APPENDIX A. MOTHER NATURE VERSUS HUMANITY

Cassidy Hutchinson, 25-year old aide to President Donald Trump's Chief of Staff Mark Meadows, was the only witness at the House January 6 Committee hearing today.  While she provided further proof of what happened that day was planned, with Trump as prime instigator, there was nothing particularly startling.  

Well, VOX's headline was:

The 4 most shocking revelations from a real bad afternoon for Donald Trump

You can read the article yourself about  those four bombshells.  As this 6th hearing was called so suddenly, there was at least some disappointment that nothing even more revealing was shared.  I guess her personal presence will in the future make it easier for others in the inner presidential sanctum to come forward.  She appeared even though Trump cronies threatened her in so many ways, showing unusual courage, morality and patriotism, absent from most Republicans today.

For nostalgic Tuesday, I go back to 23September2008, which repeated Appendix A from SIMPLE SOLUTIONS for Planet Earth, so this is a double regurgitation of an important problem, death.  But is there a solution to this inevitability?

APPENDIX A. MOTHER NATURE VERSUS HUMANITY

Which do you think is more dangerous, Mother Nature or Man? A list of the worst natural disasters depends on whether you want to count dead bodies or property damage. Hurricane Katrina was the costliest natural disaster in U.S. history at an estimated $100 billion, while Andrew (1992) added up to economic losses of $25 billion for the State of Florida. However, it will cost several more hundred billion dollars to bring New Orleans back to normality, and, perhaps a trillion dollars to prevent a future worse case scenario, an expenditure that just will not happen. The 1994 Northridge, California earthquake caused $44 billion in property loss and the 1995 Great Hanshin Kobe earthquake in Japan resulted in 6434 lives lost and damages of $200 billion, listed as the costliest natural disaster since 1900. However, the Great Kanto (Tokyo) Earthquake killed more than 100,00, so relative damages then must have been worse.

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We already forget that the 7.9 magnitude Sichuan (China) disaster of May 12, 2008 (yes, this year) killed 70,000, destroying 8 million homes and damaging another 25 million. The monetary loss was reported to be $150 billion. Yes, too, there was the Burma Cyclone Nargis of this year on May 3 that killed more than 80,000 (with an additional 50,000 still missing) causing "only" $4 billion of damages.

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But hurricanes have only accounted for 3% and earthquakes, 1%, of the total natural disaster deaths in the United States. Simple floods have taken a much higher toll. As an extreme example, in 1931, when the Yangtze River overflowed its banks, 3.7 million were killed in China.

Lives lost have become the headline item, and it is reported that 21 million people died from natural disasters from 1900 to 2004, or an average of 250,000/year, in the range of the number killed in the Indian Ocean earthquake-tsunami disaster the day after Christmas in 2004, which carried a damage value of “only” about $10 billion. That Sumatra earthquake released the equivalent of more than 23,000 Hiroshima Atomic bombs. But the storm surge in the Bay of Bengal in 1970 killed up to half a million. What is a life worth? At $100/person, the average 250,000 deaths/year is $25 million/year, or, at $1 million/person, make that $250 billion/year. But the Man-made category is particularly bewildering, as for example, it is said that medical mistakes account for 50,000-100,000 deaths each year and traffic deaths add up to 40,000/year, in the U.S. alone (with the worldwide annual road total being 1.2 million—ranking #3, to #1 AIDS and #2 childhood infections), and, if we take the arguably defensible position that much of this could have been prevented by a more responsible society, worldwide famine and disease account for 15-30 million deaths/year.

There are tables, and there are tables, but a recent reference on these statistics is www.geocities.com/dtmcbride/hist/disasters-war.html . Can’t set aside, too, that in the past two centuries, over 200 years, wars and rebellions have killed about a million each year. We anguish over the 4000+ American deaths (estimated civilian casualties now approaching 100,000) in Iraq since 3/19/03, but there have been one million deaths per year, every year, for the past 200 years caused by man made wars and general unrest.

