Re-imagine (World Without Oil)

 "Re-imagine" is the latest addition to the burgeoning new words generated almost daily.  The social world can't seem to function without adding new words; politics is no exception. So, we are supposed to re-imagine everything. Politicians and shapers of the new social order has added it to drive home a point, which does not necessarily have to be new.  We just have to preface it differently. The latest in the lexicon - "re-imagine" - is used for everything.  Let's re-imagine the police department, health care, immigration, the courts, the Supreme Court, the congress, the electoral college, etc.

Why stop there? Let's re-imagine the world without oil, after "transitioning" from fossil fuel because it "pollutes", according to the leading presidential candidate in the upcoming U.S. election. Continuing, let's re-imagine - wishfully or legislatively - that we had gotten rid of oil.  Let us do that!

Let's first re-imagine an old funny story and update it to the conditions of today. 

The chief of staff of the esteemed senator from Hawaii was walking down the beach in Oahu one day and behold he found a bottle washed ashore. He picked it up and instinctively opened it. Out came a genie from the cloud of smoke that preceded it. "You have one wish", without any introduction, the Genie said. 

"What happened to three wishes?", the staffer asked.  

"Well, after centuries of doing this - out of the bottle, back into the bottle, out of the bottle - I  re-imagine only one wish this time.  So, choose wisely".

"My senator is an avid environmentalist and proponent of transitioning from oil to renewable energy. We'll be rid finally of the carbon emitting jet planes, ocean liners for a cleaner atmosphere and pristine oceans. I wish therefore for one continues bridge from here to Washington.  The senator will be riding an electric limousine to travel back and forth".

"Whoa, whoa! Impossible! You know the engineering challenges and material and construction equipment it would take to do such an epic undertaking?  A bridge connecting the Pacific to the Atlantic and the depths and weather and all the wave forces the bridge must withstand. No, no, ask me another I can grant".

"OK. I will ask another and promise me that if you cannot do it you will have to grant the first one".

"OK. Go".

"I understand your concern. So, do this for me then.  It will help me greatly in dealing with the senator.  Give me the power to understand her, how she thinks, so I can anticipate her next moves so I can keep her from blundering into all kinds of intellectual challenges and pitfalls of stupid ideas.  Help me to look into what she is thinking so I can really understand her". 

The Genie, with stooped shoulders and helpless resignation said, "Do you want the bridge to have two lanes or four?"

So let's re-imagine a world without petroleum, fossil fuel, oil, whatever you want to call any hydrocarbon product. Impossible. Even the Genie will tell you that. But, it has to be explained.

Let's grant that we made it to having nothing on the road but all electric vehicles. Unless these vehicles can simply hover and float over solid ground, they will need tires. But rubber tires require carbon black. Pure rubber is totally useless as a tire.  Carbon black, a by product of petroleum refining is what strengthens rubber.  That is why 99.99 per cent of all tires are black.  Carbon, as a hardener that turns iron into steel, does the same thing with rubber. Let's take to the roads over which these electric vehicle will have to travel.  In the U.S. alone, roads are paved with asphalt 93 to 94 per cent of the time. For the rest of the world, it is a much higher percentage but that the next material is not cement. Next to asphalt, the world's roads are plain gravel or dirt roads. Asphalt is the only material that can and will pave the world economically and efficiently. 

Petroleum refining is one process that practically uses every component, every molecule in a barrel that goes through it.  From the moment crude leaves the storage tanks through to the distilling columns, they are further "cracked" into its various product streams. 

As you can see, a barrel of crude oil does not only give us gasoline, fuel to heat our homes and cook our food but are also turned into other components into everyday material, including petrochemical feedstocks from which all plastic containers are made, including the plastic bags that contain blood, plasma, medicine, your Tupperware and other containers for safe handling and storage of our food, and don't forget that electric vehicles use plastic, including body panels, to keep their weight down. Speaking of lighter but stiffer, yet a material that will be pliable and shock-absorbent, how about kids' safety helmets for biking, skate boarding, or for that matter adults' helmets for football and baseball, little league, etc. And asphalt, tires, hoses, electrical insulators and every conceivable lubricating material that make machines and tools work, and yes, including why your Tesla will keep on running smoothly.  

We cannot go back to whale blubber for lubrication, candle making and waxes.

