Study: Global warming sparked by ancient farming methods

cnn.com ^ | August 18, 2009 | Shelby Lin Erdman

[Free ThinkerNY]

(CNN) -- Ancient man may have started global warming through massive deforestation and burning that could have permanently altered the Earth's climate, according to a new study by researchers at the University of Virginia and the University of Maryland-Baltimore County. Primitive slash-and-burn agriculture permanently changed Earth's climate, according to a new study.

The study, published in the scientific journal Quaternary Science Reviews and reported on the University of Virginia's Web site, says over thousands of years, farmers burned down so many forests on such a large scale that huge amounts of carbon dioxide were pumped into the atmosphere. That possibly caused the Earth to warm up and forever changed the climate.

Lead study author William Ruddiman is a professor emeritus of environmental sciences at the University of Virginia and a climate scientist.

"It seems like a common-sense idea that there weren't enough people around 5, 6, 7,000 years ago to have any significant impact on climate. But if you allow for the fact that those people, person by person, had something like 10 times as much of an effect or cleared 10 times as much land as people do today on average, that bumps up the effect of those earlier farmers considerably, and it does make them a factor in contributing to the rise of greenhouse gasses," Ruddiman said.

Ruddiman said that starting thousands of years ago, people would burn down a forest, poke a hole in the soil between the stumps, drop seeds in the holes and grow a crop on that land until the nutrients were tapped out of the soil. Then they would move on.

"And they'd burn down another patch of forest and another and another. They might do that five times in a 20-year period," he said.

[cranked]

Right........

[rednesss]

"could have permanently altered"

No such thing.

[abclily]

Has the whole world gone slap crazy?

[Voter62vb]

Well, global cooling is happening now bcause of the invention of air conditioning.

We are actually cooling our planet down with all the cool air.

This from a study done in the Voternary62Livingroom set at 70 comfy degrees talking with friends in Michigan who have not had a hot summer but are fearful of rat infested Michigan Parks.

[pallis]

More poop for unfertile minds.

[DustyMoment]

I’d love to say it don’t get any dumber than this but, everytime I think that, the left finds a way to come up with something dumber!!!

[Freedom_Isn't_Free]

GLOBAL WARMING ... So simple a caveman can do it!

[dog breath]

I have a confession, I started it with my smokey barbecue.

[abclily]

I hear the next big fake crisis is going to be an oxygen shortage.

[KamperKen]

More laughable nonsense paid for by we taxpayers.

[Kenny Bunk]

What nonsense!

As any child knows, Global Warming was caused by George Bush! The data on this is quite clear.

Now, if you will excuse me, I have to clear my waterfront property of the dead polar bear carcasses before the stench aggravates my environmentally sensitive neighbors.

I plan on hitching my Prius to them and towing them over to some Republican's house.

[SunkenCiv]

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[SunkenCiv]

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[rdl6989]

"It seems like a common-sense idea that there weren't enough people around 5, 6, 7,000 years ago to have any significant impact on climate. But if you allow for the fact that those people, person by person, had something like 10 times as much of an effect or cleared 10 times as much land as people do today on average, that bumps up the effect of those earlier farmers considerably, and it does make them a factor in contributing to the rise of greenhouse gasses,"

This person is smoking the high grade stuff.

[roaddog727]

This just hurts my brain.

Are there no straws the Global Warming crowd are not willing to draw?

[metesky]

may; could have; according to; possibly; It seems

[Reeses]

They never suggest early man using fire as a weapon against competing tribes back then, like we did during WWII. That might have been a more common reason for setting fires.

[SuzyQue]

Wait a minute! Don’t trees produce CO2, and isn’t CO2 a “greenhouse” gas? If so, it seems that cutting down trees would be a good thing.....

[ApplegateRanch]

"It seems like a common-sense idea that there weren't enough people around 5, 6, 7,000 years ago to have any significant impact on climate. But if you allow for the fact that those people, person by person, had something like 10 times as much of an effect or cleared 10 times as much land as people do today on average, that bumps up the effect of those earlier farmers considerably

Works both ways.

Without air tankers, fire engines, Hot Shot crews, chainsaws, STEEL tools...and the pulaski had yet to be invented... they didn't even try to put a dent in natural fires, which could burn for months. And such fires had burned regularly, since the beginnings of dry land vegetation and the invention of lightening.

What ever burning they added, also subracted from acreage available for natural burns.

Oh, well; like all other "unnatural man made events", since these types seem to believe that Man is not a part of nature, natural fires are great; man made fires bad, as in "beaver dam good; stock pond evil".