It is of historical interest to note that the 6th Century Justinian plague in Europe killed 100 million, when the world population was less than a quarter billion, or about a 40% fatality rate for that period. The 14th Century Black Death did away with 75 million in Europe and 60 million in China (15% of living beings), the plague of 1663-68 terminated 50 million in Europe (10%), famine of the later 1800’s wiped out 50 million worldwide (less than 5%), 

Mao’s regime in China during the 1949-1975 period eliminated 30-50 million (about an annual million or two), World War I and II casualties were 15 million and 50 million, and AIDS from 1978-2001 fatally killed 23 million (a million each year).

The largely ignored Congo civil war has already taken 5.4 million lives. This tragedy takes me back to my freshman year at Stanford when we were assigned to read and summarize the 1899 Joseph Conrad classic, Heart of Darkness, describing this terrible African hellhole on the Congo River. I recall a classmate spoofing “the horror, the horror” with “the whore, the whore,” and he got away with an “A” for creativity. So, in this same class, I attempted to think outside the box in my analysis of Andrew Marvell’s “To His Coy Mistress” by finding a dictionary of the mid 1600’s when this poem was written, and to my glee, discerned that “coy” had an almost completely different definition, not the coquettishly shy maiden as one would have automatically surmised. Notwithstanding, I got a “C” for my efforts, as my English teacher said I missed the whole point of the poem, and the worst part of this all was that I did not have any confidence to challenge her. Forget the fact that I have now gained some confidence, the lesson learned was that people generally interpret from a limited base of knowledge. My Stanford English teacher only considered the present definition. Ah, the wisdom of current maturity, in hindsight.

While on this nostalgic note, I wonder what ever happened to Joseph Abouzed, a Sudanese the sugar company I worked for roomed me with in the early 60’s in Naalehu. He was proud of his cooking, which featured kidneys and brains. Perhaps he was a canibal. Just kidding, Joe. He went back home, near Darfur, where the UN recently reported that 400,000 have been killed and 2.5 million displaced by their own private civil war. Interesting that UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon blamed global warming for causing drought conditions which resulted in this violence. But Joe seemed to have returned to hell while I remained in the paradise that became my life.

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Notwithstanding, it is indeed sardonic to mention that Mankind seems to be gaining control of catastrophic casualties. Not as many are dying these days from major health contagions and wars (per capita).

At this writing we have a world population of 6,725,517,852 (305,235,587 Americans), which is anticipated to grow to 9 billion in 2050. About 130 million are annually born and 55 million die, a net gain of 75 million each year, even with all those premature casualties. Since 1960, the world death rate has dropped by a factor of two, while the birth rate has only been reduced by about a third. Good progress for our species, actually, but bad for our limited commons. Yet, Thomas Malthus has largely been proven wrong thus far. At the current rate of food consumption, we are already producing more than a 1000 times that which could be supported by a hunting/gathering society. It really doesn’t matter whether nature or Man was the cause, all that is necessary is to gain a universal will to properly educate and feed the general populace; prevent disease and accidents; eliminate crime; attain world peace; and, perhaps, end, if not reverse, aging. Then we can consider the universes around us. But most of these will be discussed in Book Two, SIMPLE SOLUTIONS for Humanity.

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Typhoon Hagupit is at 110 MPH and should make landfall today in Guangdong Province, 200 miles southwest of Hong Kong. Yesterday, schools were cancelled, the Star Ferry stopped running and there was considerable rain and wind.

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Crude oil prices settled at $106/bbl. It's been a wild day on Wall Street, as the DJI jumped 127 points, then dropped nearly 300 from this daily high, zoomed up 220, then fell 200, ending down 162 at 10,854. This metastability is ominous. Rightfully, but scarily, adding to the overall uncertainty is the attitude of the Senate Banking Committee to White House testimony, with the general attitude of "why should we bailout those who got rich irresponsibly." If Congress did not do a thing when oil reached $147/barrel in July, and oil dropped to $90/bbl last week, perhaps patience might work again.