But oil pollutes! Oil spills! Oil darkened our skies! London smog during the early stages of the industrial revolution exemplified that.  Is London still that way today?  1989 (Exxon Valdez) was not that long ago but did you check lately what Prince William Sound, Alaska, looks like? The industry had given in to and accommodated regulations and safety standards for safe handling and protection of the environment.  If oil was such a threat to our existence why is it that our population had almost quadrupled from the days of the industrial revolution to the present day.  

We will transition from petroleum to renewable energy, continuing with our re-imagination.  Energy is the key word. But solar, wind and hydroelectric, geothermal sources will not be able to do it all.  Clearly these sources will not provide everything that comes along with a barrel of oil cited three paragraphs ago.

Meanwhile, we cleared acres and acres of land for solar panels and wind turbines and relocated the "endangered" species from those areas.  A huge percentage of those animals, from turtles to rodents died at the relocated areas that were not their natural habitats. More birds and bats, including endangered species of raptors and migratory birds, die from wind turbines than from any other causes.  Acres and acres of solar panels in a couple of decades will become waste products after their serviceable lives and do we know what to do with them?

Read the quote below from an article in Forbes magazine.

• The problem of solar panel disposal “will explode with full force in two or three decades and wreck the environment” because it “is a huge amount of waste and they are not easy to recycle.”
• “The reality is that there is a problem now, and it’s only going to get larger, expanding as rapidly as the PV industry expanded 10 years ago.”
• “Contrary to previous assumptions, pollutants such as lead or carcinogenic cadmium can be almost completely washed out of the fragments of solar modules over a period of several months, for example by rainwater.”

Don't forget the batteries needed to store the electricity.

The wind turbines don't look that fast.  Why do they kill birds and bats? It is an optical illusion that they don't spin that fast in the same way how seemingly slow airliners look from a distance, even when they are cruising at 400 miles per hour, even landing at 200 mph.  The moon looks still and motionless above but it is hurtling at 2286 miles per hour. On an average wind speed of only 13 to 15 mph, the tip of the wind turbine slices through the air at 120 miles per hour! Birds could only be flying at 20-30 mph. 

Since we are re-imagining, we need to do this.  Re-imagine a world to be sunny everyday 365 days a year and always windy at between 10 and 25 mph. At gale forces, wind turbines stop operating. Also re-imagine a world blanketed by solar panels and spiked with wind turbines at a fourth of its total land surface area, since the oceans can't have solar panels floating over them  or wind turbines sticking out from the depths.  Speaking of oceans we will have bridges to connect the continents, archipelagos and islands.  Of course, we will need for the genie to provide all the cement quarries and mines from which iron can be dug and giant smelters to process them into steel. Giant electric bulldozers, excavators, trains to transport them all.  Meanwhile, to feed the world we also need to wish for electric agricultural machines, combines and harvesters, tillers, etc.  Wait, how did we turn iron into steel again? Yes, carbon.

That is re-imagining a world without oil. Re-immagine along with it millions of jobs lost. Forever. Is it not easier to re-imagine a world without politicians, radical thinking dreamers with very little familiarity, if at all, with basic science and without a working knowledge of energy production, distribution and efficiency?

Is it not easier to re-imagine a much cleaner, safer nuclear energy source?  Keep in mind that in the U.S. with 98 nuclear plants and Europe with a lot more, India and China as well, fatalities from accidents are nil.  Chernobyl was an exception and contrary to the movie - "China Syndrome" - danger from nuclear plant accidents is highly exaggerated or imagined. 

Nuclear fusion - how the sun and all the stars do it - needs to be re-imagined instead.

 

This Is Your Brain Speaking

You just woke up from your regular afternoon nap.  It was another long one.  Gone were the days of the fifteen minute power naps.  You used to be proud of it during the first few months of retirement five years ago. You were proud that you could snap out of them like clockwork.  You often told friends and anyone who would listen that you were still that disciplined even at retirement. Now, you don't even remember the last time you've kept to it and be out of your favorite recliner, refreshed and ready for the rest of the afternoon.

During the last few weeks now, you lingered, almost unwilling to leave the contoured comfort of the  soft leather cocoon.  It was another one hour nap, perhaps even a bit more. Then suddenly, you heard a voice, "Hi, this is your brain speaking".

