When humans Nearly Vanished: The Catastrophic Explosion of the Toba Volcano, Donald R. Prothero, 2018, 198 pages, ISBN 9781588346353, Dewey 551.210959When humans Nearly Vanished: The Catastrophic Explosion of the Toba Volcano, Donald R. Prothero, 2018, 198 pages, ISBN 9781588346353, Dewey 551.210959812
The most exciting phrase to hear in science, the one that heralds new discoveries, is not "Eureka!" but "That's funny."--Isaac Asimov, 1987. p. 7.
Current atmospheric carbon dioxide, 410 parts per million, is the highest in 50 million years. p. 13.
PREHISTORY
Humans diverged from chimps 5 million to 7 million years ago. p. 103.
Australopithecines lived from 4 million to 2 million years ago. pp. 91, 122-129.
Homo erectus left Africa 1.8 million years ago. p. 130. Or 1 million years ago p. 142.
Neanderthals diverged from Homo sapiens 588,000 years ago p. 88 or 300,000 years ago p. 141. [but remained able to interbreed--still the same species].
Homo sapiens appeared in southern Africa 100,000 to 300,000 years ago. pp. 1, 141. Or 1.2 million years ago p. 131.
Y-CHROMOSOME ADAM
All human Y chromosomes descend from one African man who lived 200,00 to 300,000 years ago. p. 88.
MITOCHONDRIAL EVE
All human mitochondrial DNA comes from a woman who lived in Africa between 140,000 and 200,000 years ago. p. 86.
TOBA CATASTROPHE
About 74,000 years ago: Humans lived in Africa, Asia, and Europe, but not Australia nor the Americas. p. 1.
Mount Toba (in northwestern Sumatra, Indonesia, west of Malaysia, northwest of Singapore) erupted: the largest eruption in 28 million years. pp. 2, 6, 48. It spewed 720 cubic miles of ash into the atmosphere. p. 4. Global air temperatures fell 5°F to 9°F; it took 10 years to rewarm. p. 5. Or began a 1,000-year or 57,000-year ice age p. 147. The tree line and snow line descended 10,000 vertical feet. pp. 5, 146-147.
VOLCANIC EXPLOSIVITY INDEX pp. 47-49
VEI 0-1 most Hawaiian flows 4 Pelée (Martinique) 1902, > 0.1 km³ or 0.024 mi³ 5 Mount Saint Helens (Washington) 1980, 1 km³ or 0.24 mi³ 5 Vesuvius (Italy) 79 CE, > 1 km³ or 0.24 mi³ 5-6 Pinatubo (Philippines) 1991, 5 to 10 km³ or 1.2 to 2.4 mi³ 6 Krakatau (Indonesia) 1883, 20 km³ or 4.8 mi³. Global air temperatures fell 1°C to 2°C, stayed low for 5 years. 7 Tambora (Indonesia) 1815, > 100 km³ or 24 mi³. Largest in recorded history p. 59. Sulfuric acid and fine ash stayed in the atmosphere for several years. 1816 no summer. Global average air temperature fell 0.7°C. p. 61. Crop failures caused a European famine. p. 63. 8 Yellowstone (Idaho, Montana, Wyoming) 640,000 years ago, 1,000 km³ or 240 mi³ pp. 178-179. 8 Toba (Indonesia) 74,000 years ago, 3,000 km³ or 720 mi³ 8 La Garita (Colorado) 27.8 million years ago, 5,000 km³ or 1,300 mi³ p. 177.
EFFECTS
Only about 5,000 people survived to have now-living descendents. pp. 5, 91.
Several other large-animal species also suffered genetic bottlenecks at about that time. pp. 144-145.
All humans on Earth (except a few of the still-surviving ancient African lineages) are extremely closely-related. p. 183. [?? There are more than a few people in Africa, and everyone's lineage is equally ancient.]
OUT-OF-AFRICA II
Ancestors of native peoples in Eurasia and the Americas left Africa 71,000 to 77,000 years ago. They reached Europe 55,000 years ago, Australia 50,000 years ago, the Americas 13,000 to 16,000, or maybe 30,000, years ago. All living Native Americans descend from 70 individuals who lived 11,000 to 13,000 years ago. pp. 88-89, 91.
