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536 was ‘the worst year to be alive’ (2018)

sciencemag.org

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Re: 536 was ‘the worst year to be alive’ (2018)

#151

Post by walleeee »

Symmetry wrote: post #140
Avalaxy wrote: post #36

Could we use this against global warming? Artificially put something in the atmosphere that bounces part of the sunlight back?

Many people have proposed putting sulfur dioxide into the upper atmosphere. It looks relatively easy and could potentially be within the means of even poorer countries like Bangladesh which have a lot to loose from rising sea levels. But we can't predict exactly how it would turn out and it would certainly make ocean acidifcation worse so it's very much a desperation play.

Yes. Marine cloud brightening has also been proposed. IMO we'll almost certainly see either that or stratospheric aerosols as nations begin to feel the increasing effects of climate change and grow more desperate.

Whether it might be uni- or multilateral is also interesting, given the possibly serious effects on e.g. agriculture in "downstream" geographic regions. It's not much of a stretch to imagine it kicking off some kind of war.

Re: 536 was ‘the worst year to be alive’ (2018)

#152

Post by asdff »

ummonk wrote: post #142

> What came to be called the Plague of Justinian spread rapidly, wiping out one-third to one-half of the population of the eastern Roman Empire and hastening its collapse, McCormick says. Hastening its collapse several centuries later?

It did. Justinians gains in italy were lost not long after the plague to the lombards, who saw a power vacuum. The empire had just spent quite a bit on wars and capital expenses, and the tax base never recovered. It hobbled the economy and manpower of the empire and left it susceptible to attacks from enemies virtually on all sides, and territory shrunk by the century until Constantinople was merely a city state, mostly abandoned within its rotting walls which it no longer had the manpower to fully defend, with a few Grecian possessions and vassal states by the time it succumbed to the Turks.

Re: 536 was ‘the worst year to be alive’ (2018)

#154

Post by asdff »

runarberg wrote: post #148

Two things strike me as odd in this article: > 536 Icelandic volcano erupts, dimming the sun for 18 months I’m not aware of any evidence that the 536 eruption happened in Iceland. Ash has been found in both Antarctica and Greenland indicating that the eruption was probably much closer to the equator[1]. > 541–543 The “Justinian” bubonic plague spreads through the Mediterranean, killing 35%–55% of the population and s…

Historical consensus favors the plague as quite significant, even if the city of constantinople managed to survive independently for several more centuries. The weakened mediterranian presented opportunities for the gothic tribes to take territory in gaul and italy in the decades following, and the economy nor the manpower of the empire never recovered. By the fall, Constantinople was a hollow shell of what it was, controlling hardly any territory and partially in ruins, ultimately abandoned by its few remaining allies in the face of the Turks.

Re: 536 was ‘the worst year to be alive’ (2018)

#155

Post by asdfasgasdgasdg »

chrisco255 wrote: post #27
pureliquidhw wrote: post #17

How susceptible are we to another catastrophic volcano eruption? After COVID-19 shut down supply chains, there were some problematic delays, but seems like we quickly recovered. If the entire planet's crops were wiped out, we're all just SOL if we don't get canned goods in time? If we had 12 months notice, could we as a planet get it together? 6 months? 3 months? Is there forecasting for volcanoes? (looks like yes: h…

Forecasting volcanoes is a lot like forecasting earthquakes, it's really difficult to do and often there's very little warning, maybe a couple of days at most, but sometimes comes with no warning at all. The White Island volcano killed several people last year: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2019_Whakaari_/_White_Island_e... This place was a famous tourist destination. One of my favorite sites for tracking Volcanic er…

The White Island eruption was forecasted though. It's just that tourists kept going there regardless.