"What", you replied. "Oh, wait, let me do this first".  You reached for the portable digital recorder that was on a small side table. You turned on the little machine. This is something you do now instead of writing things down every time you wanted to remember anything for later. You simply dictate it to the electronic multi-megabyte electronic wonder. More convenient than looking for pieces of paper and a pen or pencil. "Go ahead", you said.

"Hi again! This is your brain speaking. I've been meaning to do this for sometime now. Pardon me for using the first person pronoun.  As you well know I am only five per cent of your body weight so I do not represent the entire physical you, but it is convenient that I speak in the first person.  I hope you don't mind.

Let me begin.  A mere 3-1/2 pounds of tissue but I consume 25 % of the total energy your body's metabolism produces. In return I do a lot of stuff for you and much of it I do without you even knowing or being aware of it. The thing about it is that you don't care.  Really, you don't.  But now you must. Consider this a wake up call.

"Hey, what is this?"  "What...", you begun to protest upon realizing  the utter intrusion but the voice ignored and interrupted you instead and resumed its cadenced elocution. The voice continues.

"I'm a powerful tool and I am here only to serve you and no one else. However, I am not that all empowering physically because I am just a clump of delicate tissue of neurons and synapses. Powerful as I am in one sense, I am vulnerable and defenseless in another, if not for the hard bony cranium to protect me. And to function properly I must also fully rely on so many different sensors from the various parts and locations of your body.  Otherwise, I cannot have information to process and I cannot send out signals for all the necessary actions needed for your health and well being. So, you see, I am totally helpless if not for your eyes to see, your ears to hear, your nose to smell, your skin to feel and for all the network of nerves that transmit the information to and from surrounding internal tissues, organs and joints. Otherwise, I cannot process pain and injury from a sprained ankle, elbow or neck and all the many joints that connect the bones.  Yet, you are what you are because of me. 

You want to know something really incredible?  Your computer is fast, you think.  You believe it is, actually, right? You recall touching a very hot skillet while cooking - remember?  You know how fast the hot sensation was relayed from your finger tip to me and how rapidly I sent out the signal to move the muscles on your bicep and down to your arm then to your hand? If I were any slower by a few milliseconds, you would have made an untimely trip to the ER. No, you didn't. And you remembered a first aid tip to run your finger under cold running water  and a smear of petroleum jelly afterwards. You finished your cooking and enjoyed the meal. Don't forget the sense of touch that allowed you to deftly pick up a pinch of salt, smell the aroma of the other spices, the sight of the marbled meat and texture of the veggies, and consistency of the sauce that made it all possible for you to savor the dish.  It was all me that processed all that.

No more bragging from me after these last few items and then on to the real business at hand, or why I am speaking to you now. You don't remember learning to walk, let alone remember every instinct that allowed you to survive from the moments you were in your mother's womb, to crying at the first gulp of outside air for the first time after you came out, the sense of hunger every two hours, or actually recognizing the now familiar voice that gave you comfort and warmth the first nine months of your natal life, the involuntary muscles that make your heart beat and lungs to do their job. They take orders from me.  You're not even aware of them, are you? So much more to cover but I will now focus on this talk.

First the good news.  For a 67 year old, now retired five years, you are in fairly good physical shape, slightly overweight by about eight pounds, no cataract issues (yet), nor any hint of glaucoma.  Daily small dosage for blood pressure maintenance, 10 milligrams for cholesterol and one baby aspirin a day are way below the average medication most people your age take.  Resting heart rate is okay at 70 and 17 breaths per minute while asleep is not bad at all. So, physically you're fine. For your age anyway. And that is what we need to talk about.

You've been worrying lately about forgetting stuff.  One more good news is that you don't have dementia and you are not about to have early Alzheimer either. Trust me, I would know.  So, what is the problem?

I will back up for a bit. You and your wife had been to almost all the places in your bucket list. Yes, those trips and cruises cost a lot but your bottom line today is still way, way below where you are financially at this point in your life. Both you and your wife led a fiscally responsible retirement life. You continued with your favorite hobby of restoring antique clocks and old vacuum tube radios. I ask you now.  What happened?

Your wife had become quite a gardener. She just recently took up water color painting and sketching with charcoal. You both share the same circle of friends. Her outlook in life remained steadfastly ebullient.  Friends would describe you two as the most animated couple. Now all they see is half the optimism and vigor.

