Solar History: The Connection of Solar Activity, War, Peace and the Human Mind in the 2nd Millennium

There is a positive side to solar-induced climate disruption: It may be counterintuitive: periods of high solar activity and high sunspot numbers – which are associated with a stable and more favourable climate – are also periods of increased mass excitability, war and genocide. In fact, throughout the last millennium, there were 4.6 times as many deaths from war, genocide and persecution during Grand Solar Maxima than there were in Grand Solar Minimum. In contrast, Grand Solar Minima - the ‘bad-weather periods’ - were times of relative peace, reason and of improvements of human rights. In the 1920s, the Russian scientist Alexander Tchijevsky discovered that social excitability, wars and rebellions unfolded primarily at the peaks of the 11-year solar cycles (Schwabe- cycles). I found that within the past 1000 years, what is true for the 11-years cycles, also applies to the non-periodical cycles of Grand Solar Minima and Maxima, recurring roughly every 200 or 400 years. The correlation coefficient of anthropogenic death rate per decade and Grand Solar Maximum condition is r= 0.9 (very strong correlation). Not only were most mass killings committed during these Grand Maxima, but the corresponding uprisings and rebellions mostly ended up in collectivist, totalitarian systems, that appealed to group hysteria, violent mob rule and imperialism. The narration of the history of this period is intended to illustrate this pattern and to warn of future repetitions. In addition to the multi decadal trends of wars and atrocities, we even find singular battles and mass violence in connection with the visible manifestations of high solar peaks, solar storms, visible sunspots and aurorae. This book is about our future as much as it is about the past, as we have most likely entered the next Grand Solar Minimum. The latest solar forecast by NASA predicts Solar Cycle 25 to be the lowest in 200 years, which will put us in at least Dalton Minimum conditions already in the next decade. This partly confirms the transition has most likely begun. When the final drop begins - given the trends of the last millennium continue – we are once more confronted not only with unpleasant material adaptation processes, climate downturn and food shortages, but ultimately also with a social mood of increased reason, relative peace and rationality. This can give us a time window of between several decades and 150 years to find out how we prevent the next round of mass killing and totalitarian injustice in the following Grand Solar Maximum.If we succeed, future generations may live in the most peaceful and constructive environment that the world has ever seen. To aid to the solving of the problem of a peaceful transition is the aim of this book.