In the whole debate about gun laws that has been going on for so long, no one has pointed out the simple fact that our primary rights are the first ones written into our founding documents and therefore were clearly the most important rights to the founders. However, those rights are consistently violated by the out-of-control gun violence that is fostered and perpetuated by loose gun laws.

The first words of the Declaration of Independence are: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.”

The first words of the US Constitution are: “We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.”

It ought to be clear, then, that the founders placed the rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness above all else, and that those primary rights were to be ensured by laws promoting domestic tranquility, common defense, and the general welfare. Unfortunately, current firearm laws in many states and on the federal level fly in the face of those rights, and they contribute to the obscene prevalence of firearm deaths in this country (greater than in any other country in the world except those in a state of war). Slavish adherence to a tortured interpretation of the Second Amendment is the reason this condition exists.  

The first words of the Second Amendment (“A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State…”) clearly indicate that the Amendment was intended to bolster the federal government’s obligation to “…provide for the common defence…” and nothing more. No reasonable case can be made that it was intended to promote unregulated ownership of any weapon that could be conceived or invented, as is currently the case.

The Second Amendment was written after the Constitution proper, making it secondary to the primary rights noted above, and its current interpretation is in opposition to those rights. One cannot count on life, the pursuit of happiness, domestic tranquility or general welfare when one is in constant fear of being shot at places that should be — and historically have been until recently — safe, such as schools, movie theaters, supermarkets, places of worship, and dance halls.

It is therefore incumbent on political leaders to recognize the primacy of justice, domestic tranquility, general welfare, and blessings of liberty by passing laws that honor those rights and reduce to the greatest extent possible the harm to those rights caused by firearms. It is also incumbent on them to NOT pass laws that fly in the face of those rights and increase the potential for harm caused by firearms.

Imagine this scene in a story involving four characters, where one of them is non-binary: They are faced with a choice. Should they enter the spaceship?

They said they should, but they said no. Their fear kept them from agreeing.

Huh?

Yeah, exactly.

I was reading a science fiction story recently with exactly that kind of confusion. After a few pages, I gave up. There was just no way to figure out who “they” was referring to at any given point, even when I kept going back to try and keep track as the story moved forward.

I get it that non-binary people do not want to be pigeonholed by gender-specific pronouns, and I have no problem with that. I do have a problem with arbitrarily demolishing grammatical rules that have been developed over hundreds of years to eliminate the kind of confusion I illustrated above.

People keep saying “get over it” because language changes and evolves. Yes, it does, and that’s a good thing. But there’s evolution, where language grows in form, complexity, and nuance in response to changing conditions, and then there’s devolution, where language devolves (regresses) to a less functional state. That’s what’s happening here. Plural pronouns should never be used to describe singular subjects. Period. It leads to confusion and unintentional ambiguity, the very opposite of what language is meant to do, which is convey meaning in the way the speaker intends (to include intentional ambiguity).

There is a better way to solve the problem, one in keeping with the natural evolution of language. I suggest we start using a new set of singular pronouns when referring to non-binary people. I’ve thought about this a lot, and I think the ones in this blog’s title will work:

Subject: he, she, ve

Object: him, her, ver

Possessive: his, hers, ves

Re-writing the above example using these pronouns eliminates any confusion:

They said they should, but ve said no. Ves fear kept ver from agreeing. Or:

Ve said they should, but they said no. Their fear kept them from agreeing.

These are only suggestions, and I’m entirely open to others. What I am not open to is arbitrarily mangling language rules and introducing unnecessary confusion, and then vilifying anyone who objects.

In addition to rising sea levels, weather pattern disruptions, increased drought and flooding, disruptions in food production, and the increased spread of disease, I suspect there may be another, unanticipated consequence of global warming: an increase in powerful earthquakes.

In fact, the past decade has seen a spate of powerful earthquakes occurring at a greater frequency than the historical average:

“According to long-term records (since about 1900), we expect about 16 major earthquakes in any given year. That includes 15 earthquakes in the magnitude 7 range and one earthquake magnitude 8.0 or greater. In the past 40-50 years, our records show that we have exceeded the long-term average number of major earthquakes about a dozen times.” USGS

“The annual number of “great” earthquakes nearly tripled over the last decade, providing a reminder to Americans that unruptured faults like those in the northwest United States might be due for a Big One. Between 2004 and 2014, 18 earthquakes with magnitudes of 8.0 or more rattled subduction zones around the globe. That’s an increase of 265 percent over the average rate of the previous century, which saw 71 great quakes, according to a report to the annual meeting of the Geological Society of America…” NBC News