I am your brain. Always at your service and not only do I want to keep doing it I want to keep learning more. Yes, the cavern that I am, housing an endless rows and rows of filing cabinets, still has many more to fill. Yes, the enormity of the files seem overwhelming but you should not equate the physical strain of walking from place to place with how you access your mental files.  They are not like searching the entire mall to find something or roaming a twenty acre outdoor flea market to find that elusive 1930's era gramophone. My files, still organized the same way from the beginning, are only synapses away.  Neuro-plasticity - that's what that one presentation by a neurologist you listened to at one time said, as I recall -  is real.  Read up on that subject again.  I too want to know more.

Get up and go out there. There are two clocks that are just a few parts away from ticking again at one second per second and a radio that took months for you to put back together with vacuum tubes waiting to light aglow with amber and deep red but you lost interest a while back to finish up the soldering chore that you used to love doing. Quit  moping and worrying over moments when you forgot to remember things.  So what when you can't recall the actor's name from an old movie and stop blaming yourself or telling yourself, 'I should remember this or that'.  Often, if you noticed, most of what you don't recall are really not that important. You remember what happened twenty years ago and not what you ate last weekend. That is  because you marked one as really important on the file heading while the other one a trivial footnote.

Here's how you put the spark back and snap out of the self induced boredom or feeling depressed about forgetfulness or the physical limits of a 67 year old body and stop longing for  what you used to be able to bench press when you were 21.  That basketball layup you used to do effortlessly or the speed at which you threw the baseball to first base from third while in high school are all gone now.  Those you can accept. 

What is not acceptable is admitting you can't learn anything new anymore. You've been doing old clocks for years now but have you ever wondered about the nature of time? I want to know about it. But I can't go to the library or tap my way on your lap top to search YouTube all the lectures and TED talks about time. I remember you did listen to some physicist's discussion about the non-universality of time and Einstein's idea about space time. I wanted to know more about that.  How about learning to the nitty gritty how radio waves and  electro- magnetism and the weak nuclear force are all related. I will open new files when you want me to.  So many things to learn. So much information is gathered and sorted everyday, re-aligned, revised and discovered about all of these.  Make them all relate to your hobbies.  That is how to put the spark back.  And remember, I never stop learning and I never erase files.  They're all there. 

"Now, wait a minute!" You snapped back at the talking brain. "Why don't you do it? Or, why don't you make me do it.  You're so good at talking.  You're my brain.  Go do it for me then".

The talking brain responded, "I am just in your dream.  All these talk are in your dream.  You want something done - wake up".

You woke up! There was your wife when you looked up.  She had a steaming cup of some hot beverage and a saucer with biscuit and a blob of brown caramelized condensed milk on the side. "Did you have a bad dream, dear? Come to the kitchen table and have a snack with me".

"No, forget the snack.  Let's have it at the Border Book Store".

"Border Book Store? There are no Border Book Stores anymore. You must be thinking Barnes & Noble".

"Yes, we'll go there. I want to find some books.  I'll go to the library tomorrow.  What I can't find there I'm sure Amazon will have it'.

"Slow down, slow down. Am I seeing the old you?  Enthusiastic, alive and well! I love it". She put down the undrunk tea and uneaten biscuits. "Let's go. By the way, that was one long nap you just took".

"Those days are over. Wait, where did I put the car keys?"

 

WHY?

For those who read "Sense and Sensibility" - not the book but my second to the last musing, two down before this one - will remember what I wrote there:

"Peaceful protests, allowed and guaranteed by law in much of the free world's governments, are  the citizens' rights to express their sense of civic duty. Rioting and destroying properties and businesses during these protests are one of the darkest manifestations of disdain and hatred towards sensibility that took eons of social evolution to achieve.  

It is a pity that what took centuries of social progress to develop and achieve can be swept away under a wave of regressive behaviors among young people, some of whom are actually pursuing higher education. 

That young girl from the anecdote above will have more "why" questions to ask". {There was a young girl in an anecdote in that musing}

"Why?" is, of course, always the more difficult question to answer. It is, however, the easiest to ask when you were a child from the moment you learned to pose questions.  When we were young we loved to ask "why" questions because we knew we can always follow them up with another...and another "why" questions, almost ad infinitum.  It was exhausting for our parents. As adults now, or persons of "a certain age",  "why" is sometimes the question that truly digs deeper, sometimes much too deep, than all the other queries we can come up with. Children, of course, ask them with transparent innocence, with absence of malice. Adults can be motivated by a lot of reasons for asking "why". 

