Ringing-In The New Year

I know that about half of my friends are grumpy as we come to the end of the Current Guy's first year in office.  Speaking for myself I don't miss those days of a White House careening from crisis to crisis like a drunken carnival ride operator.  But the purpose of this post is not to dwell on that but share some history.  My attempt to build the case that things are not as dire as you think.  Indulge me the opportunity to lend historical perspective. 

Our current lot in life is not nearly as dreadful considering our forebears who had to live thru the year 536 — the year that may possibly be the absolute worst in human history.  

How bad was it?   

Sometime early in 536 a haze settled across Europe, the Middle East and Asia blotting-out the sun. 

The pall darkened the skies for a year and a half.        
  
The temperature dropped 35-36 degrees Fahrenheit, famine followed widespread crop failures and to top it off there was an outbreak of bubonic plague that decimated the population.  This was a terrible, horrible, no-good very bad year.    

Tree ring analysis provides evidence of a massive cooling event in either late 535 or early 536 – followed by another drop recorded in 542 - a double-whammy of cold temperatures.   

A study of ice core samples from a European glacier uncovered microscopic shards of volcanic glass which were traced to volcanic rocks in Iceland.  Researchers believe that this is evidence of a massive volcanic eruption that loosed a gigantic plume of ash into the atmosphere in 536.  The ash shrouded the Northern Hemisphere for more than a year.  A follow-up eruption in 539 or 540 - linked to North America - explains the double-whammy temperature drop recorded in the tree rings.      

Long story short, the volcanic events, plague outbreak and biggest drop in temperature in more than two thousand years resulted in three decades of global economic stagnation.  

Curiously, additional study of the ice samples revealed a spike in airborne lead particles in the year 575.  Lead ore was used the smelting of silver and its presence in the ice is evidence that the precious metal was once again in demand for making new coins as the European economy started to recover.     

You might think that you have a lot to complain-about at the start of the new year.  Sure, you may be unhappy with the Current Guy and his policies.  And there are COVID variants to grapple-with.  Yet we live in a golden age of modern medicine.  We have vaccines and new anti-viral therapeutics being introduced to market almost daily.  And we have evolved from incandescent, to compact fluorescent to LED lighting.  There is central heat and clean water.  Indoor plumbing too.  At least you're not fighting off the Black Death while shivering in the gloom and darkness of a cloud of volcanic ash. This was at the front end of the Dark Ages for a reason. 

There are a couple of lessons to be learned by this.  Be thankful you weren't around in 536 and beware of global cooling events.  They do happen.  And they can happen again.     

Learn more about this time in history here.