“They sickened by the thousands daily, and died unattended and without help…How many valiant men, how many fair ladies, breakfast with their kinfolk and the same night supped with their ancestors in the next world!”

Giovanni Boccaccio, 1353

Interestingly, the earliest evidence of pandemic can be found not too far from the source of the latest one.

Sifting through the buried remains of a prehistoric Chinese village, archaeologists came upon a jumbled trove of human bones. It’s believed that sometime around 3000 B.C. a large number of men, women and children died nonviolently and all at once. Their bodies were hastily piled inside a vacant house, the house was burned to the ground, and the village was abandoned forever. The subsequent discovery of a similar cache at the site of a village more than a hundred miles away that appears to have been abandoned at about the same time sounds a lot to the scientific ear like the stealthy hoof beats of galloping Pestilence.

Epidemic is as old as civilization, and pandemic has spared no century, place or people. In 430 B.C. the Plague of Athens – possibly typhoid fever – reduced the city’s population by 100,000 citizens and 25 percent, Six hundred years later, smallpox cut the heart out of Rome’s sturdy legions and killed perhaps 5 million throughout the Empire. During the Plague of Cyprian in 250 A.D. a gastrointestinal complaint that has never been satisfactorily identified claimed up to 5,000 lives a day within the walls of Rome alone.

His vast city’s considerable resources swiftly overwhelmed by victims of the bubonic plague, in the year 541 the Byzantine Emperor Justinian ordered the tops removed from Constantinople’s dozens of 60-foot defensive towers and their spacious columns filled with the dead, a last-ditch expedient that got the problem out of sight, if not out of mind. “An evil stench pervaded the city and distressed the inhabitants still more,” noted 6^th century Byzantine scholar Procopius, “especially when the wind blows from that quarter.”

England was battered by plague several times between 1563 and 1665. The last and worst of that century, remembered as the Great Plague of London, accounted for nearly 20 percent of the population and only began to abate when a large portion of the city’s flea-ridden rats were immolated by the Great Fire of London in 1666.

“Ring-a-ring-a-roses

A pocket full of posies

A-tishoo! A-tishoo!

We all fall down.”

English children’s verse, 1665

Across the pond, successive waves of disease acted as the accidental vanguard of European expansion in the New World. The Cocoliztli Epidemic of 1545 was powered by a form of hemorrhagic fever that’s believed to have killed up to 15 million in Mexico and Central America, and it was followed at regular intervals by everything from measles to mumps, from typhus to pertussis, and from smallpox to syphilis, endemic Old World ailments against which the natives had no defense and which, depending on who’s doing the math, killed anywhere from 30 million to 50 million people, or some 60 percent to 90 percent of the indigenous population.

Pandemic-wise, the Big Event remains the Black Death, an outbreak of bubonic plague that originated in, yes, China, in 1346, and followed the trade routes west. By 1353 at least 50 million, and possibly as many as 200 million, had died, about a third of those residing upon the Asian continent and up to half of the residents of Europe. It would be more than 300 years before the Old World recovered its pre-plague population.

It’s tempting to try to draw parallels between pandemics of the past and that of the present, but it’s not really helpful. Despite whatever alarmist doomsday prediction was selected to lead this morning’s news broadcasts, coronavirus is not bubonic plague. And transformations in medicine, nutrition, sanitation and communication, more flexible social and political institutions, and a better understanding of how disease spreads, have combined to eradicate many of the conditions that made the pandemics of yore so deadly, and to make direct comparison problematic. Even so, pandemics still have consequences, and it’s interesting to examine how changes wrought by the Black Death stack up against trends now shaping up under COVID-19.

“People in good health were all of a sudden attacked by violent heats in the head, and redness and inflammation in the eyes, the inward parts, such as the throat or tongue, becoming bloody and emitting an unnatural and fetid breath.”

Thucydides, 430 B.C.

It’s fun to dismiss ancient doctors as a clueless pack of blood-letting leech freaks. In fact, most physicians of the Middle Ages were serious scientists who adhered to a fairly rigorous empirical method to surprisingly good effect. Even so, their inability to deal with bubonic plague led to widespread public disillusionment with the profession and a general embrace of mystical therapies and magical treatments that would leave professional healers mistrusted and marginalized for centuries. Likewise, the failure of the Church to stop the Black Death caused a pronounced swing away from Catholicism and toward esoteric and occult religious practices.