HOW WE KNOW
Sulfur dioxide in bubbles trapped in ice from 74,000 years ago was off the scale. p. 14.
Water containing oxygen-16 evaporates more readily than water containing oxygen-18. Polar ice thus has mostly the lighter oxygen isotope. The more polar ice, the higher the oxygen-18 concentration in seawater, and thus in shells of zooplankton in sediments. Minerals in 74,000-year-old sediments had enough oxygen-18 to indicate global air temperatures more than 10°F cooler in just a few hundred years. There was ash at that layer too. pp. 19-20, 148.
UGLY SPIN
Published by Smithsonian Books. Brought to us by our friends the U.S. Government. With a friendly reminder that U.S. military spending is a Good Thing! We let geologists sample the ice we drilled, trying to hide nuclear missiles in Greenland glaciers.
The author is a geologist and a military buff. pp. 14-15, 36.
ERRORS
All human mitochondrial DNA comes from a woman who lived between 140,000 and 200,000 years ago. "In other words, most human fossils more than 200,000 years old are not closely related to anyone living today." p. 86. No, they could be Eve's ancestors.
"All modern humans descend from African ancestors who left that continent less than 100,000 years ago." pp. 87, 183. No, modern Africans descend from African ancestors who never left that continent.
"All of us descend from a common ancestor who left Africa less than 70,000 years ago." p. 183. He had said that we [non-Africans] descend from a /population/ that left around that time. This wording contradicts what he said earlier about Adam and Eve.
Gives metric and English measurements for everything--which often contradict each other: sloppy number-work.
Claims 200,000 dead in 1816-1817 was the worst European famine of the 19th Century, p. 63. To the contrary, 1.1 million Irish starved to death in 1845 and 1846. --Revolutionary Spring: Europe Aflame and the Fight for a New World, 1848-1849, Christopher Clark, 2023, pp. 44-45.
How Migration Really Works, Hein de Haas, 2023, 451 pages, Dewey 325, ISBN 9781541604315
To the author, there's no crisis. He seems to be minimizing whHow Migration Really Works, Hein de Haas, 2023, 451 pages, Dewey 325, ISBN 9781541604315
To the author, there's no crisis. He seems to be minimizing what at least locally is traumatic.
WORDS
Migration: A change in habitual residence across administrative borders. Most administrative systems count a 6- to 12-month change in habitual residence as migration. p. ix.
Migrant: A person who lives in a place or country other than their place or country of birth. p. ix.
International migrant: (for this book) Foreign-born. (Other users of the term include children and even grandchildren of the foreign-born. This book calls such people 2nd- and 3rd-generation migrants.) p. ix.
"Pro-" vs. "anti-'' framing yields only bickering. p. 4.
Migration is normal. p. 4. It benefits some people more than others, can have downsides for some, but it's intrinsic to our world and can't be eliminated. p. 2.
MYTHS
Immigration is not as massive and transformative as we often think. p. 5.
U.S. border enforcement turned what had been a circular flow of migrants into a permanent population of 11 million unauthorized residents. By Reagan, Bush I, Clinton, Bush II, Obama, Trump, and Biden. p. 7. [Fraction of U.S. population born elsewhere rose from .06 in 1960 to .14 in 2015: https://www.wolframalpha.com/input?i=... and is nearing the 1890 peak of 15%: https://www.pewresearch.org/short-rea... ]
TRENDS
MYTH 1: MIGRATION IS AT AN ALL-TIME HIGH. p. 15.
International migration has remained low and stable. p. 16. The number of people habitually living in a country they weren't born in has stayed around 3% of global population from 1960 (93 M/3B) to 2017 (247 M/7.6 B). Plus, such counts are now more inclusive. p. 17.
[Here's the current list by country: fraction of population born elsewhere: https://www.wolframalpha.com/input?i=... .256 Australia .202 Canada .144 Germany .137 United States .033 world average .017 Japan .009 Mexico .004 India .001 China
Globally, 3% of us have migrated. Few of us have migrated to /become/ victims of financial feudalism. Those 3% have migrated largely to try to escape it. I wish them well.
