Just as there are those who still believe the Earth is flat, there are those who refuse to acknowledge that climate change is real and that it will harm our modern society. But a new study of ancient climate change offers even more proof that we had better prepare for negative effects.

A team of scientists from around the globe participated in a study of Amazonian peoples who lived at the time of the Medieval Climate Anomaly, which occurred from about AD 900 to 1250, and the Little Ice Age, 1450-1850.

The Medieval Climate Anomaly saw a period of warming similar to that of the 20th and 21st centuries, only warming today is much worse and caused by humans. Scientists have offered several theories as to why this past warming occurred, but they all agree that it happened and it certainly made an impact on many different cultures.

The Little Ice Age, on the other hand, was a long period of global cooling that was caused by volcanic eruptions such as Krakatoa in the 13th and 15th centuries.

Both of these periods of global climate change caused mass migrations, disrupted food production and resulted in natural disasters that made some cultures disappear.

“Were we getting a window into that in prehistoric Amazonia? I think so,” University of Utah professor Mitchell Power said. “So it’s kind of a one-two punch: if the climate doesn’t get you, it might be the thousands of bodies that show up that you have to feed because extreme drought forced them out of their homelands.”

According to Science Daily:

The report details migrations and conflict that took place potentially in response to extreme changes in climate. It notes that the demise of mound centers in the Guianas coast around the year 1300 CE, for example, could have occurred because of a prolonged drought that the researchers documented — or the expansion of a culture called the Koriabo “could have been responsible for conflicts leading to the … demise, or at least accelerating a process triggered by climate change.”

“The flexibility, or lack thereof, of these systems explains the decline of some Amazonian societies and not others …” the report says. Societies that collapsed were at the end of periods of growth, accumulation, restructuring and renewal. “Those societies had accumulated rigidities, and were less able to absorb unforeseen disturbances resulting in dramatic transformation.”

Fascinating new study: well before Europeans arrived in the Americas people in the Amazon were significantly impacted by climate change. “Groups w/o social classes + groups that practiced more sustainable farming practices were able to successfully adapt.” https://t.co/aV3RvLazn5 pic.twitter.com/beGLuYulPQ

— Richard Pearshouse (@RPearshouse) June 18, 2019

We are seeing the same kind of migrations today due to conflict and climate change, particularly from the Middle East and Africa to Europe and from South and Central America to the United States. As more places become unlivable, migrations will only increase as people seek survival for themselves and their children. Ancient peoples sought the same thing and some cultures were unprepared for the influx of refugees.

Climate change had already put a strain on some cultures. The sudden population boost exacerbated the problem.

Others were more prepared because they had more diverse food supplies that included growing it themselves and gathering it from natural sources.

As our own society relies more and more on agriculture, we are wiping out forests that provide natural sources of food, medicine, and timber that would come in handy during difficult times.

Our world is so interconnected today, however, that it won’t just be a few scattered peoples who suffer, it will be everyone.

“I believe the most important aspect of the research is showing how societies respond differently to climate change depending on several factors like the size of their population, their political organization, and their economy,” lead author of the study, Jonas Gregorio de Souza of the Universitat Pompeu Fabra, Barcelona, Spain said. “We started the research expecting that climate change would have had an impact everywhere in the Amazon, but we realized that some communities were more vulnerable than others. To summarize one of the main ideas of the paper, those pre-Columbian peoples that depended heavily on intense and specialized forms of land use ended up being less capable of adapting to climatic events.”

Why Some Amazonian Societies Survived and Others Perished amid Pre-Columbian Droughts – interview with Jonas Gregorio de Souza, author of new @NatureEcoEvo study https://t.co/aYf1MwJZZZ

— NatureEcoEvo (@NatureEcoEvo) June 18, 2019

Again, we also rely heavily on specialized land use today on a more global scale than ever before, which makes the whole planet vulnerable. And we’re either smart enough to learn from the past and do something to prevent ourselves from suffering the same fate, or we are doomed. It’s that simple.

“Together, we have a better understanding of the long term changes in climate and human activity,” S. Yoshi Maezumi of the University of the West Indies said. “These long-term perspectives on how people responded to past climate variability, including droughts and increased fire activity may help provide insights into human adaptation and vulnerability to modern anthropogenic climate change.”

