Tri-Cataclysm

 We’re living in a weirdly dangerous world. I’m old—86 by at least one count—and I have never quite seen anything like this age we now inhabit. What the hell is going on?

1. COVID – perhaps the most widespread and deadliest disease the world has ever seen.  Well, maybe The Black Death (Bubonic Plague) during the 14^th century was worse, especially given the level of ignorance about disease that existed.  Yeah, it was bad then too, but in the 14^th century, we could blame it on actual ignorance, whereas now we have this stupidity thing we have to add in. Imagine 21^st century people yelling about their “freedom” being imposed upon, by requiring them to wear masks, and even, get vaccinated.  I imagine in the 14^th century, people would have accepted these restrictions happily.  When the alternative was death, people used to pay attention and do the right thing. I think of polio, smallpox, measles, etc.  All those diseases we eliminated because people got vaccinated.  What a concept, huh? Now, folks regard interventions as some sort of government plot to be resisted at all costs.

2. Climate Change – climate change may in fact be the most catastrophic human-caused event ever to occur on this planet. Although our science community has been warning us at least since the 1970s (that’s 50 years ago folks) that we needed to do something serious about constraining carbon emissions, we have largely ignored them, until now. And now, it seems less the underlying science than catastrophic wild fires, huge storms, flooding, droughts, each seemingly larger and more damaging than the last that has finally gotten our attention.  We humans seem not to learn about anything important until it smacks us across the face.  Even that cute little girl, Greta Thunberg, who has been yelling at us and warning us for several years now, is only now beginning to attract our attention.  She has been organizing school climate strikes since about 2018, when she was 15 years of age.  Think of that. At age 15, she was organizing for action to defeat climate change.  But, despite the attention she has received, it seems we really needed to be smacked across the face—the floods, wild fires, droughts are happily providing that slap. Now, we still need to observe carefully whether humans will also figure a way out of actual action to arrest climate catastrophe.  Real action around the globe is kind of like gun control in America. There are always arguments around actual corrective changes, without any actual changes taking place. And with climate, reducing carbon emissions requires us to radically alter how we manage to transport ourselves about, and how we produce energy. Those industries would rather “Keep on Truck’n” and so they will happily bribe political officialdom to allow just that.

3. Afghanistan (and other natural catastrophes) – We seemingly never actually learn anything from our past excursions into military disasters. Apparently America has never been really any good at this war thingie, except when it involves two big armies, at least one of which is European in origin. We were quite exceptional in that War of Independence, War of 1812, Civil War, World War I and World War II. Note that all involved actual formal armies that more or less understood war in the same terms. We succeeded by being better armed, and better organized.  But it seems, whenever we drift into a “conflict” between two foreign entities not of European origin, without reliance on conventional armies and conventional army strategies and tactics, we fumble around like teenagers at their first boy-girl party.  I’m thinking of, say, Korea, Vietnam, and the whole of the Middle East messiness.  In none of those did we ever manage to achieve the clear Winner and Peace Treaty thing.  We seem to have achieved a kind of stalemate in Korea, actual defeat in Vietnam, the first in our history, and then a retreat in the face of a likely defeat in our various Middle Eastern enterprises. At least the British, in India, achieved a kind of civilized and ultimately peaceful withdrawal—call it what you will. But they left with all their troops intact, and a reasonably civilized resulting governmental solution in its wake.   That would have been absolutely splendid in Afghanistan, but it was not to be. First the Brits, then the Russians, then finally the Americans tried to secure a stable, peaceful government there, but alas, none of us knew how to do that. Mainly, of course, neither do the Afghans. The Taliban taking over is just one more period in Afghan history in which one corrupt regime replaces another corrupt regime.  Exactly what we will all consider doing when this Taliban regime fails and the place falls into chaos once more, with catastrophic effects on surrounding countries, is anyone’s guess.  I understand that our corrupt republican party is now considering impeaching Joe Biden for his disastrous Afghan withdrawal, and to that, I reply . . . Hahahahahahahahahahahaha. You guys really have no class and no clue do you?  Taking advice again from that Giant Turd at MaraLago??