The author obscures what's happening by giving us only the global average.]
97% of global population lives in its native country. Weird, in light of huge inequalities. p. 19. [People must really like living at home. And/or, it's a rare Chinese or Indian who /can/ leave.]
Moving production to where labor is cheap has lessened the need for workers to relocate. pp. 29-30.
MYTH 2: BORDERS ARE BEYOND CONTROL. p. 31.
Most unauthorized residents entered legally and overstayed their visas. p. 41.
Demand for foreign workers exceeds legal quotas. This drives migration "under ground," which enables abuse of workers. p. 41.
10.5 million, 3.2% of the U.S. population, are unauthorized residents, as of 2018. p. 35.
The U.S. doesn't prosecute illegal employers of unauthorized workers. p. 35.
BRACEROS: The U.S. Government recruited 4.5 million Mexicans for farm and rail work, 1942-1964. p. 40.
[The U.S. Government still grants visas that tie immigrants to a specific employer--making it easy for that employer to underpay and overwork the migrant. ]
MYTH 3: THE WORLD IS FACING A REFUGEE CRISIS. p. 45.
No, only .1% to .35% of world population are refugees, 1950s-2022. pp. 47-48. Down from 8% after WWII. p. 57. [Worse yet after the Toba catastrophe. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toba_... . Keep calm?] Most refugees stay in neighboring, developing, countries. p. 49-50.
8.7 million, 41% of the prewar population, fled Syria, 2012-2021. p. 56.
[The author minimizes the problem by dividing it by world population.]
Refugee flow is peaky: during a conflict, refugees flow. Afterward, there's little flow. p. 55. [Many of those refugees remain displaced.]
MYTH 4: OUR SOCIETIES ARE MORE DIVERSE THAN EVER. p. 60.
No, we've been diverse before. [Circa 1911, the Socialist Party delivered flyers in 12 languages in Milwaukee. --The Fall of Wisconsin, Dan Kaufman, 2018, p. 63. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milwa... Migrants speak their native tongue; their kids are fully bilingual; their grandchildren speak English. ]
MYTH 5: DEVELOPMENT IN POOR COUNTRIES WILL REDUCE MIGRATION. p. 78.
No, economic development gives more people the ability to migrate, and infects more people with the aspiration to migrate. So migration increases. pp. 83, 85.
MYTH 6: EMIGRATION IS A DESPERATE FLIGHT FROM MISERY. p. 93.
Migration is a rational decision requiring planning and resources. p. 96.
MYTH 7: WE DON'T NEED MIGRANT WORKERS. p. 109.
People migrate when they can get jobs. p. 110.
IMPACTS
MYTH 8: IMMIGRANTS STEAL JOBS AND DRIVE DOWN WAGES. p. 129.
Immigration is a reaction to labor shortages. p. 131.
In 1980, Fidel Castro permitted 125,000 Cubans to emigrate. This increased Miami's lower-skilled workforce by 20%. Wages and employment rates were unchanged, for those workers already there. p. 133.
MYTH 9: IMMIGRATION UNDERMINES THE WELFARE STATE. p. 145.
Tax benefits or costs of immigration range plus or minus 1 percent of gross domestic product. pp. 147-149.
MYTH 10: IMMIGRANT INTEGRATION HAS FAILED. p. 160.
Latino and Asian kids now learn English faster than German or Italian kids did in the early 1900s. p. 163. [My grandparents' part of east-central Missouri spoke German from 1848 to 1914.]
MYTH 11: MASS MIGRATION HAS PRODUCED MASS SEGREGATION. p. 180.
Class disparity is the real problem. p. 193.
MYTH 12: IMMIGRATION SENDS CRIME RATES SOARING. p. 196.
In general, immigration lowers violent crime. p. 197.
MYTH 13: EMIGRATION LEADS TO A BRAIN DRAIN. p. 209.
Most countries are relatively able to retain most of their higher-skilled citizens. p. 211.
