some crazy shit So, I've recently come upon this big literature out there that points to a catastrophic volcanic explosion in Iceland in 1783-4 as a possible contributing factor in the French Revolution, and I'm totally fascinated by it. The eruption produced a big nasty stinky sulphurous cloud that hung out for quite some time over Europe and even lumbered over to North America, killing enormous numbers of livestock, sickening people, destroying crops, and even affecting El Nino--for YEARS. I came across the following passage on the subject of said nasty sulphurous cloud, written by our old friend Ben Franklin in 1784, and it's kind of amazing:

"The cause of this universal fog is not yet ascertained. Whether it was adventitious to this earth, and merely a smoke...or whether it was the vast quantity of smoke, long continuing to issue during the summer from Hecla in Iceland...is yet uncertain. It seems however worth the enquiry, whether other hard winters recorded in history were preceded by similar permanent and widely extended summer fogs. Because, if found to be so, men might from such fogs conjecture the probability of succeeding hard winter, and of the damage to be expected by the breaking up of frozen rivers in the spring; and take such measures as are possible and practicable to secure themselves and effects from the mischiefs that attended the last."

Ben Franklin: in addition to everything else, he turns out to be our first grand theorist of climate change. Who knew!  ¶ 10:31 AM