Humans have known about, thought about and worried about climate change for millennia.

Since at least the fourth century BC, the ancient Greeks and Romans recognised that the climate changes over time and that human activity can cause it.

They worried deeply about the impact it would have on us as individuals, and on broader society.

Greek writer Theophrastus of Eresus (who lived roughly from 372 BCE to 282 BCE) was a student of Aristotle. He is sometimes credited with the earliest reference to climate change.

In his treatise On Winds, Theophrastus notes people in Crete recognised their climate had changed over the centuries:

[they say] that now the winters are longer and more snow falls, presenting as proof the fact that the mountains once had been inhabited and bore crops, both grain and fruit-tree, the land having been planted and cultivated.

For there are vast plains among the Idaean mountains and among others, none of which are farmed now because they do not bear (crops).

But once, as was said, they were in fact settled, for which reason indeed the island was full of people, as heavy rains occurred at that time, whereas much snow and wintery weather did not occur.

It’s unclear how accurate Theophrastus’ account of Crete’s climate might be or what time period is meant by the word “once”.

Modern scientific

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