Children, before they truly see the world for what it is today, do not yet know why certain things happen, why they can't have what other kids have, why there is corruption (let alone understand what it is), why people die, why their parents divorced, why bad things happen, why are there bad people, and so on and on.  

We know better but in reality we know less from the answers we get from some of the questions we preface with "why" as we get older.  As our "why" questions get deeper we actually generate more questions. When a child asked her dad, "Did God create the devil?", the old man managed to skirt and danced around the question because he knew that in just a few  moments the kid will go on to do other things, quickly forgetting the question and the answers she got.  Promptly she did and didn't even remember she asked it or to ask it again. Then she went to college and majored in philosophy.

She graduated and did get her doctorate in philosophy and now she asks, "Why did God create the devil?" Now, as we can see, not only "why" questions dig deeper, sometimes they can lead us to paths that end in a cul de sac or "No Thru Traffic Streets".  They send us back to where we came from, make us seek a different route, or we altogether abandon the search.  Sometimes that is what we get when philosophers enforce traffic on the streets of ideas or enlightenment but we cannot and should not cast blame.

Scientists, on the other hand, assure us that given enough time they will find the answers.  We, of course, know too well that they do - but only up to a point.  To that they will say that the only reason they may not find an explanation is because they do not have the necessary data or that they are prevented from getting them.  Indeed, they gave us what holds the moon in its orbit, our place in the solar system, why or how antibiotics work, when is it a good time to plant crops, get the most out of animal husbandry, split the atom, develop fracking, convert sunlight to electrical energy, take us to the moon,  how superconductivity works, mapped our entire physiology as to deal with our ailments, explain how and when did the universe begin, etc. 

Speaking of when did the universe begin, cosmologists take us back to about 13.5 billion years ago.  They cannot be accurate with that but they do describe what happened at the first second of the beginning, what sequence of events occurred, tracing it all back to fractions of a second, subdivided unimaginably into 1 followed by 32 zeros of units of time contained within one second.  They are able to begin their description of what happened at the first instance, written as 10⁻³²  second.  Any earlier than that, scientists have no answer - theoretical answer, that is.

What it means is that scientists do not have any clue as to what happened before it all begun.  They do not have an answer to what was there before the beginning of the universe. In other words, try as they would - scientists, philosophers, religious leaders and mystics all - they do not have an answer to the question, "Why did God create the universe?"  Hence, that girl, turned philosopher when she grew up will never get an answer either to her query, "Why did God create the devil?"

Forget the last three paragraphs above. We all get light headed from the rarefied air where it took us momentarily. We are back to solid ground now. Then we find that reality is, of course, no picnic either. We ask why in an "enlightened" era such as where we are today, society is till searching for answers.  

A year ago, Sept 2019, I wrote "Eulogy for Common Sense".  Last week I was trying to clean out my old emails, starting from the oldest and I ran across one sent to me by a high school classmate and very close friend.  Sadly, he had passed away not long after he sent me the email.  He attached a short anonymously written essay.  All this time I thought "Common Sense" died just a year ago when I wrote my musing, not realizing there was an obituary for him a decade earlier already.  Here was his note to me:

 "My parents told me about Mr. Common Sense early in my life and told me I would do well to call on him when making decisions. It seems he was always around in my early years but less and less as time passed by.  Today I read his obituary. Please join me in a moment of silence in remembrance, for Common Sense had served us all so well for so many generations.  

Obituary

Common Sense

Today we mourn the passing of a beloved old friend, Common Sense, who has been with us for many years. No one knows for sure how old he was since his birth records were long ago lost in bureaucratic red tape. He will be remembered as having cultivated such valuable lessons as knowing when to come in out of the rain, why the early bird gets the worm, life isn't always fair, and maybe it was my fault.

Common Sense lived by simple, sound financial policies (don't spend more than you earn) and reliable parenting strategies (adults, not children are in charge).

His health began to deteriorate rapidly when well intentioned but overbearing regulations were set in place. Reports of a six-year-old boy charged with sexual harassment for kissing a classmate; teens suspended from school for using mouthwash after lunch; and a teacher fired for reprimanding an unruly student, only worsened his condition.

Common Sense lost ground when parents attacked teachers for doing the job they themselves failed to do in disciplining their unruly children. It declined even further when schools were required to get parental consent to administer Aspirin, sun lotion or a Band-Aid to a student, but could not inform the parents when a student became pregnant and wanted to have an abortion.

