You Can’t Prove That!

By David Glenn Cox

Historians say 535 AD was humanities worst year. (Not including the Trump years) I was young at the time and have no recollection of the events myself. Krakatoa is the Great Dane of volcanoes; it does not poop it shits. And when it shits, the whole world is impacted by it. So, in 535 she let go a beef and bean burrito with draft beer and lots of sour cream dusie of an eruption. Throwing tons of debris upwards of twenty miles into the sky obscuring the sun from the Earth’s surface. The sky didn’t grow dark it only dimmed a bit, overcast in the shade. And for hundreds of years archaeologist studied by digging in the dirt trying to understand where all those famous tribes of the Bible went off to.

Why were these great cities of the Mediterranean abandoned? Where did everyone go? The short answer is they died. The historical record shows drought and famine. No rain, no crops. No evaporation of water by the sun, no rain. A group appeared as if out of nowhere calling themselves the Sea Peoples. Historians have always scratched their heads at this because there was no defined nationality. But it could be this is the Bronze Age equivalent of a Mad Max or a Somalia Pirates scenario. Vikings by necessity! “If you think I’m gonna sit on the porch and starve you’re crazy! We can, so we will.” Governments were on their backs. The sign was clearly marked, “Don’t Fuck with Ramses!” But the Sea Peoples sailed in, and Ramses sprang an ambush on them and that was the end of the Sea Peoples. (See the sign)

The world fell down. No rain, in the Mediterranean, no rain in Mexico. Poor crops, hunger, and disease all because of the weather. Those poor ancient backwards people unaware of what was happening to themselves and unable to do anything about it. Thank goodness today we have a weather machine to fix all that! (We don’t have a weather machine to fix all that) Record high temperatures across the nation as California considers making forest fireman a full-time position. Now that fire season is twelve months like tornado season. High temperatures and low precipitation lead to poor forest management every time. It gets too hot to rake up the kindling and before you know it… are a target for Jewish Space Lasers.

Lake Mead is at its lowest level in eighty years and meteorologist forecast with fingers crossed for an El Nino event to bring heavier than normal rains. It’s hard to tell if this is a forecast or educated wishful thinking but who knows, maybe we’ll get lucky? When I lived in Georgia, we had a drought for two years that drained Lake Lanier. Funny thing, not all the water in the lake, is fit to drink the bottom third is sludge and muck, Pittsburgh of the 1950s. They said it would take twenty years to refill the lake, but we had a hurricane the next year that refilled it all by itself. “Whew, that was close one! Good thing the weathers all fucked up or we’d have been screwed!”

Here is where the math gets sketchy, you got 800 million automobiles worldwide. You improve fuel efficiency by 20% while adding 20% more automobiles. One in three meals on the planet Earth comes from the ocean and world fish stocks are falling. Pirate fishing vessels roam the sea looking for an illegal harvest Sea Peoples. Hungry people who want food and don’t care how they get it.

“Whiskey is for drinkin, and water is for fighting over.” – Mark Twain

It’s a good thing it can’t happen here because under the Great Lakes Compact adjacent states are prohibited from pumping water to non-adjacent states. It’s all covered under the “Die you bastards!” provisions of the compact. Tough Luck Utah. Already the water scramble has begun. The Mayans invented irrigation which really wasn’t all that impressive after it stopped raining.

These ancient peoples beseeched their gods for mercy but when God has got a weather hard on there is no reasoning with him. Their leaders made sacrifices to the gods and were then themselves eventually sacrificed to the gods but…no luck. Their world became uninhabitable right before their eyes, and they didn’t see it. “Maybe next year will be better. Anyone got anything to eat between now and next year?” Juss dried up and blowed away.

We believe ourselves invincible, we’ve got sliced bread and peanut butter in a jar. We got gas in our tanks but still haven’t worked out just how to feed people yet. The Republicans practice denialism left-over from their smoking defense campaigns. “You can’t prove cigarettes cause cancer; I mean, you can’t prove climate change is happening.” If you’ve ever wondered what the lobster in the pot was thinking, ask a Republican about climate change. I’ll just close my eyes and cross my fingers and let Jesus do all the rest of the hard work. “Green New Deal! Help! Communist! Help!” Silent dog whistle. “They’re gonna destroy the economy = they’re going to take your job.” If we don’t let them destroy the planet, you’ll be out of work! Like coal miners in Kentucky or electric dishwasher repairman in Amish Country. Times are hard and are going to get harder.

Last year was the hottest year on record at least until this one hits the books. Record number of Tropical storms and Hurricanes forecast. Heat waves, inversions and maybe if we’re lucky an El Nino. Fifteen hundred years and we haven’t learned a damn thing. That Hoover Dam is much more impressive with water behind it. Wait until you see the ruins of Las Vegas. A strange ruin of a city built in the middle of a desert for some reason. Archaeologist struggle to find out why. Why didn’t they see it coming? If a volcano spewing for a few weeks could alter the climate and destroy whole societies. What would dumping for decades do?

You can’t prove that! That is just a theory.

“Learn from the mistakes of others. You can never live long enough to make them all yourself.”
― Groucho Marx

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