more humid environment is more supportive fo the dispersal of plague," Buentgen said.

Isn't Black Death a pejorative? Shouldn't it be renamed Death of Color?