Common Sense lost the will to live as the Ten Commandments became contraband; churches became businesses; and criminals received better treatment than their victims. Common Sense took a beating when you couldn't defend yourself from a burglar in your own home and the burglar could sue you for assault.

Common Sense finally gave up the will to live, after a woman failed to realize that a steaming cup of coffee was hot.  She spilled a little in her lap, and was promptly awarded a huge settlement.

Common Sense was preceded in death by his parents, Truth and Trust; his wife, Discretion; his daughter, Responsibility; and his son, Reason. He is survived by three stepbrothers; I Know my Rights, Someone Else is to Blame, and I'm a Victim.

Not many attended his funeral because so few realized he was gone. If you still remember him, pass this on.  If not, join the majority and do nothing".

Author unknown

 

 Now we know WHY. 

 

Existential

Much of humanity around the world, we are told, couldn't possibly ask for a better time to be alive than today.  Looking back, if we can somehow rewind the tapes of history, we certainly would not want to have lived in the Stone Age, the Bronze or Iron age. No, not even during the Age of Enlightenment after the Dark Ages, clearly not during the Reformation, and the Renaissance would still have been much too severe. 

We are the most successful species to have occupied the planet. We did it at the shortest amount of time relative to how long other species that preceded us were in existence.  500,000 years of existence for Hominid species are a blink of an eye compared to the 160 million years the dinosaurs had been around.  3.5 pounds of brain tissue were all it took to achieve dominance after a long period when only brute strength and size mattered.

You are today one of about twenty per cent of the total number of people who have ever lived. Ever. Let that sink in for a minute. Even more significantly astounding is that 99 % of all living things have become extinct, including every species of our hominid ancestors. Now, here we are marveling at our achievements that are unparalleled at any point in time before now. 

The question, of course, is that given the statistical history, how long can we hold on?

The phrase "Existential threat" used to be a serious warning only rarely invoked except within the circles of scientists and military strategists.  Today, it has become a trite expression, part of a hollow rhetoric overused by politicians and armchair pundits around the world.  It is heard so often, even at last night's U.S. vice-presidential debate, that the impact of its original meaning is lost forever.

From a couple of dozens of special issues I've kept of a variety of publications during the last two decades, I pulled out one recently from the bookshelf that was published two decades ago in October 2000.  Six pages were dedicated to, "Twenty Ways the World could End".  I was curious about how relevant they still are. Of the twenty ways, I was surprised to read, only six were labeled, "human triggered". Notably, "global warming" at number 9 of the total 20 then, was on top of all "Human-caused" disasters. From twenty years ago it has jumped to no. 1 today, if adherents to climate change are to be believed.

Readers may be familiar with what I wrote earlier, "In Awe of Climate".  I noticed from the readership stats that interest in it had picked up a bit recently from places outside the U.S.  There was no way for me to gauge though what reactions it is getting.

Today, if only temporarily, most disaster concerns have been sidelined by Covid 19. Global Epidemics was no.8 in that article from two decades ago.  Here is a quote: "If Earth doesn't do us in, our fellow organisms might be up to the task. Germs and people have always coexisted, but occasionally the balance gets out of whack. The Black Plague killed one European in four during the 14th century; influenza took at least 20 million lives between 1918 and 1919; the AIDS epidemic has produced a similar toll and is still going strong (that was in year 2000, of course).

We should keep in mind that, as epidemics go, including Covid 19, all pandemics have not really attained the strictest definition of existential threat.  34,986,502 cases of Covid 19 as of Oct 4 and 1,034,240 deaths, or about a 3% mortality rate in a population of 7 billion people is not anywhere near the estimated 20-30 million deaths from influenza when the world population then was just under 2 billion people.  We don't need to do the math to conclude that Covid 19, while definitely lethal and extremely infectious, is not as virulent as the previous ones. Naturally, we also need to account for better health care and widespread awareness to curve its spread.  Nevertheless, just by going through the mortality rate against confirmed cases, Covid 19 could be considered less deadly than the previous three.

Pandemics, by itself, is not an existential threat.  What then is the one that could cause our species to suffer the same fate similar to those of the 99 % that have disappeared from the face of the earth, that includes the Neanderthals, Cro-Magnon, Homo Habilis, etc.? 