Then the next day, to complete the subject on risks:

APPENDIX. A. WHAT ARE THE RISKS?

What are the odds for your living a long life? It is estimated that the lifespan for Neanderthal man was 20, classic Greek and Roman, 28, and Medieval England, about 33. A millennium later, the world in 1900 had a life expectancy of 30 years. Today it is from 63 to 67 years, depending on the reference. Oh, turtles live more than 150 years, as Harriet did (the Galapagos land tortoise picked up by Darwin, who lived to 188) and Tui Malila (the Madagascar radiated tortoise presented to Captain James Cook, 192); the baobab tree, 4000 years; and coral reefs, 100,000 years, although one way of interpreting the latter is that the life of our human society has a lifetime, thus far, of at least double that.  (That graphic above shows the latest info.)

Here are the worst and best life statistics from the U.S. Census Bureau:

COUNTRY LIFE EXPECTANCY

........................................2005 .....2025
...................................................(predicted)

Zambia .........................37.2 ........37.1
Malawi .........................37.6 ........36.6
Mozambique .................37.5 ........45.4
Korea, North .................70.7 ........51.3
South ...........................74.4 ........74.0
United States ...............77.1 .........76.1
Singapore .....................80.1 ........78.5
Japan ...........................80.7 ........80.0
San Marino ..................81.1 .........81.4
Andorra .......................83.5 .........83.5

San Marino, the world’s oldest republic, founded in the 4th Century, with a population of 29,000, is located in north central Italy. It has signed the Kyoto Protocol, and, maybe, is a nation to consider in the best place to live. Andorra is supposedly impoverished, and has no income taxes. It is located next to France and Spain and has a population of 66,824, but, some of them are there to dodge taxes. Females there have a life expectancy of 86.56 years. Yes, impoverished, though not as bad as before World War II.

It is also interesting that the life expectancies of the U.S., Singapore and Japan are expected to drop by 2025, and that of North Korea from 70.7 to 51.3. But let me have you ponder over all this, for this is not a treatment of demographics.

There have been many studies on the odds of dying in the U.S. The World can extrapolate their own chances. For example, were you to die, these one chance in “x” reasons would be why: (National Center for Health Statistics, CDC; American Cancer Society; National Safety Council; International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies; World Health Organization; U.S. Geological Survey)

Heart Disease ...............................5
Cancer .........................................7
Stroke ........................................23
Accidental Injury ..........................36
Motor Vehicle Accident ...............100
Suicide ......................................121
Fire/Smoke .............................1,116
Electrocution ...........................5,000
Drowning .................................8,942
Air travel ................................20,000
Flood .....................................30,000
Legal Execution .....................58,618
Tornado................................. 60,000
Lightning ...............................83,390
Venomous sting/bite ............100,000
Earthquake ..........................131,890
Dog attack ..........................147,717
Asteroid Impact ...................200,000
TSUNAMI ...........................615,488

See, I told you not to worry about tsunamis, for the once in 10,000 year asteroid could well be, maybe, more dangerous, according to the Holocene Impact Working Group. Definitely not worthy of your particular concern. Ah, but a massive gamma-ray burst, which could emanate from within our galaxy, wiping out the ozone layer, causing acid rain and rapid cooling our atmosphere. The last time this “might” have happened was, oh, 440 million years ago, supposedly wiping out life on Earth. Not to worry, though, for the consensus reaction was that ABC was scare-mongering in a two-hour program aired on August 30, 2006, as a 2020 special on how life on Earth could end. I should add that the contents include quoting Michio Kaku about wandering Black Holes right next to us in our own Galaxy. Well, the nearest known Black Hole is 1600 light years away (about a quadrillion miles). People are attracted to these kinds of programs.

