I'm going to talk about much longer timeframes, but as a reminder, the Mediterranean used to be the center of Western Civilization (because trade was ridiculous

I'm going to talk about much longer timeframes, but as a reminder, the Mediterranean used to be the center of Western Civilization (because trade was ridiculously more effective over it than over land), with what is now Turkey, Israel, Egypt, Tunisia... being major """European""" centers. At the same time, what is now the British Islands were some kind of "end of the world" location (the equivalent of today's Alaska/Greenland/Northern Canada (?)) The importance of the Arctic becoming viable for trade routes should not be underestimated. (Even more so, on a longer timeframe, if equatorial locations become uninhabitable because too hot.)