After reviewing the list in that 2000 magazine issue, I will have to say that it will be a combination of several causes happening all at once or in succession for a global extinction to occur.  The top 8 on the list, by the way, were all natural disasters - no.1 being a repeat of what happened 67 million years ago that wiped out the dinosaurs - a major asteroid impact. According to research, mountain-size asteroids - Mt. Everest or bigger - had slammed into our planet earth every 50 to 100 million years during the last billion years.  It was far more common during the first three billion years, of course.  Alternating ice ages between global warming events have occurred several times based on rock and fossil records.  The last one was 11,700 years ago and we're due for another one, give or take 100 to 1000 years.

Interestingly, No. 18, 19 and 20 are under the heading, "A Greater Force is Directed Against Us".  No. 18 was an alien invasion (Stephen Hawking, famous physicist and author of the best selling, "Brief History of Time", was worried about it).  E.T., contrary to the movie, will be mean, according to Hawking.  No. 19 was Divine Intervention, prophesied in three major religions of Judaism, Christianity and Islam and separately in Zoroastrianism. The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse from the Book of Revelation were represented in the list as war (no.15), famine, diseases (plague) and global conquest.  The Four Horsemen are what in most western and Middle East religions considered to symbolize what could in successional fashion befall humanity.

Well, this is year 2020. What should we be concerned about?  We can worry and, just so you know, we are the only species who can (worry) and we are the ones to have the sole chance to do something about it, or do we?  For sure, we are the only ones who can harbor hope like no other species can. Our dominion over all living things come with a huge responsibility.  Are we up to the task?  Let's look at population first,

"This article lists current estimates of the world population in history. In summary, estimates for the progression of world population since the late medieval period are in the following ranges:

Year	1400	1500	1600	1700	1800	1900	2000	2100[1]
population (in billions)	0.35–0.40	0.43–0.50	0.50–0.58	0.60–0.68	0.89–0.98	1.56–1.71	6.06–6.15	c. 10–13
growth p.a.[2]	>0%	<0.12%	0.15–0.3%	0.1–0.15%	0.3–0.5%	0.5–0.6%	1.3–1.4%	0.7–0.8%

World population did not reach 1 billion until about the end of the 1800's, early 1900's. We are at 7 billion today and by year 2100, it is estimated to get over 10 billion. The black horse ridden by one of the four horsemen represents famine. We are just using symbolisms here for illustration. 

We do not know what the breaking point is between 7 and 10 billion people but we do know that food production will be crucial between now and the next century.  Food shortage is one real existential component.  No.10 from the list was "Ecosystem Collapse', and No.14 was "Environmental Toxins" that could affect our ability to produce food.  

Not enough food for  a world population that will almost double up to 13 billion at the end of Year 2100 is an existential threat in and of itself  but taken together with another pandemic, wars and rumors of war, and conquests that follow, the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse may be more than allegorical symbolism.

We do not know. We cannot know. But we can hope.  We can have faith. At this point we may not have a choice but hope that it will be No. 19.    {see above, 7th paragraph from here}

Sense and Sensibility

I did not read the book but I saw the movie. As customary gestures go, though not necessarily  an obligatory requirement, my wife and I try to maintain an unspoken balance in the movies we watch by alternating between fast action thrillers and finely woven tales of romance and happy endings. However, she'll be the first to tell you that we do not usually find the proper equilibrium between genres of too much action that oftentimes defy any plausible sense  and the slow-burn dialog, rich in implied meanings and sensibility.  There, I found a way to work the two words into this paragraph that I unabashedly plucked from the 1811 novel by Jane Austen which, by the way, she first published anonymously as merely written, "By a Lady".  In fact, only 750 books were first printed.  They sold out immediately and the rest is history.  

Let me digress for a bit.

A father and his daughter were sitting on a bench facing a pond one quite morning.  

Girl: "Dad, will that mother goose feel sad if one of her gooselings gets lost?" 

They both saw the mother bird leading a half dozen grey-feathered little birds in single file as they cut a 'v' shape wake across what was just moments ago a flat-as-glass still water of the pond, reflecting the blue sky above. Before he could answer, the girl asked another question. "Why did mom cry yesterday when I said that someday I too will go to college like aunt Ruth?"

Dad: "Child, I really don't know. Your mom gets emotional sometimes over things like that". 

