You do realise that Italy was previously Rome, and along with Greece, they kickstarted European democracy and governance? And they had (surprise) hot climates?
It was warmer actually if we compare e.g. 0 AD to the 19th and early 20th centuries. Climate change you’re talking about resulted in a decrease in temperatures when the “Roman warm period” ended.
> the characteristic warm, wet and stable weather was conducive to economic productivity in an agrarian society
> violent sequence of eruptions triggered what is now called the ‘Late Antique Little Ice Age,’ when much colder temperatures endured for at least 150 years.
> This phase of climate deterioration had decisive effects in Rome’s unravelling. It was also intimately linked to a catastrophe of even greater moment: the outbreak of the first pandemic of bubonic plague.