But I assume that we will go on, unless the republican party decides they prefer the Trump-Christian Taliban approach to government reorganization—revolution. Hopefully not, though.  I keep wondering when we will see a replacement party begin to take shape in America. See, we actually need two functioning parties to argue and to bring about intelligent changes to our approach to life.  Hey, George Will, why not return to Life and begin yelling for a new party?

But this TriCataclysm has really begun affecting life on earth.  It seems difficult at best to awaken each morning and smell the roses, and absorb the sunlight, and truly enjoy that first cup of espresso. Every joy is now tinged with these dark elements of potential disaster. I know, I know, it’s tough being 86 and trying to find happiness.  But, looking at and listening to Greta, it seems equally tough being 18 and trying to find happiness. She just has more energy to expend on that vital task.  Well, good luck Greta. You may save us after all, just don’t expect too much from we Americans. We seem to value money and that great Ponzi Scheme in the sky called organized Religion a bit more than rational thoughts about humanity. Keep on kiddo. We need more folks just like you Greta.

And on our overall theme, I came across an article on dinosaurs. Remember them? Well, think of us as modern dinosaurs. See below . . . or, if you prefer, just go have a second glass of wine. Ta ta.

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And from the National Geographic (Dinosaur extinction facts and information | National Geographic)

One of the most well-known theories for the death of the dinosaurs is the Alvarez hypothesis, named after the father-and-son duo Luis and Walter Alvarez. In 1980, these two scientists proposed the notion that a meteor the size of a mountain slammed into Earth 66 million years ago, filling the atmosphere with gas, dust, and debris that drastically altered the climate.

Their key piece of evidence is an oddly high amount of the metal iridium in what’s known as the Cretaceous-Paleogene, or K-Pg, layer—the geologic boundary zone that seems to cap any known rock layers containing dinosaur fossils. Iridium is relatively rare in Earth's crust but is more abundant in stony meteorites, which led the Alvarezs to conclude that the mass extinction was caused by an extraterrestrial object. The theory gained even more steam when scientists were able to link the extinction event to a huge impact crater along the coast of Mexico’s Yucatán Peninsula. At about 93 miles wide, the Chicxulub crater seems to be the right size and age to account for the dino die-off.

In 2016, scientists drilled a rock core inside the underwater part of Chicxulub, pulling up a sample stretching deep beneath the seabed. This rare peek inside the guts of the crater showed that the impact would have been powerful enough to send deadly amounts of vaporized rock and gases into the atmosphere, and that the effects would have persisted for years. And in 2019, paleontologists digging in North Dakota found a treasure trove of fossils extremely close to the K-Pg boundary, essentially capturing the remains of an entire ecosystem that existed shortly before the mass extinction. Tellingly, the fossil-bearing layers contain loads of tiny glass bits called tektites—likely blobs of melted rock kicked up by the impact that solidified in the atmosphere and then rained down over Earth.

Volcanic fury

However, other scientists maintain that the evidence for a massive meteor impact event is inconclusive, and that the more likely culprit may be Earth itself.

Ancient lava flows in India known as the Deccan Traps also seem to match nicely in time with the end of the Cretaceous, with massive outpourings of lava spewing forth between 60 and 65 million years ago. Today, the resulting volcanic rock covers nearly 200,000 square miles in layers that are in places more than 6,000 feet thick. Such a vast eruptive event would have choked the skies with carbon dioxide and other gases that would have dramatically changed Earth’s climate.

Proponents of this theory point to multiple clues that suggest volcanism is a better fit. For one, some studies show that Earth’s temperature was changing even before the proposed impact event. Other research has found evidence for mass die-offs much earlier than 66 million years ago, with some signs that dinosaurs in particular were already in a slow decline in the late Cretaceous. What’s more, volcanic activity is frequent on this planet and is a plausible culprit for other ancient extinctions, while giant meteor strikes are much more rare. This all makes sense, supporters say, if ongoing volcanic eruptions were the root cause of the world-wide K-Pg extinctions.

Why not both?

Increasingly, scientists trying to unravel this prehistoric mystery are seeing room for a combination of these ideas. It’s possible the dinosaurs were the unlucky recipients of a geologic one-two punch, with volcanism weakening ecosystems enough to make them vulnerable to an incoming meteor.