The father actually felt a little relieved that his daughter asked a much simpler question than the usual ones she asks when they go sit by themselves during moments like these which his wife - the child's mother - urges him to do from time to time to strengthen the "father-daughter" bond.  Once she asked, "Why are there bad people, dad? Why do bad things happen?"

He would almost always answer to most of her "why" questions with, I really don't know, honey". He would always tell her that, as a scientist, he knows a lot about the "how", "what", "when" but he knows little about a lot of the "why" questions, in an attempt to lead her questions away from the "why, why and why" which, as we all know, are mostly what kids her age ask.

Two years later in the middle of her fifth grade she took one of her mom's books from the shelf and went over to her dad who was watching TV. "Dad, can you tell me what's the difference between...?"  She finished her question by holding the book at arms length in front of her dad's face. The book was "Sense and Sensibility".

Indeed, what is the difference?  Why the difference and how and when did human culture begin to make the distinction between sense and sensibility.   

The five generally accepted basic senses of sight, touch, hearing, taste and smell and the variety of nuances within each were and still are responsible for how we survive - physically. That's the naturalist's strict way of looking at it. Anthropologists and philosophers, of course, want to look back and say  that sensibility came relatively much later in the development of our civilization.  It can be said that the transition from the ways our early ancestors conducted their lives and behavior to when civilized culture developed was made possible when society begun to distinguish the difference between the so called natural senses  and its almost transcendental equivalence - sensibility.  It was no small feat. It was a crucial development that delineated in no uncertain terms what it means to be civilized. 

What is amazing though is how well we've adapted in a physical world where some animals have far more superior senses than we have, yet we prevailed more successfully.  What we lacked, for example, in terms of smell that is a thousand times less sensitive than that of dogs, racoons and hogs, or vision less powerful than an eagle or hearing a thousand times less than a bat or vision not able to perceive infrared or ultraviolet light that snakes and bees and pigeons can, were more than made up for by a far more superior intellect.  But, our dominance could only have taken us so far if not for one other crucial progression unique to our species.  We have developed a far more critical ability that no animals can. We were able to go beyond the physiological and physical limits of the natural senses.  We developed sensibility.

We can now say, "We have reached the pinnacle of superiority over all the species around us. Our dominance is complete. We've reached the top and we can go no higher".  Well, not really.

The problem with reaching the top is that there is nowhere to go but down.  In fact, do we now find ourselves regressing?  We  begin with the generally accepted admission that there is so much division around the world today. We are divided on how we govern ourselves, we disagree about how we address managing our environment, we quarrel about all the inequalities going on, discussions are heated around which economic system is best, etc.  Even our outlook is seemingly split evenly between optimism and pessimism. All of these and everything else the reader can come up with do not speak well about how we've reached superiority over all other life forms, does it? 

It is months now since we, the superior species, had been held  hostage by a lifeform only visible to an electron microscope. But that is not all that is unseen.  Much more beyond our human field of vision were many signs already percolating from beneath the collective population that are now showing signs of cracks on the façade of civilization itself.

Where do we begin? We start with this.  Sensibility was not necessary for survival of species. As I  often point out in my previous musings, we are late comers relative to other species that ever lived, including those snuffed out of existence by at least five mass extinctions over eons.  99 % of all species that ever lived had become extinct. 

In other words sensibility was not and apparently still not necessary for the continued existence of species.  Why are we indisputably the only species who have it?  And, why do we have it?  If we've had it for so long, why are we still in so much turmoil?

In our 200,000 years of history as a species of so called modern humans, we made it through for much of that time without having to resort to sensibility, until perhaps the last five or six thousand years. I'm guessing because that's about when we begun to write things down. 

Scholars aren't sure which came first - culture or language. What we know is that one is not possible without the other in their present forms. To say we've come a long way from grunts and gestures to words that came out of Shakespeare's pen is one miraculous understatement; one astounding leap of human development. But, alas, that winding path that took centuries to traverse is crumbling before our eyes. 

Peaceful protests, allowed and guaranteed by law in much of the free world's governments, are one of the citizens' rights to express their sense of civic duty. Rioting and destroying properties and businesses during these protests are one of the darkest manifestations of disdain and hatred towards sensibility that took eons of social evolution to achieve. 

It is a pity that what took centuries of social progress to develop and achieve can be swept away under a wave of regressive behaviors among young people, some of whom are actually pursuing higher education. 

That young girl from the anecdote above will have more "why" questions to ask.