Looking at the climate through history, what should human beings reflect on?

It seems that the rainstorm in Henan has still drowned our thoughts, and the tornado in the United States has made the elderly in the United States unable to find the north.

The emergence of these natural disasters has painstakingly shredded our illusion of "quiet years". Many people began to wonder: Do humans really control their own destiny?

In the book "Climate Change in Human History: From Prehistoric to Modern", Elizabeth Gordon, an associate professor of earth science at Fitchburg State University in the United States, cooperated with Benjamin Lieberman, a history professor at the same school. They integrated the knowledge of astronomy, geology and climatology, and put forward a groundbreaking view on the interaction between climate change and human history.

In this book, we can see how climate change changes the environment on earth, thus changing human society, and how the changes and development of human society respond to global climate change.

Think about what people thought when they first saw a chimpanzee hanging a banana on a high place with a folding box: Ah, chimpanzees, as close relatives of human beings, are so clever that our ancestors must have evolved us today by this wisdom!

This idea that human evolution is an accident is actually difficult to get scientific support.

Although until today, people still don't know what factors formed a "sieve" during the evolution of Homo erectus, Homo erectus and Homo sapiens, Neanderthals and other descendants, which wiped out all descendants of Homo erectus except the ancestors of modern humans. However, more rigorous data collection and analysis show that the source of early human evolution can not be simply attributed to food shortage and deterioration of living environment, and climate change behind them is likely to be the ultimate factor leading to human evolution.

Millions of years ago, Australopithecus appeared on land. Compared with the "distant relative" chimpanzee who lives in the tropical rain forest of Africa and still needs to climb on all fours, Australopithecus "liberated" his hands and became a "heterogeneous" ape who walked on two feet.

According to the data, scholars speculate that during the appearance of Australopithecus, the tropical rain forest in Africa was affected by continuous climate change, and it was difficult to ensure the supply of a large number of fruits and food at lower and lower temperatures, which led Australopithecus to leave the trees on which it depended and turn out of the rain forest to look for food on land.

Australopithecus, which no longer lives on fruits, needs to be supplemented by hunting. Some hunting and slaughtering tools unearthed in eastern Africa 3.3 million years ago and animal remains with obvious edible traces confirmed this change.

By the Pleistocene, from 2.6 million to 1. 1.7 million years ago, the earth began to alternate between glacial and interglacial periods, and the rise and fall of ice sheets dominated the spread of early humans outside Africa.

There have been several glacial maximums in the history of the earth (referred to as "glacial maximums"). When the ice age comes, part of the land on the earth will be covered by a large area of ice sheet, and the sharp reduction of living range will make Homo erectus and other descendants have to make a decision to continue to migrate.

About 40,000 years ago, the Heinrich event that caused the earth's temperature to plummet occurred at the same time as the eruption of Britt volcano. All species of Homo erectus on the earth, except Homo sapiens and the descendants of Homo erectus who remained on the isolated island, were extinct in the great cooling caused by this climate change.

By 1.7 million years ago, with the extinction of all the suspected descendants of Homo erectus on the isolated island, Homo sapiens became the only surviving human population on the earth. Climate change completed its influence on human evolution before human beings realized its importance.

In the book, the author mentioned a case about the influence of sea ice retreat on people's lives:

Alaska is a high latitude region. At one time, local residents relied on sea ice to resist waves and storms. Now the sea ice has subsided and the sea level has risen. Residents living in Alaska are exposed to the threat of storms without natural "barriers".

Another example in the book highlights the serious impact of climate change on human development.

On page 27 1 of the book, two photos with the same angle appeared, which were taken in 194 1 and 2005 respectively. The photo records the great changes of Moore Glacier River in Glacier Bay National Reserve in the United States in the past half century.

In (a), we can clearly see the dazzling white snow on the distant mountain peak and the grotesque ice surface nearby. The white of ice and snow contrasts with the black of mountains, revealing the sacredness and majesty of nature in silence and desolation.

In (b), that is, 64 years later, most of the snow on the top of the mountain has melted, revealing the dark mountain. The once frozen river has already melted into water, and the river reflects the surrounding mountains, silently recording the great changes in the climate.