Another way of looking at all this is that you have only a one in 17,625 chance of getting killed this year by being an occupant in a car, 1:440,951 in a plane, and 1:10,283,615 in a train. But in your entire lifetime, it is: car (1:228), air (1:5,407) and train (1:133,035) (National Safety Council). Would you bet $2 on a 100:1 horse? Probably not. So don’t worry about those 228:1 odds regarding car crashes. On the other hand, one in two hundred and twenty eight is something you can’t too lightly take.

Finally, the National Transportation Safety Board has reported that the expected frequency of a hull-penetrating asteroid strike to an aircraft over the U.S. is once every 59,000 – 77,000 years. The moral of all these numbers is that transportation deaths should not be a pathological concern, plus, you absolutely don’t need to worry at all about dying in a tsunami in the continental United States. Somewhat disappointing though, is that if we end crime, eliminate wars and remediate global climate warming, YOU WILL STILL DIE BECAUSE OF THE ABOVE CAUSES. Hmm, is it too late to believe in the afterlife? Or discover eternal life. Well, read SIMPLE SOLUTIONS for Humanity.

Okay, I'm now back to me today, 28June2022.  As I re-read the above, a few takeaways:

• I recently showed how much more devastating the Black Death was around 1350 than the Spanish Flu or the COVID Pandemic. 
• This subject will be a later posting, but I should underscore that the Justinian Plague that occurred just before 550 AD might have killed 40% the world population.  
• The Black Death might have had as many as 100 million deaths.
• But the Justinian Plague (same rat/flea/bacteria syndrome) also might have had 100 million deaths, with less than half the population of those Medieval days.
• That name because the Byzantine Emperor of those days was Justinian.

• 
  The world population 14 years ago was 6.7 billion.  We will hit 8 billion as soon as the end of this year.  So in the timeframe of the early days of my blog, our World population increased by 20%.
• The price of crude oil in September of 2008 was $106/barrel.  Today?  $110/barrel.
• The Dow Jones Industrial Average on 23September2008 was at 10,854.  Today?  30,947, almost three times higher.  The Dow lost nearly 500 today, and the volatility index is nearing 30, the number that signals DANGER!  
• The horizontal axis is not indicated below, but starts in 2008 and goes to 2022.

• 
  Looking at that comparison of how one dies, showing that if you go, there was a one chance in 5 it would have been from heart disease and one in 100 from an auto accident, cranking COVID into the analysis, this would be one in 1417.  
• But WHO indicated that deaths from COVID should have been three times higher.  Using that figure, the odds on dying from this disease would now be one in 472, still a lot lower than an auto accident.
• 
  Here is another analysis for the U.S. showing:
• COVID-19  1 : 2321 (as of June of 2020).
• COVID-19  1 : 679 (as of September of 2021).
• Lightning strike:  1 : 6.7 million.
• Tornado  1 :13 million.
• Flu  1 : 6560.
• Thus, your chances of dying from COVID-19 today is around 14 times more than the seasonal flu.
• However, the odds are nearly five times higher that you will die from an auto accident than from COVID-19.
• But don't particularly sweat autos, for chances are that if you die today, going by way of a heart ailment is 100 times higher than from COVID-19.
• Where do we go when we die?  Maybe on Sunday I'll further get into this, but a whole lot of Americans think:

Is the solution to death then...an afterlife?  Got to work on this.

Finally, on the ocean storm front, almost-hurricane Celia is still heading in the general direction of Hawaii, but is continuing to weaken.  In the Caribbean is another storm that also is not expected to reach hurricane strength, but gain a name Bonnie, and seems capable of crossing Central America into the Pacific.  

Caught my attention because I remember 30 years ago Hurricane Iniki, which actually formed off Africa, made it to the Caribbean, then across Central America and into the Pacific, attaining Category 4 status and hitting Kauai only at 145 MPH, but with gusts up to 225 MPH, causing $3.1 billion in damages, the worst ever natural disaster for Hawaii.  I was away on the mainland during that period and could not reach anyone in Hawaii on the phone.  From a report by colleague George Parraras-Carayannis.

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