Nonetheless, scientist have been quick to point out that this is just a fluke, that over time the number of earthquakes has remained relatively constant, and that the increase in large earthquakes is just due to chance:

“Large earthquakes greater than 8.0 in magnitude have struck the Earth at a record high rate since 2004 but scientists have analyzed the historical record and found that the increase in seismic activity was likely due to mere chance. Peter Shearer at Scripps Institution of Oceanography and Philip Stark at the University of California, Berkeley examined the global frequency of large magnitude earthquakes from 1900 to 2011. They discovered that while the frequency of magnitude 8.0 and higher earthquakes has been slightly elevated since 2004 – at a rate of about 1.2 to 1.4 earthquakes per year – the increased rate was not statistically different from what one might expect to see from random chance. The results of the study were published on January 17, 2012 in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Devastating earthquakes greater than 8.0 in magnitude are infrequent and occur at a rate of about one earthquake per year. However, the occurrence of several of these large earthquakes over the past decade, including two quakes in 2004, two quakes in 2006 and four quakes in 2007 has caused people to question if the frequency of high magnitude earthquakes has increased in the early part of this century.

…the scientists could find no plausible physical mechanism that could explain the possible occurrence of global seismic swarms. Hence, even though large earthquakes are infrequent and difficult to analyze, the scientist concluded that the global frequency of large earthquakes is no higher today than it has been in the past.” EarthSky

I disagree with this assessment, and here is why:

Global warming, caused largely by the increase in atmospheric CO2, is causing glaciers and ice caps to melt at an alarming rate. That is changing the mass balance of the Earth, as the great mass of ice at the poles is redistributed around the globe. Since the Earth is a rotating object with enormous angular momentum, changing its mass balance is likely to put stress on the floating, movable plates that make up the crust.

Imagine if you have a perfectly balanced rotating object, like a top. On the top and the bottom, there are a series of weights (the ice caps). Imagine if you remove one or more of those weights. Experience tells us that the top will begin to wobble, because it is now out of balance. If that top had a movable skin made of separate, loosely connected segments, we can reasonably conclude that the segments may begin to shift.

That, I believe, is what’s happening to the Earth. Whether the change in mass balance from melting ice caps is enough to make our planet wobble, I can’t say. But I’m pretty sure it’s enough to make the floating tectonic plates shift a bit. In addition, as ice caps melt, the crust beneath them rebounds. This not only alters the pressure on that portion of crust, it may also alter the relationship with surrounding plates. Perhaps it could even alter the flow of magma beneath them. Both consequences might allow those plates to move more freely.

This is all conjecture, of course. I’m not a geologist. However, it’s important to remember that, on the Earth, everything is connected. Changing one thing changes everything.

Ten years ago, well before this recent spate of powerful earthquakes, I predicted an increase in strong earthquakes as a consequence of global warming. That prediction has come to pass. I suspect there will be more strong earthquakes, and that the increase in frequency will continue until the Earth reaches a new weight-balanced equilibrium. That could take several centuries.

The next two decades will show whether I am right or wrong.

Addendum: After writing this post, I came upon an article by a professor of geophysics who has come to the same conclusion as I have, and he cites evidence to support it. Although the actual mechanism discussed in the article is slightly different than I proposed, the underlying reason is the same: redistribution of mass.

I have bad news for science fiction writers, including myself. Actually, the news is only half bad for us, since we ignore reality anyway in the pursuit of good stories. However, this news is one hundred percent bad for people who think we will one day be able to visit or colonize other planets in the galaxy.

I’m not talking about the physical limits to space travel. I think there is a lot about the universe and about physical law that we don’t know, so I’m not convinced that someday we won’t discover a way to traverse enormous distances in a short time. And I’m not talking specifically about superluminal (faster-than-light travel); there may be ways to move quickly through the space-time continuum without violating that stricture.

What I’m talking about is much more mundane, so mundane, in fact, that H.G. Wells figured it out well over a century ago. I’m talking about microorganisms, specifically bacteria, viruses, and protists (and even some fungi). If you recall, what killed the invaders in The War of the Worlds was nothing more exotic than the common cold virus (which is a coronavirus, by the way, lending the tale a rather eerie similarity to today’s COVID problem). The same fate would undoubtedly greet any humans landing on another Earth-like planet.

To explain, let’s first look at what kinds of planets we might be tempted to colonize. They would have to be similar in size to the Earth and in the “Goldilocks Zone,” the region around their star where liquid water can exist. They would also need an active magnetic field to protect the surface against the solar wind.