[Puerto Rico lost 5,000 physicians, about 36% of them, from 2006 to 2016, to outmigration. --/Puerto Rico: What Everyone Needs to Know/, Jorge Duany, 2017. p. 151.]
MYTH 14: IMMIGRATION LIFTS ALL BOATS. p. 222.
No, the benefits of migration accrue disproportionately to the rich. p. 224
MYTH 15: WE NEED IMMIGRANTS TO FIX THE PROBLEMS OF AGEING SOCIETIES. p. 234.
Immigration is too small to fix the effects of ageing. p. 236.
LIES & MYTHS
MYTH 16: BORDERS ARE CLOSING DOWN. p. 249.
Immigration policies have largely become more liberal since WWII. pp. 250-252.
MYTH 17: CONSERVATIVES ARE TOUGHER ON IMMIGRATION. p. 266.
There is no left-right divide on immigration. p. 267.
MYTH 18: PUBLIC OPINION HAS TURNED AGAINST IMMIGRATION. p. 279.
Public opinion has grown more positive on immigration. In 2020, for the first time, more Americans polled said immigration should be increased rather than reduced. p. 281.
MYTH 19: SMUGGLING IS THE CAUSE OF ILLEGAL IMMIGRATION. p. 291.
Smuggling is a reaction to border controls. p. 292.
MYTH 20: TRAFFICKING IS A FORM OF MODERN SLAVERY. p. 309.
Many alleged trafficking victims who were "rescued" in Italy and flown back to Nigeria did all they could to return to Italy and resume their work. p. 311.
MYTH 21: BORDER RESTRICTIONS REDUCE IMMIGRATION. p. 326.
Border restrictions make temporary migrants permanent. p. 333.
MYTH 22: CLIMATE CHANGE WILL LEAD TO MASS MIGRATION. p. 343.
Bailout: How Washington Abandoned Main Street while Rescuing Wall Street, Neil Barofsky, 2012, 270 pages, Dewey 338.97302, ISBN 9781451684933
The authoBailout: How Washington Abandoned Main Street while Rescuing Wall Street, Neil Barofsky, 2012, 270 pages, Dewey 338.97302, ISBN 9781451684933
The author was the special inspector general for the Troubled Assets Relief Program, the 2008 Wall Street bailout.
2019 update: the $700 billion Wall Street bailout ended up costing $16 trillion. --/Money, Power, and the People: The American Struggle to Make Banking Democratic/, Christopher W. Shaw, 2019: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...
Top financial-institution executives know that the U.S. Government will bail them out if their bets lose. Wall Street has captured control of the U.S. Government. p. 19. [Obama had to kiss Wall Street's ring to get the campaign money to win the presidency, as Charles Gasparino details in /Bought and Paid For/: https://www.goodreads.com/review/show... .] Obama filled his administration with bankers and let them give hundreds of billions of dollars to their firms to recover their losses from their fraudulent transactions. Same as George W. Bush's team did. pp. 90-95. Every secretary of the Treasury has a callous indifference to the public interest and a slavish bias toward Wall Street. As does the president who appointed him. p. 149.
PERVERSE INCENTIVE
Subprime loans earned the lender higher interest and fees than prime loans. The less chance the borrower had of repaying, the more the lender received. No one on Wall Street--rating agencies, accountants, banks, lawyers, brokers, notaries, appraisers, …--cared to look at fraud, as long as they were getting fat fees. pp. 13-16, 84-95.
WANT TO BET?
The big banks created, marketed, and sold (purportedly AAA but in fact junk) bonds they expected to plummet in value as the real estate market soured; the banks placed large bets that their bonds would tank; the banks reaped profits from their dishonest bond sales. The Bush and Obama administrations appointed the bankers to administer hundreds of billions of dollars of bailouts to their banks. pp. 91-95.
I OWE HOW MUCH?
The orgy of subprime and subsubprime lending ballooned Americans' mortgage debt from $5.3 trillion in 2001 to $10.5 trillion in 2007. p. 87. https://www.wolframalpha.com/input?i=...
