We might tend to think that Climate Change is a phenomenon which humans have only recently recognised and understood. While the science behind climate change was certainly not comprehended, by artists in the Flemish and Renaissance schools, its effects and consequences were readily visible and experienced. In the absence of mass and social media, paintings in this period often articulated the anxities and concerns during  a period called the “Little Ice Age”, that extended from approximately 1300 to 1850.

In contrast to today’s increase in global temperatures, the period was marked by a decrease of approximately 0.5C in Europe, with occasional winter decreases of 2C. Although these climatic changes may seem small, the impact was catastrophic on European life.

In Brueghel’s (The Elder 1525? -1590) “Hunters in the Snow” painted in 1565, a wintry village scene is depicted in which three hunters are returning from an unsuccessful expedition accompanied by their dogs; the only reward for their efforts being a solitary fox. Both the hunters and the dogs are exhausted, the hunters downbeat trudging though the snow, the dogs sniffing for scraps. An inn with the sign of St Eustace , the patron saint of hunters, hangs precariously on the verge of falling, a symbol of the hunters despair and desperation.

The ominous portents of a harsh winter are conveyed by the crows sitting in the denuded trees and a magpie flying by, both omens in Dutch culture at the time of misfortune and evil.

Despite the menacing events in the foreground, a group feast on a roasted pig and the villagers blithely skate and enjoy the leisures of winter, all oblivious to looming consequences of the failed hunt.

Unlike the current anthropogenic climate change due to fossil-fuel emissions, The Little Ice Age in Europe was not caused by a single event, but rather by a “perfect storm” of overlapping natural drivers and feedback loops comprising volcanic eruptions, reduced solar radiation and disruption of the AMOC (Atlantic Meridional Overturning Current).

Decades of failing harvests, famines, social upheaval, inflation and revolutions irrevocably devastated European society, that  ultimately lead to a political period of agrarian consolidation, enhanced centralised powers and wars called the “General Crisis of the Seventeenth Century”.

So, is there anything we can take or learn from the rather dismal story portrayed in the picture ? Did society resign itself to an apocalyptic future ? Are there parallels between Breughel’s world and ours ?

Machiavelli wrote in his Discourses on Livey “Whoever wishes to foresee the future must consult the past: for human events ever resemble those of preceding times”.

While this statement may seem pessimistic, condemning society to repeat its mistakes forever, alternatively we can equally find and  view past successes, and hopefully emulate them. Like smouldering embers in a fire, at the time of Breughel’s picture, the intellectual and political fervour of the day would, starting in the 17th century, ignite the Enlightenment  movement  across the Western world that would transform the social, environmental and political landscape for ever. A movement that heralded reason over dogma, science over superstition, asserted human rights and lay the foundations of democratically elected governments. From the ashes of economic and social disaster, would emerge the modern world we enjoy today, where we still have choices for good or bad…. survival or oblivion.

For more recent examples where we have successfully naviagted roads to success from apparent disaster, we need only to look at The rebuilding of  Europe after WW II with assistance of the Marshall plan, and the The Montreal Protocol (1987) an international treaty that recovered Earth’s Ozone

Unlike Brueghel’s skaters oblivious to the impending crisis, we need to be cognisant of events and realise our capabilities to change them for the better.