Global crisis part 2
753.
My photo
~
So: Geoffrey Parker published his massive book about the 17th century crisis in 2013. I think one of the things he was doing was making a point about the fact that climate is very far from steady and can swerve for many reasons. The Maunder sunspot minimum and the twelve volcanoes in the Pacific could very well have caused the 1-2 degree drop in average temperatures between 1618 and 1850. The fact of the matter is that what’s called the Holocene, the 12,000 year period of stable weather, may have happened by accident, allowing humans to get stuck into agriculture and also civilization. No gods involved, simply random chance.
As I said in the main review: “What seems clear from the records of the 17th century climate crisis and our modern climatic polyshambles is that the climate doesn’t like to shift. If you change the temperature of the Earth, even if only by an average 1 or 2 degrees C up or down, the weather reacts, whiplashing from drought to wildfires to floods to hurricanes and back again. Obviously this is what’s happening now as we amble into the future arguing that climate change is natural and we should stop worrying about it.”
We should worry about it. A third to a half of the population of Europe and China died in the worst part of the crisis from 1618 to 1680.
We are peering up the nostrils of another big shift in climate as our average global temperatures barrel up past 1.5 deg C, heading for 2 or 3 or anything above that. No exciting frost fairs on the Thames for us, the glaciers are already melting, the sea level is rising, temperatures are rising – though not in Falmouth where temperatures are rather cold at the moment.
The weather is reacting to the sudden increase in heat from CO2 all over the world, going from drought to flood, to storms. It’s becoming lethally unpredictable, not helped by the wannabe tyrant in the White House decimating the institutions collecting raw weather data so there won’t be any hurricanes. Well, there will be hurricanes but no one will know how big they are in fact. Result!
Last time there was a big shift in the weather, most European countries went to war. Will we do it again in the 21st century? Or will we go for Tokugawa Japanese organisation and competence (and authoritarianism).
At the moment, with the West crawling with oligarchs, billionaires and senile wannabe tyrants, we’re going for war. Just a few of the confusing number of hot wars in the world are Ukraine v. Russia; Palestinians in Gaza v. Israelis; Civil war in Sudan, East Congo, Myanmar, Haiti.
Everybody seems to be hypnotised into the terrible state of learned helplessness. Children are dying of starvation in Africa and on the Mediterranean: yes, people care but they can’t seem to stop the rockets and bombs; they can’t seem to shame the extremist politicians who created the artificial famine into stopping it.
In the 17th century people couldn’t do much to stop countries fighting each other. People only knew what was happening in their own country by rumours and ballads and occasional newsletters. Nowadays we know very well but we still can’t stop shameless arrogant men in power doing whatever they want.
What happened later in the 17th century?
After about 1680 people, especially aristos, seem to have got tired of fighting wars over religion. They carried on fighting wars over land and money but there were fewer fights about Jesus and what wars there were tended to be fought by professionals. This was an improvement...
Until ideological war was started again by the French Revolution.
Meanwhile something else had come to prominence among aristos and intellectuals and that something was science. The Royal Society of London for Improving Natural Knowledge was founded in November 1660 by Charles II and included Isaac Newton in 1672. It was the first learned society of its time and now known as the Royal Society is still around.
I used to think that science trounced war and everything became much more peaceful after 1700. Unfortunately I was wrong. Science has become the major inventor and designer of war tech. However at least as the destructiveness of war has gone up and up, non-psychopaths seem more reluctant to engage in it.
When the Earth cooled and the climate became unstable, men went to war with muskets and cannon. Now the Earth is warming and the climate is becoming unstable, men and women are going to war with drones and missiles.
It seems pretty pointless to me though there’s some hope that the wannabe tyrant in the USA will crash all the markets and oil and gas will run out.
This quote might be the origin of a well-known meme, said to have been from Albert Einstein in 1947.
‘Professor Albert Einstein was asked by friends at a recent dinner party what new weapons might be employed in World War III. Appalled at the implications, he shook his head.
After several minutes of meditation, he said. "I don't know what weapons might be used in World War III. But there isn't any doubt what weapons will be used in World War IV."
"And what are those?" a guest asked.
"Stone spears," said Einstein.’
~~~