Scientists overwhelmingly agree that climate change is real and that humans are the cause this time around. Lessons of climate change in the past give us a glimpse into how bad it can be. But, again, the society we have built on this round blue speck in the universe is far too dependent on agriculture and does not manage other resources well at all. It’s all a profit-driven enterprise that is systematically raping the land, and once everything is gone, it’s gone. We are capable of preventing many of the disastrous effects of climate change. We just have to learn from the peoples of the past and listen to scientists.

A chemical catastrophe.

Learn more about how climate change affects the ocean: https://t.co/zzabftAEik #nature #environment pic.twitter.com/X5yRnhLLi7

— World Economic Forum (@wef) June 18, 2019

Featured Image: Wikimedia

A mysterious substance called angel hair has been seen falling from the sky around the world and is often associated with UFO or apparition sightings. We previously took a closer look at the folklore and how the strands of disappearing material seemed to evaporate when touched along with some conspiracy theories and explanations for what angel hair could be.

Although the substance remains a mystery, one case in Evora Portugal in 1959 is notable because it is a rare case when a sample of the ephemeral hair may have been tested and investigated in a lab.

The information available in the following video is in Portuguese, but we have provided a transcript of the main points in English for your consideration. We approach the subject with an open mind but remain skeptical.

Is angel hair real? Have you seen it or someone you know? As always, we leave the final determination up to you. Whatever the case it is certainly interesting. See the video at the end of the article.

Évora, November 2nd, 1959. About noon.

Two strange objects are seen flying over the city.

According to testimony from many witnesses, after their flyover, a bunch of white filaments were found everywhere, which the people from the city then called “angel hairs.”

Professor Joaquim Guedes Gomeral, a data director of the commercial and industrial school of Évora, witnessed this strange occurrence and wrote it down. The contents remained hidden for about twenty years.

According to Gomeral, that day was clear, with not a single cloud in the sky. Someone told him a strange object was flying over the city. He then went outside the school to witness a strange round, blue object and went back inside to get his telescope.

A second object was seen orbiting the bigger one, emulating several species from the depths of the ocean.

After a while, both objects gained altitude and disappeared. That’s when witnesses saw the filaments falling from the sky.

It wasn’t the first time or the only place where the filaments were seen falling from the sky. Hours before, hundreds of kilometers away, over a military base, Conceiçao e Silva, a pilot, was getting ready for a flight training session.

He said it was a clear, pretty day, but cold. It was, and they were ready to take off when they saw the filaments falling down from the sky.

Although it only lasted a few minutes at the military base, it lasted almost four hours at Évora, covering parts of the school and some houses all over the city. In fact, the filament ‘precipitation’ allowed for people to be able to gather it, even though it was as fine as spider silk.

Professor Amaral gathered some of these filaments to do a closer examination. Upon observing these filaments under a microscope, he discovered that, in fact, to his amazement, there was a microscopic living creature with ten tentacles wrapped by a clear, gelatinous substance.

Dr. María José Escaria Santos, a Biologist, concluded that the closest thing they resembled were ‘Coelenterata,’ the species which include sea anemones and other coral animals, but concluded that nothing she knew about biology allowed her to classify it.

Coelenterata derived from Greek “koilos” (“hollow bellied”). Encompass Ctenophora & Cnidaria https://t.co/ypqawjn1gR pic.twitter.com/OtKjh7ke2x

— BHL (@BioDivLibrary) September 13, 2016

Professor Amaral turned in the sample to the Lisboa Faculty of Science, thinking it would have a better chance at classification. However, in 1978, there was a fire at that Faculty, which destroyed the sample, halting any possibility of further analysis.

Twenty years later, this case reached the CTEC (Centro Transdisciplinar de Estudios de Consciencia) via an article from 1960, published in the newspaper from the city of Évora, with the title, “A Large Flying Saucer over Évora, Unknown Microscopic Beings.”

They started an investigation in 1979, which took them to the school where the flying object was seen. CTEC investigators talked to people who had witnessed the incident. One of the professors saw clearly that there was a relation of cause and effect since right after the sighting of the flying saucers, the filaments fell from the sky.

In the end, however, the CTEC found all accounts and testimony inconclusive, although they formulated some theories. According to Raul Berenguel, an analyst at CTEC, we shouldn’t discard the possible existence of microscopic species that could survive in high altitudes that have not been discovered, likening the recent discovery of bacteria that survive in the most inhospitable places.

For more on the subject see our previous article and the video in Portuguese below:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NwelTeXPLao

Featured image: Screenshot via YouTube