Fast forward 700 years, and mainstream medicine, which has proved equally ineffective at halting pandemic, is being showered with the kind of reverential esteem once reserved for gladiators in the arena. And far from abandoning established religion, Americans are attending “virtual” church services at nearly the same rate they attended the in-person kind, and nearly 20 percent profess that the advent of COVID-19 has actually strengthened their faith.

The Black Death killed 80 percent of those who contracted it, virtually depopulated vast regions of Europe. In England alone more than 1,000 villages simply ceased to exist. Thanks to COVID’s low mortality rate, America is in no danger of running out of people. Businesses, on the other hand, are dropping like flies. More than 150,000 small businesses have permanently closed their doors, and they continue to fall at a rate of about almost 20,000 per month. Entire industries have been laid waste, particularly those providing essential quality-of-life services like hospitality and entertainment.

Perhaps the most notable victim of the Black Death was the feudal system of government. Deprived of so much of the peasant workforce upon which their wealth and status depended, Europe’s landed elite were forced to compete with each other for labor. Finding their labor suddenly valued and valuable, the surviving serfs weren’t shy about leveraging their advantage to win financial rewards, legal freedoms and political rights. Common folk went into the Plague as chattel and came out of it middle class.

The response to COVID-19 hasn’t been nearly so kind to the modern laborer. Forced out of work by government-mandated shut-downs, up to 30 million idled employees – about 47 percent of the American workforce – find themselves forced to compete for a ruinously diminished menu of jobs being offered by cash-poor employers who can ill afford to fill them. The most notable victim of coronavirus may yet turn out to be economic independence.

Medical authorities predict it will be at least a year before a COVID-19 vaccine is ready for market, and another year after that before everybody who wants some gets some. If that sounds like a very long time to forego movies, travel and ballgames in favor of masks, contact tracing and quarantine, be informed that, like Dorothy and her ruby slippers, we’ve had the power to escape this bizarre Oz all along.

Historical authorities tell us that every pandemic has two endings, one medical and one social. The medical ending occurs when the disease has finally run its course and death rates return to pre-pandemic levels. The social one occurs when enough people decide that living in constant fear is worse than the disease and simply go back about their normal business. Our power rests in the fact that, as often as not, a pandemic’s social ending happens before the medical one, and sometimes long before.

Any time we collectively resolve that happy, productive, fulfilling lives are preferable to fear, poverty and isolation, we’ll have put the worst of this pandemic behind us.

 “But Lord, how empty the streets are, and melancholy…everybody talking of this dead, and that man sick, and so many in this place, and so many in that…but there are great hopes of a great decrease this week. God send it.”

Samuel Pepys, London 1665

The good news about climate change is that the news about climate change isn’t necessarily bad. In fact, it’s kind of good.

Let’s not get into a big thing about whether or not the weather is changing. Storming and blowing about climate change, pro or con, solves nothing, convinces no one, and generally leaves all parties cold-shouldered and hot under the collar. Let’s talk instead about what a warmer world might actually look like.

Data compiled by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), which august body is held to be the final voice on all things atmospherical, strongly suggests that if temperatures continue rising at their present rate, global warming should yield net benefits for most of this century. Expanding on that theme, Professor Richard Tol of Sussex University recently peeled apart 14 scholarly climate change studies conducted by governments and universities on six continents to see if they contained any instructive points of agreement. They contained lots of them, including the general consensus that a rising thermometer will, for the next 60 years, at least, likely beget increasing abundance and greater prosperity all across this Big Blue Marble.

One thing all of those studies agree on is that global warming as we understand it will probably enhance agriculture and industry up to about 6 degrees Fahrenheit above pre-industrial averages, a point the IPCC figures we’ll reach one fine day around 2080. That’s based in part on the not-disputed fact that the 2-degree rise we’ve experienced during the last 150 years has, by even cautious estimates, been instrumental in increasing global economic output by about 1.4 percent, and there’s no scientific reason to believe that trend won’t continue as the mercury creeps upward in coming decades. Interestingly, the principal hero in the global-warming-as-economic-driver story is also the greenhouse villain in the popular mind – carbon dioxide. CO2 is both the essential ingredient behind photosynthesis, making it possible for plants to manufacture carbohydrates, proteins and fats, and a surprisingly rare commodity comprising something under 0.04 percent of the atmosphere. As global CO2 levels inch up, global scientists have noted a pronounced increase in the Earth’s botanical inventory. Sifting through 30 years of satellite imagery, researchers at Boston University have catalogued an unmistakable green boom across some 31 percent of the planet’s vegetated area, as opposed to a relative decrease in fecundity over about 3 percent of the Earth’s surface. Africa’s parched and famine-prone Sahel region and ever-thirsty Australia are particularly rich examples of increasing CO2 levels’ marvelous fertilizing effect.