If you look closely, you can also see lush trees growing in the lower left corner of Figure (B), which was never seen in Figure (A) taken 64 years ago, which shows that the global climate is warming.

Global warming makes the frozen soil melt, and on the one hand, it forms a unique "drunken forest" phenomenon in the cold region of the northern hemisphere. On the other hand, the water melted from frozen soil constantly washes away the underground soil. Over time, after the loose soil is washed away, holes will be formed under the artificial surface, leading to ground collapse.

"The collapsed ground destroyed roads, wires and buildings. The melting of the permafrost below will also cause the house to sink or tilt. " This is the original words in the book, and it is also the "strange phenomenon" we saw in previous reports.

Who would have thought that the melting of ice and snow in a distant area would bring such inconvenience to our lives if climatologists did not keep track of it and make in-depth analysis?

With the accelerated melting of glaciers, although people who rely on glaciers for water and electricity can get enough water resources in a short time, in the long run, the warming environment will eventually consume these limited sources of life. Once the meltwater of the glacier is exhausted, the residents living near the glacier will fall into a desperate situation.

From these examples, we can see that climate change is no longer a development problem that we tried to alleviate in the past. It has even become a monster that we can't ignore, forcing us to face it and face the survival dilemma brought about by its changes.

No matter at home or abroad, history has strongly proved that energy utilization is the key to the double growth of population and economy. But this decision sometimes has the opposite effect, that is, the rapid growth of population and economy leads to the rapid consumption of energy.

/kloc-in the 0/7th century, because of the rapid population growth, Britain, which relies on coal as heating fuel, began to expand the exploitation and transportation of coal resources. Daniel defoe, the author of Robinson Crusoe, a novel about the survival of a desert island, described the scene of coal transportation in Britain at that time: "The huge fleet kept bringing coal to this city with increasing demand."

By the end of18th century, the coal-fired steam engine was put into use, which first ignited the fire of the industrial revolution in Britain. This event marks the arrival of the era of large-scale development and utilization of energy.

Although mechanized production has made many emerging cities in Britain famous, the price it paid for industrialization cannot be ignored. Charles Dickens is a great English writer in the19th century. His works are good at reflecting real life. In his work Hard Times, he reproduces an urban scene during the industrial revolution:

This "coking coal town" in the novel can be found in many industrialized cities in the past two centuries. With the development and use of new energy sources such as oil and natural gas, the atmospheric conditions deeply affected by the greenhouse effect have further deteriorated.

Cars, refrigerators, air conditioners and other machines that condense human wisdom, while providing convenience for human life, also silently tear the ozone layer above the earth, allowing ultraviolet rays that have been effectively blocked for trillions of years to directly illuminate the surface. At the same time, the rapid rise of carbon dioxide concentration also makes the surface temperature reach an unprecedented height.

The result of global warming is the melting of polar glaciers, and a large number of greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide and methane effectively covered by ice are released with the melting of glaciers, which further leads to an increase in temperature. Global climate change leads to frequent extreme weather. Drought in extreme weather further stimulates people to use refrigeration machines such as air conditioners, and the substances released by the machines are accumulating, which will once again aggravate the possibility of global warming.

In this way, human beings have tasted the bitter fruit of the rebound brought about by climate change in the "strange circle" set by themselves.

Indeed, although the arrival of industrialization has liberated a group of laborers and made the economy jump to a new height, "there is no free lunch in the world", and human beings only exchange for a seemingly prosperous society at the expense of temporarily leaving the ecological balance.

People who used to exploit and utilize resources with their wisdom in order to make life better have gradually deteriorated and eroded reversely under excessive greed, so that we selectively forget that the fate of mankind is still firmly in the hands of the earth.

The most profound revelation of this book to ordinary readers is that human beings can never claim to be the "overlord" of the earth. From the beginning of life, our destiny is destined to complement the nature of the earth.

If we never want to be "executioners" who destroy the earth, then we should not be "bystanders" who have nothing to do with ourselves.

Don't question your humble contribution to green and low carbon as individuals. Even if we only work as hard as the decimals behind 1.0 1, the tiny forces in the world will come together as the 365th power of 1, and we will get much more power than 1. And we can always find a way to see the dawn of tomorrow in this power greater than 1.