Re: 536 was ‘the worst year to be alive’ (2018)

#156

Post by Retric »

Nasrudith wrote: post #119
yummypaint wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's also a good reason to leave fossil fuels in the ground and not just extract them as quickly as possible wherever we find them. It seems conceivable that we could eventually find ourselves thermodynamically unable to recover after a catastrophy like a big solar flare. Unfortunately there is no way for anyone to make money by being responsible in this way. We are effectively draining our planetary rainy day fund a…

I am not too certain of the logic of the arguement - namely because fossil fuels are actually pretty damn advanced in terms of "actual technology and societal infastructure to access and exploit them". We already went through this long ago with surface deposits of copper ore as well essentially millenia ago. Effectively the time when it is useful is "when we don't have cheaper alternatives yet". We still should striv…

There are a lot of surface level coal deposits right now that can be harvested with hand tools. It’s simply a question of efficiency, if a deposit is not vast nobody turns it into a mine.

Re: 536 was ‘the worst year to be alive’ (2018)

#157

Post by ardit33 »

afterburner wrote: post #123

> Then, in 541, bubonic plague struck the Roman port of Pelusium, in Egypt. What came to be called the Plague of Justinian spread rapidly, wiping out one-third to one-half of the population of the eastern Roman Empire and hastening its collapse, McCormick says. I dunno, sounds like 541 was the worst year to be alive. That year also had a second volcano eruption according to the article.

It seems to have been over a decade of misery.... and I guess 536 was the start/first year of it....

Re: 536 was ‘the worst year to be alive’ (2018)

#158

Post by seph-reed »

aksss wrote: post #132
seph-reed wrote: post #113

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> We are effectively draining our planetary rainy day fund and spending it on cocaine Not usually a fan of us vs them mentality, but your use of "we" here feels bad. Surely, it's all of us that use these resources, nobody on HN is self sufficient (please be the exception). But at the same time, most of us aren't getting much of the "cocaine" here, at least relatively. It would almost be reasonable to say " They are e…

You kidding me? We're all getting the coke. Just because you're not Scarface doesn't avoid the fact that all of us are awash in plastics, silicone, rare earth metals, concrete, steel, precious metals, alloys, goods from far flung lands, industrial agriculture and many assumptions about available services that rely on the same and ravenous upstream fossil fuel consumption. We (as human consumers) never had it so good,…

EDIT: This post is angry. I say my words more clearly below.

> living a better life today than someone of your station would have lived 300 years ago

> We (as human consumers) never had it so good

You couldn't possibly understand how much better community and and a sense purpose is to the life we're living. The fact that we become more and more isolated, more and more lied to, more and more defeated and yet: you think gimmicky material goods is what defines quality of life.. it's depressing.

I've seen so many people of your stance see how wrong they are the moment they find community, but I've never seen a person lose community and feel like money could replace it.

--------

FURTHER! WHAT THE FUCK!? WHY IS ANY OF THIS NECESSARY TO GET THESE GOODS!?

Can you really not imagine a world where we make technological progress without doing horrible things?! How fucking much cool-aid have you drank!?

Re: 536 was ‘the worst year to be alive’ (2018)

#159

Post by grumple »

ghaff wrote: post #117
subsubzero wrote: post #58

How many people reading this have a years worth of food? Could any of us survive something similar to this eruption? I think covid really opened alot of peoples eyes to extreme worldwide disasters (volcanos, large earthquakes, pandemics) and how most are not prepared for it at all and yes these things do and will continue to keep happening.

I'd just point out that keeping a year's worth of food for a rapid and unexpected event is nuclear bunker level prep. It also requires spending a lot of money and storage space on something that's going to have to be rotated out every few years. And while some things can last pretty much indefinitely, other things have shelf lifes and you're probably not going to use all those canned goods during normal times. So the…

You've got to buy things that you'll eat anyway - like canned beans, etc, and use them and replace them regularly.

Re: 536 was ‘the worst year to be alive’ (2018)

#160

Post by ardit33 »

Note, that after this period (536-600), there were huge swaths of Europe that was depopulated, and or decimated, and this enabled major migration movements...

Eg. After this period, in the early 600's, Slavic tribes migrated south, all the way to Greece/Egean sea, but eventually were pushed back to current/modern areas....

So, these events contributed heavily to even modern borders and some events....

I know, there are some weird post-modernist movement to say 'dark ages were not that bad', but indeed, these were some of the darkest/harshest time in our recorded history....

The volcano being in Iceland, could explain on why Britain was one of the harshest hit areas by the dark ages....

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