It could be worse

Yikes!   (Painting by Edvard Munch)

Eco-pessimists can console themselves with a glance back in time.  As fraught with environmental disasters as 2018

seems, 536 AD was even worse.

Glacier samples from the Swiss Alps indicate that a “massive volcanic eruption” occurred back then.  This resulted in literal darkness and devastation.  Crops failed, people starved - and if that weren’t bad enough, within a few short years the bubonic plague was raging.

Europe was therefore plunged into an economic depression that lasted over 30 years.  It wasn’t until 575 AD that silver coins were once again minted.  How do

we know?  Lead, which was used for silver smelting, began to show in the ice samples from that year.

  

Resources

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/the-worst-year-to-be-human-was-ad-536-researchers-say/ar-BBPV1Bg?li=BBnb7Kz&ocid=BHEA000

Copyright November 21, 2018 by Linda Van Slyke   All Rights Reserved