Also supporting that vegetable abundance is CO2’s much-maligned role in melting things, particularly glaciers and ice caps, which results in the elevation of other things, notably tides and shorelines. According to Tol’s broad cross-section of climatic wisdom, the primary outcome of all that melting has been, and will continue to be, a lot more surface water falling, flowing and generally making itself available to industry and agriculture. Fears that rising sea levels will erase the better part of the planet’s most valuable real estate are, at best, exaggerated, and at worst purposefully misleading. All 14 of Tol’s universally respected sources agree that the rise of ocean levels has, indeed, accelerated during the last century from a relaxed 2 millimeters per year to a leisurely 3 millimeters per year. Even were that rate of increase to double during the next 50 years, which pretty much nobody expects it to, it would still yield an average total gain of something under one foot. Even the worst-case-loving IPCC can’t feature seas rising more than two feet between now and 2080, which, while significant, is easily within humanity’s ability to manage and nowhere near the deliberately alarming 20 feet predicted in “Earth in the Balance.”

Finally, all of the comprehensive analyses collated by Tol are in perfect agreement that claims of more erratic, extreme and destructive weather events in our climate-change future are purely anecdotal and completely unsupported by reliable scientific or statistical evidence. Indeed, the scientific record makes plain that incidents of hurricanes, tsunamis, droughts and floods remain essentially unchanged since 1900, while statistics conclusively show that human economic and technological advancement and our native adaptability have slashed the climate’s costs in lives and money by more than 90 percent during that same period. And it’s worth repeating that while those 14 published and peer-reviewed studies represent individual institutional findings, they together quite exactly reflect the best consensus of the global scientific community.

None of this is to say that climate change isn’t serious business, which is why Tol doesn’t say that. The climate is a tricky bird, and our very survival as a species could ultimately depend on our understanding the impossibly complex interplay of life and air and water within our comfortable terrestrial solarium. But there’s also no good reason to think we can’t readily adjust to whatever conditions evolve between now and 2080, or that currently rising temperatures and sea levels are Nature’s kiss of death. As it happens, Nature may even now be quietly working to solve our presumed CO2 problem in its own quietly practical way.

It’s long been known plants store carbon. The more plants there are, the more carbon can be stored, and as previously mentioned there are a lot more plants these days storing a lot more carbon. But that’s only the half of it.

Climate scientists have been puzzled of late to find atmospheric levels of carbon-12 (by far the most abundant form of atmospheric carbon) beginning to fall below carefully calibrated expectations. An international team led by researchers at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography recently looked deeper into the mystery and were nothing short of astonished by what they saw. Plants – all plants, everywhere – have begun gobbling up more carbon-12 than they used to, and not just because they can.

Sucking more carbon-12 out of the environment enables plants to photosynthesize more efficiently, making them larger, healthier, and faster at reproducing even more plants with an oversized appetite for carbon-12. It’s all very complicated and scientific, but the upshot seems to be that rising CO2 levels may have triggered a hitherto unsuspected balancing mechanism. Functioning as far-flung parts of a single planet-spanning carbon filtration and sequestration system, Amazonian jungles and Ukrainian wheat fields and arctic tundra could theoretically, voraciously and automatically scrub the atmosphere until it reaches whatever carbon level Nature considers acceptable. The phenomenon is still a long way from understood, but the basic facts are clear enough and it wouldn’t be the first time Nature made a monkey out of Man’s scientific pretensions.

Argue about climate change if you must, but don’t fret about it. The news isn’t all bad, and it’s just possible the climate knows something we don’t.

“In our leisure we reveal what kind of people we are.”   Ovid

Colorado Springs resident Kevin Cook has more dice than anybody else in the world.

Since 1977, Cook has devoted countless hours and considerable treasure to obtaining more than 50,000 of the spotted blocks, each one in some way distinct from its neighbor. Cook doesn’t play with his dice, or realize financial benefit from them. Cook’s tumbling trove mostly abides unseen within an ever-expanding assortment of plastic storage containers. For Cook, the dice themselves are less important than their pursuit, and his chief satisfaction is in the hoard’s increase. Collecting dice is Kevin Cook’s hobby.

