Climate Catastrophe Deja Vu: The Return of the Frisbee Ion
The State Column political Website gravely — and hilariously — asks, “Could global warming shrink humanity? New study suggests it’s possible:” Note that they’re not talking about reducing the size of the population — which global warming will of course also cause, no doubt. They’re discussing reducing the size of the population:
Humans may be much shorter if global warming continues, according to the latest study.
A new study finds that ancient horses shrunk even smaller than their ancestors, a trend scientists say is likely the result of global warming.
Modern mammals, including humans, could be at risk of shrinking as a result of global warming, just as small prehistoric horses shrank to an even smaller size when temperatures rose 56 million years ago.
The proposal follows from a study of Sifrhippus, the first horse, 56 million years ago. Sifrhippus shrank from about 12 pounds average weight to about eight and a half pounds as the climate warmed over thousands of years, according to a report published by a team of researchers and reported in the journal Science on Thursday.
The study finds that early horses were much smaller than their modern day ancestors, which have since been bred for speed, size, and a number of additional attributes. The earliest-known horse, Sifrhippus, first appeared in North America during the Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum, when increased concentrations of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere and oceans caused average global temperatures to begin to rise.
During the Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum, a period when temperatures on the planet rose by around 10 to 20 degrees Fahrenheit, scientists say the small horses shrunk even smaller in size. The team of scientists say the resulting shrinkage was the result of natural selection. The team of scientists noted that the small horses likely evolved to be smaller during warming because smaller animals did better in that environment, perhaps because the smaller more easily shed excess heat.
The researchers, led by Ross Secord of the University of Nebraska-Lincoln and Jonathan Bloch of the Florida Museum of Natural History at the University of Florida, studied the geochemical composition of the horse’s teeth to document the decrease of the horses body size through the geologic timeframe of the PETM.
A New York Times report on the same story was linked to by the Weekly Standard under the very-’70s-headline, “Let’s Get Small” — along with a detour in Seinfeldian shrinkage:
That’s right: shrinkage. As a dedicated fan of Seinfeld, I’m the first to admit shrinkage can have disastrous consequences (just ask George). Though I have always been under the impression it generally occurred in … uh … colder climates. But I am no scientist, so I defer to the Times and their assortment of expert sources.
Or at least I would, if I hadn’t gotten a few paragraphs in and found this minor detail in the history of the amazing shrinking horse:
They report that the little horse got 30 percent smaller over the first 130,000 years [of a period of warming], and then — as always seems to happen with weight loss — shot back up and got 75 percent bigger over the next 45,000 years.
That’s right! This ancient shrinking horse apparently… got bigger. Hmm. Difficult to explain, I know, and I certainly can’t speak to the science of it. After all, as experts often tell us, a warmer planet will bring severe unpredictability. I will say this, despite the misleading headline and lede, I really hope the Times is right about anthropogenic equine shrinkage: After all, who doesn’t love tiny horses?
Well, they’re certainly great for riding the range in Montana whilst raising a crop of dental floss. (Or building a miniature master race of chocolate-manufacturing mini-me’s, as Tim Blair notes.) In addition to Steve Martin, George Costanza, Frank Zappa and Gene Wilder homages, these reports of equine and human shrinkage also call to mind the section of Tom Wolfe’s 1976 essay, “The Intelligent Coed’s Guide To America” that was titled, “The Frisbee Ion.”
Catastrophe is deja vu for me–I’m 72 years old and still recall the April 28, 1975 issue of Newsweek magazine on the forthcoming ice age. The claim was that scientists have powerful evidence to support global cooling. The effect was to be that agricultural output would be vastly reduced and much of the world would starve to death. By the 90s, famine would be endemic.
It didn’t come to pass and now I am fat because I was trying to build up my bodily fat reserves.
Oh—good news? I just read that global warming has stopped and now we are in for a mini-ice age. It’s supposed to last about 40 years. Whew!
Ed,
I wanted to express how thought provoking and humorous I found your perspective on the Sifrhippus, or the “shrinking horse” from 55 million years ago in your post: “Climate Catastrophe Deja Vu: Return of the Frisbee Ion”. Without a doubt, you mad me laugh by relating these miniature horses to what you call the “Seinfeldian shrinkage” and even to the Oompa Loompa’s of “Charlie and The Chocolate Factory”. I think you really shine light on how frivolous this story is contextually. Nothing, I repeat, nothing wraps your opinion and humor up more concisely than the insert of Park and Recreation’s seventh episode on season three called “Harvest Festival”. I can’t think of a single person who doesn’t like miniature horses either!
I look forward to more of your humor and insight!
I thought you might find the following video clip about Sifrhippus, the “shrinking horse”, interesting. I hope you will embed it into your blog and maybe in the future, we could swap blog roll links and widgets.
“Scientists Liken Shrinking Horse with Climate Change”
http://www.newsy.com/videos/scientists-liken-shrinking-horse-with-climate-change
The clip does a great job of concisely sourcing and compiling news reports to emphasize the scope and context the content is being reported on. Newsy synthesizes and analyzes news into neutral comprehensive video clips showing a variety of opinions on the same topic.
Thank you so much for your time, insight and consideration!
Lyndsey Garza
Community for Newsy
Twitter: @newsyvideos
http://www.facebook.com/newsyvideos
Offficial 1: If we don’t get the rich, and the middle class to pay much more tax, then we won’t have the trillions needed to fight global warming over the next 200 years.
Offficial 2: There is a much more pressing and serious problem. We need those taxes to pay our pensions!
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(1) Notice that carbon dioxide has been increasing slowly.
(2) Find something important that has also been increasing slowly.
(3) Failing that, make up something important that has been increasing slowly, like temperature, or ocean height; or something unimportant such as income inequality. Don’t say in 500 to 50,000 years.
(4) Headline – “Carbon Dioxide Levels Correlated to Temperature Disaster in the Future”
(5) The only conclusion – “Only your increased tax contributions can possibly help to prevent this disaster”.
I don’t think you understand. I was talking with my grandmother yesterday, and she told me she was very worried about the government and Obamacare. In fact, she told me that she heard that the government would be giving us all drugs that would reduce Americans’ average height, and turn everyone’s skin blue.
I was incredulous, and I asked her what she was talking about.
She replied, “You know. Obamacare will put us on the Road to Smurfdom.”
I told her, “No, grandma. Obamacare will put us on the Road to Serfdom, not Smurfdom. Serfdom.”
“Oh. Never mind.”
I think she got it.