Category: Technica Aquarius

Enlarge / The 2021 MacBook Pro with MagSafe isn’t the last Apple Silicon transition we’ll see. The Mac Pro and 27-inch iMac will probably be updated in 2022. (credit: Samuel Axon)

2021 might have been the calm before the storm.

Except for the introduction of a few new Apple Silicon Macs, 2021 has been a quiet year for Apple. The new iPhones offered improved cameras and battery life but were otherwise nearly identical to 2020’s models. And apart from a slight bump in screen size, the new Apple Watch is barely distinguishable from its predecessors.

As 2021 draws to a close and we look ahead to 2022, it’s a safe bet that next year is going to be a lot more interesting. So we have some predictions to share.

Enlarge (credit: Getty Images | Aurich Lawson)

Thanks to unbridled greenhouse gas emissions, our planet is stitching together a climate version of Dr. Frankenstein’s monster. We still have ice from the warmer parts of the Pleistocene even as our temperature approaches the warmer Pliocene levels of 3 million years ago. Meanwhile, our CO₂ level is between the Pliocene and the Miocene of 10 million years ago, and we risk an Eocene hothouse not seen in 40 million years.

At some point, this unnatural fusion of incongruous climate parts must resolve into a new equilibrium—but at what point? And what does that equilibrium look like? Much of that is up to us, based on how fast we reach net-zero greenhouse gas emissions. But it’s also up to our planet—how “sensitive” it is to greenhouse gases and how quickly it reacts to changes.

Discovering our planet’s sensitivity to greenhouse gases has been a “holy grail” for scientists since the 1970s, but it has stubbornly resisted attempts to constrain it. The best we can do is a wide range: 1.5° to 4.5° C of warming if CO₂ levels double. That’s a huge temperature range, and we’re likely to double preindustrial CO₂ levels this century even as we want to avoid warming above 2° C. Narrowing this range will be key to understanding what our Frankenstein-like climate will look like when it settles into a new equilibrium.

Enlarge / Portrait of Catherine the Great. Her 1787 letter to Count Piotr Aleksandrovich Rumiantsev—now up for auction—called for a national vaccination campaign against smallpox. (credit: Public domain)

During her long reign, Catherine the Great‘s leadership transformed Russia into a powerhouse of Europe. She was also a leader in public health policy, championing a nation-wide vaccination campaign against smallpox at a time when many viewed the practice with distrust. A letter by the Empress outlining her inoculation strategy is up for auction by MacDougall’s in London. Included in the sale is a portrait of the monarch as the “Lawgiver in the Temple of Justice,” painted by Dmitri Levitsky, who was a favorite of the Russian court in the 1770s and 1780s. The two items are expected to sell for as much as $1.6 million.

As we’ve reported previously, the World Health Organization declared smallpox to be an eradicated disease in 1979, and many people don’t remember just how devastating it could be. It began with a high fever and severe vomiting, followed by a skin rash. The victim would next develop sores, which eventually scabbed over and fell off, scarring the skin. About three in ten of those infected died, and the survivors were typically badly scarred for life, sometimes even blinded or permanently disabled.

The Chinese were inoculating people against smallpox as early as the 1500s. European physicians in the early 18th century relied upon variolation (the use of smallpox to induce immunity) to control the spread of smallpox, in which scrapings from smallpox pustules were scratched into a person’s arm or inhaled through the nose. While those who received the treatment did go on to develop common smallpox symptoms like fever and rash, the death toll was significantly lower.