Everyone has a hobby, whether they know it or not. Most people have several. Hobbies like bird watching, stamp collecting and model trains are common and fairly standardized. Hobbies like spelunking, climbing 14ers and experimental aviation are relatively free-wheeling and appeal to a more limited demographic. The most popular hobbies are rarely recognized as such. Merriam Webster defines a hobby as “an activity done regularly in one’s leisure time for pleasure.” There’s enough latitude in that sentence to encompass all the free time in the world. If you’re not working, and not sleeping, you’re probably hobbying.

Done properly, hobbies are good for us. They can engage the mind, exercise the body and expand our world of interests. Hobbies can build self-confidence, which is why professional hobby consultants – yes, Virginia, there is such a thing – say you should pick as hobbies things you stink at.  As your expertise increases, so will your sense of accomplishment. Trouble is, grouse those whose hobby it is to tell the rest of us how to do what we’re doing better, too many people are choosing the wrong hobbies. Too many idle hands waste too much precious time on avocations that occupy the brain without nourishing it. In their view, the primary offenders are also the nation’s most popular hobbies.  

As of last year, 81 percent of Americans were logged on to at least one form of social media, making online chatter the nation’s top hobby. The average citizen regularly logs on to five forms of social media and spends almost two hours a day keeping up with them. Folks who love social media insist they’re a great way to feed the need for personal interaction. Folks who don’t denounce them as empty calories. The number of Americans using social media is expected to grow by five percent in 2018.

Far behind social media – but way ahead of Hobby No. 3 – is video gaming. Four out of five U.S. households contain a video game device, and about 42 percent of Americans play with it at least three hours per week. If you’re one of those who consider it kid stuff, consider that the average gamer is 35 years old. And anyone dismissing video games as a guy thing may be surprised to learn that 48 percent of women play video games and their average age is 42. Defenders of the gaming are quick to point out that their hobby sharpens eye/hand coordination. Its detractors are just as quick to remind that flipping playing cards into a hat does the same thing, but that doesn’t make it a productive use of one’s off-duty hours.

“Hobbies are apt to run away with us, you know; it doesn’t do to be run away with. We must keep the reins.”   George Eliot

As it happens, there are still a few Americans hewing to more wholesome avenues of self-amusement. According to a recent Harris Interactive poll, 26 percent of Americans identify reading as their principal pastime, making books the country’s third-favorite hobby. That should be great news to the scolds, and it is, sort of. Reading, they agree, can be very educational, and it doesn’t even matter much what you’re reading so long as you’re reading it “actively” and not just burning pages. “Active” reading entails thoroughly digesting the content as you go, mulling and savoring and re-chewing every morsel to extract maximum intellectual potential.

The same goes for the 15 percent of Americans who make watching television Hobby No. 4. For the “active” viewer, Jerry Springer re-runs can be packed with subtle layers of profound meaning. For lazy gazers, Masterpiece Theater is just big dresses and snooty accents.

Some 11 percent of Americans consider their main hobby “spending time with family,” although it’s fair to wonder if anyone in a family could avoid spending time with it even if they wanted to, or if chilling with the in-laws is typically done “for pleasure.” Next in the rankings, Millennials’ twin passions for organic foodstuffs and stylish thrift have pushed gardening ahead of fishing as America’s sixth most popular hobby. Team sports are the leisure activity of choice for about 7 percent of those polled, and about 5 percent spend the larger part of their free time on the golf course. Among other heart-smart hobbies, walking is favored by roughly 4 percent, while exercise classes, cycling, hiking and hunting all earn a 3-percent share of the national day off.

Crafts, camping, cooking, painting, woodworking and watching sports individually attract 2 percent of the hobby market, while bowling, pets and working on cars are each good for 1 percent. Interestingly, although about 4 percent list their favorite hobby as “listening to music,” only 1 percent chose “playing music.” That’s too bad, because for pure personal benefit it’s hard to beat being on the supply side of a song. A recent study conducted by the University of Zurich found that learning to play an instrument consistently and permanently raised the IQ of test subjects by seven points.

Having the biggest pile of dice in the whole wide world may not have made Kevin Cook a rich man, but it has earned him a self-congratulatory website, regular notice in the Guinness Book of World Records, and pleasant diversion in between must-see TV seasons. Fact is, the best hobby for you is whatever floats your boat, kayak or stand-up paddle board. About 3 percent of Americans consider the mysteriously non-specific “relaxing” to be their favorite hobby. Let’s hope they’re doing it “actively.”

“When your hobbies get in the way of your work, that’s okay; but when your hobbies get in the way of themselves… well.”   Steve Martin