That’s a lot to ask, but assuming these criteria are met, there are three possible options: 1) barren planets where life has not developed; 2) planets with life not based on carbon and/or DNA; 3) planets with life based on carbon and DNA. What are the chances we could colonize each of these?

1. Because of the tenacity of life on this planet and the wide ranging environments in which it exists and even flourishes (hot water springs, inside rocks, deep inside the earth, at the bottom of glaciers, at the bottom of the deepest ocean), I think the existence of an option-one planet is unlikely, unless it is only a few hundred million years old. Such planets might exist, but because they are barren of life they wouldn’t have an oxygen-containing atmosphere, which would make them essentially uninhabitable except for sealed enclosures and environmental suits for anyone leaving the enclosure. They would also not have an ozone layer to protect against ultraviolet radiation. So, not a very nice place to live. If there is oxygen in the atmosphere, it indicates the existence of photosynthetic life. Which takes us to the next two options.
2. If a planet has life not based on carbon and/or DNA, it would be enormously inimical to us. The soil would not contain the kinds of organic matter and microorganisms necessary for growing crops. There would be nothing on the planet that we could eat. In fact, the kind of life on the planet (whether intelligent or not) could very well be hazardous to our health. The place would be no good for colonizing, and attempts to terraform it (which is of dubious morality if there’s already life there) would be difficult to the point of impossible. Our potential colonists would be restricted to the kinds of sealed enclosures and environmental suits described above for an option-one planet (assuming it would even be possible to completely eradicate the soil-based microorganisms in the enclosures).
3. That leaves us with planets that have carbon-and-DNA based life, with the same kinds of biochemistry as Earth life. Sounds ideal, doesn’t it? Not so fast.

If we look at our own little planetary home, one of the first things that stands out is how much of the biomass here is just bacteria and viruses. While there are about 2.6 gigatons of carbon locked up in all the animals on Earth, there are 70 gigatons in bacteria. In other words, the weight of all the bacteria on Earth is more than 27 times the weight of every single animal; fish, insects, marine invertebrates, birds, reptiles, mammals—all of them.

There are also seven gigatons of archaea (ancient organisms similar to bacteria), four gigatons of protists (single-celled organisms, such as amebae and foraminifera), 12 gigatons of fungi, and 0.2 gigatons of viruses. But don’t let that small mass of viruses fool you; there are more individual viruses on Earth than there are stars in the universe—by a 100 times over. The total number of species is unknown, but it surely numbers in the millions. One bat was found to harbor 58 different viruses, many of them previously unknown. Based on that, it was estimated that there could be as many as 100,939,140 different virus species—most of them still unknown—that infect vertebrates. As we well know, many viruses make humans ill, and the COVID pandemic was a reminder that there are undoubtedly many, many more we don’t know about yet that will do the same.

As for bacteria, they are the most abundant life form on the planet (since viruses aren’t technically alive), with an estimated five million trillion trillion of them (that’s a 5 followed by 30 zeros). The total number of species is unknown (the figure of one billion has been tossed around), but it is estimated that over 99% have yet to be discovered and scientifically described. Only five percent of the known species are pathogenic to humans, but that’s more than enough when you consider all the terrible diseases those five percent cause.

Then there are also numerous pathogenic fungi (300 species) and protozoa (the ones that cause malaria and giardiasis being just two examples). In short, there is no shortage of microscopic creatures that like to feast on people.

Any planet that harbored life compatible with our own would host an untold number of viruses and bacteria (and probably fungi and protists) for which we would have absolutely no immunity. In fact, if we discover life on another planet, chances are it will just be bacteria. If there is more complex life, the number of species of microorganisms increases accordingly (because there are more niches for them to inhabit). Here on Earth, no complex life could exist without bacteria, and the same would be true anywhere else.

If the percentage of pathogenic microorganisms on another planet is the same as it is here, the sheer number of deadly bugs would be huge. Any human setting foot on that planet wouldn’t last a week.  

Some people might say that we could construct hermetically sealed enclosures, after first sterilizing all the soil inside and killing off any other life, but that’s hardly the way to colonize another world. And as we saw with countries that tried really hard to keep COVID out, sooner or later something would get in.

The conclusion is inescapable: There is no way we could ever colonize another planet, so matter how Earth-like. Frankly, even Mars carries substantial risks, because if there is any life there it is almost certainly bacterial. The truth is, this planet we’re on is the only home we will ever have.

Maybe we should think about taking better care of it.