USELESS GOVERNMENT
U.S. Government procedure for investigations: "adopt a narrative:" define the status quo as a success. Bury all evidence suggesting otherwise. pp. 8-9. The bailout administrators ignored the many ways fraudsters could steal the money. p. 22. The Treasury Department gave banks hundreds of billions of dollars with no verification that the banks were "healthy and viable," no oversight, no terms or conditions to comply with. pp. 71-77. Inspectors general behave as lapdogs to the agencies they're supposed to watch. p. 61. Congressmen and senators enact laws without reading them. pp. 50, 96. Senators questioning administration officials don't care what the answer is. They care only about getting their question on the news. p. 30. "I had done one of the stupidest things possible. I had trusted someone." pp. 79-80. The FBI tips off the press ahead of search warrants and arrests. p. 108. If a program is unpopular, give it a new name. p. 123.
GOVERNMENT AGENCY PRIORITIES
1. Maintaining and hopefully increasing their budget. 2. Giving the appearance of activity. 3. Not making too many waves. p. 51.
PLAY TO WIN
The only way to make things happen in Washington is to make sure that Congress and the public are aware of the problems you see, so they can then pressure the agency to resolve them. The media are key. p. 65. In Washington, being loud is a virtue p. 104.
WILL 2008 REPLAY 1929?
2008: Mortgage fraud is epidemic. p. 14.
2008: 2.3 million foreclosures. p. 4.
Bear Stearns and Lehman Brothers failed due to investments in bad mortgages. pp. 17-18, 142.
September 2008: Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs are about to collapse. p. 25. If all the dominoes fall, there could be another Great Depression. p. 43.
AMERICANS LOSE
September 2007 to December 2008: people's 401(k)s lost $2.8 trillion, 1/3 of their value. p. 4.
October 2008: Congress passes Troubled Assets Relief Program (TARP), a $700 billion Wall Street bailout. pp. 1, 103-104.
October 2008: Hank Paulson, George W. Bush's secretary of the Treasury and former CEO of Goldman Sachs, /gives/ the 9 largest banks (view spoiler)[(Bank of America, Citigroup, Wells Fargo, JPMorgan Chase, State Street, Morgan Stanley, Merrill Lynch, Goldman Sachs, Bank of New York Mellon) (hide spoiler)]$125 billion, instead of using the money to buy bad mortgages, as Congress wanted. p. 26. The total was $290 billion by November. By December, AIG and Citigroup would be bailed out again, along with General Motors, Chrysler, and Bank of America. pp. 43, 102-105.
November 2008: Obama wins election.
EXECUTIVE BAILOUT
AIG gave its executives $168 million in bonuses. pp. 60, 138.
WHERE'S THE MONEY?
Banks did not lend out the money they were bailed out with. So the bailouts did not help end the recession, did not help businesses nor homeowners. pp. 72-73, 98-99.
DEMOCRATS ARE NO BETTER
January 2009: Obama becomes president. Banker Timothy Geithner, Treasury secretary, dismisses efforts to protect TARP from fraud. p. 113.
HOMEOWNERS NOT BAILED OUT
Though $50 billion was allocated ostensibly to help homeowners, it did not reduce the amounts they owed on their mortgages, and provided no relief to unemployed homeowners. It was a boon to the financial industry, in new fees they could charge. p. 128.
April 2010: Obama's troubled-assets relief program administrator, Wall Street banker Herb Allison, advises Neil Barofsky, the government's special inspector general (SIGTARP), that Barofsky has a choice: make the financial power brokers look good and get a plum job, or tell the truth and end up discredited and unemployed. pp. xi-xvi.
Modern physics was born in the late 1500s, thanks to Galileo, and modern chemistry was born in the late 1700s, thanks to Lavoisier. The peculiarity thModern physics was born in the late 1500s, thanks to Galileo, and modern chemistry was born in the late 1700s, thanks to Lavoisier. The peculiarity that Galileo and Lavoisier shared, that set them apart from their predecessors in their fields, and allowed them to usher in the modern era in their science, was atheism a diploma phlogiston theory quantitative measurement.
-- "Slow Burn" (1962) in Asimov on Chemistry (1974)...more
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