Mary Brodd

If I ever fully implement this system, I will rule the world. So many simple, obvious, things that make such a big difference when you do them! Write everything down - do things according to context - “What's the next action?”

changing climates favored bigger-brained, more adaptable hominidsclimate change more abrupt than originally thought
THC - thermohaline circulation - as water evaporates, it becomes saltier, therefore heavier, so it SINKS, pulling the current behind it. Happens ONLY in the North Atlantic (Gulf Stream)cycles exist from 100,000 years down to 20 years (El Nino) - we are at the intersection of lots of cycles
*Human activities both increase risk of severe climate change and minimize earth's ability to cope with such changes (deforestation, mangrove depletion, etc).

We're doomed.

(suggested reading - “Late Victorian Holocausts” by Mike Davis)

(really 4.5 stars; minus 1/2 star for the over-busy naming conventions) Add me to the list of those pining for a sequel, or at least more in this world. What a completely charming story. I did especially enjoy how the character of some of the more important secondary characters was slowly revealed. I will need to buy a copy of this book for sure.

This continent populated much earlier than 12,000 years ago. Earliest European contacts record post-epidemic population levels; North and South America had millions of people before earliest visitors from Europe brought pigs and diseases. North American populations had less diverse genetic ability to fight disease, so more died in epidemics than Europeans would have done.

Berengia land bridge - theory that Siberians crossed while chasing mastodons is questionable given gatherer nature of other people from similar era.

“Mother cultures” (Olmecs) of middle American weren't - “sister” cultures may have developed in parallel.

p. 311 (conclusion) “Faced with an ecological problem, the Indians fixed it. Rather than adapt to nature, they created it. They were in the midst of terra-forming the Amazon when Columbus showed up and ruined everything.”

Early occupants adopted agricultural methods that would work in the environment. Fruit cultivators and breeding not recognized as “farming” by Europeans but it was. Yanomami can survive “in the wild” because their ancestors created the landscape around them.

Huge numbers of e.g. bison and passenger pigeons resulted from predators (Indians) dying from European diseases - they did not exist in such disproportionate numbers before 1491.

“Virgin forest” created in 18th century when Indians who controlled the growth died and growth was no longer planned and controlled.

Pratchett's last book, not really finished when he died. Very rough around the edges, like the last 3-4 Guards novels. Endings, beginnings, and edges....