Many grade school science experiments stress the importance of observation as a primary objective. One observation by NASA recently was of little surprise to those of us that are experiencing the heat – that global temperatures so far this year are much higher than in the first half of 2015. Beyond this announcement, global warming and climate change experts employed at the top scientific companies and academic institutions have warned society for decades of the potential risks and impact of our actions (and inaction). 

Researchers across the world observed the vast range of climactic changes occurring around us. There were those focused on the environment specific to the Arctic climate (i.e. remote sensing of ice and snow, snow cover and glacier mass/extent as indicators of climate change). Emerging theories and data regarding atmospheric science, the elevation of greenhouse gases and the topic of the threats to the depleted ozone became commonplace in the nightly network news’ weather reports. The public radio and public broadcast channels aired special reports on the economic and social impacts and C-SPAN would offer extended coverage of congressional hearings and presentations on current and proposed energy and environmental policy. In terms of water, the U.S. media would dichotomize the topic and offer drought coverage in California with flooding stories in the Southeast (largely from hurricanes and tropical storms) as if to balance the two ends of the spectrum somehow. 

Several other researchers opted to focus on how best to prepare for adapting to the effects of climate change and how to harness technology to continue to advance society. Their collective observations and recommendations received equal praise as well as condemnation from the opposition. While some countries offered token gestures in the last few years and others signed global accords like The Paris Agreement, no research or policy would have prepared any of them for this singular, unforeseeable event that would quite literally expose all of their nescient lives. 

The remaining survivors of Kristallnacht (or the Night of Broken Glass) which took place from November 9 to November 10, 1938 could recount a similar modulation on a much more local scale. Many were only small, impressionable children at the time but they could recall the execrable sights and the discordant sounds of Nazis in Germany destroying and torching synagogues and vandalizing Jewish businesses and homes. Parts of the population who experienced earthquakes and other natural disasters were all too familiar with the sonance. Those eyewitnesses and victims to terrorist attacks and other explosions shuddered at the jarring cacophony. 

In an abrupt, literally earth-shattering burst of sound, all of the transparent glass across the globe fractured and splinted simultaneously and then bizarrely disappeared.

In the seconds that followed many immediately thought some tremor or solar flare may have been the cause of the sonic boom. Some quickly questioned why did all of the fragments proceed to disappear. A few people wondered if perhaps it was the failure of some major acoustic weapon testing. The thought of a large-scale military-type weapon, similar in concept to the vehicle-mounted active denial system (V-MADS), that some government was experimenting with to possibly destroy an asteroid or some other other rogue intention. 

The hourglass didn’t just run out figuratively, it died quite literally as every hourglass dematerialized. 

All the well-contained water in every aquarium and fish tank and all their aquatic inhabitants were washed away. Windows in every apartment, church, commercial building and home vanished. Glass eyeware of every kind from bifocals to reading to sunglasses seemed to explode off of the wearers’ faces and every wristwatch quickly evolved to truly timeless timepieces . Every bottle from the rarest of wines like that of Screaming Eagle Cabernet 1992 to the smallest batch of locally brewed craft beer were turned into worthless puddles in a matter of seconds. Like the beginnings of glass making in Ireland that has been lost in the mists of time, every Waterford crystal bowl or vase to every household mixing or salad bowl were now lost to history. As if John Philip Sousa was conducting “Stars and Stripes Forever” for a reality show of exploding items in your kitchen, many household items burst and disintegrated in the midst of their owners from clocks and cups to lightbulbs and mirrors.

Visitors touring El Capitan in Yosemite had their lenses shatter on their Canon EOS 70D and photographers and video journalists saw through a bit clearer lens for the first time. Selfie takers in Times Square had their cellphone and other mobile devices shatter in syncopation with the digital signage above their heads. The Palm House at Schönbrunn Palace Park in Vienna rained down its 45,000 sheets of greenhouse glass on its enclosed plant kingdom. Under its large glass dome, banquet guests in the Royal Lounge at the Hotel Negresco in Nice witnessed both the roof of the majestic ballroom and its spectacular Baccarat 16,309-crystal chandelier, moving it from historical monument to historical memory. 

Every mode of transportation lost its benefit of weather and wind protection as windshields made a crinkle sound and violently detonated in every country road running through quaint hamlets to the superhighways supporting the densely populated road warriors. Throughout the aisles of Costco, Best Buy and in man caves everywhere, high-definition television screens fell off into obscurity. Computers and monitors on every continent that have a matte plastic-coated screen were among the few devices spared. Scientists to surgeons bemoaned their loss of microscopes and astrophysicists to cosmologists were brought to tears with the loss of their telescopes. 

The spectacle had caused overwhelming damage to billions of people and property. While we had observed so much, we now had an unfiltered view of our lives and all of those around us. We were exposed in many new ways and to replace what we had loss would limit our new found transparency. For so long, glass was responsible for countless facets of the modern life and now we would need to turn to the bountiful benefits of plastic and other innovative materials to sustain us and our visibility while sacrificing so much. One former hedge fund manager was quoted as stating, “Not to be sarcastic but glass is now a break from our past. We’ll be better off with betting on plastic. You can thank or blame me later.”