Posted on 01/31/2019 7:36:19 AM PST by BenLurkin
It's the UCL group's estimate that 60 million people were living across the Americas at the end of the 15th Century (about 10% of the world's total population), and that this was reduced to just five or six million within a hundred years.
The scientists calculated how much land previously cultivated by indigenous civilisations would have fallen into disuse, and what the impact would be if this ground was then repossessed by forest and savannah.
Are there lessons for modern climate policy?
Co-author Dr Chris Brierley believes there is. He said the fall-out from the terrible population crash and re-wilding of the Americas illustrated the challenge faced by some global warming solutions.
...UCL team argues that the Great Dying in the Americas shows there are significant human interactions that left a deep and indelible mark on the planet long before the mid-20th Century.
(Excerpt) Read more at bbc.com ...
Somewhat related --
Years ago I saw an article which lamented the enormous decline in Sperm Whale populations due to past whaling. The article stated that at one time the Sperm Whale population may have been as much as 150,000! But, alas, because of our terrible whaling, the population was greatly reduced today and we did not know how endangered these great beasts were. Fortunately, a new survey was planned that might provide accurate numbers for the current population.
A follow-up article stated that a new survey had been performed and -- alas! -- the current population of Sperm Whales was estimated at a measly 160,000! Pitiful! Deplorable! Oh, the devastation we have wrought! Experts estimated that at one time the population may have been as much as 350,000 ...
It is very hard to know what the populations were. No one took counts at the time.
Coronado found vast swaths of land that had very few people in them.
That was about 1540, about 50 years after Columbus' first contact.
Hernando de Soto was exploring up from Florida at the same time, and found some fortified villages, but no cities.
Bottom line: The deaths of 50 million people “cooled the climate”>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
Are you feeling like I am? I suddenly feel like a lemming driven to seek my kind so we can all run off a cliff into the ocean to die en mass ? /
Buahahahahahahaha.
What a bunch of fag science!
Reductio ad Absurdum.
Dr Chris Brierley needs a visit to the woodshed.
“Big Brother reports that the Sperm Ration has been decreased from 150,000 to 160,000”
The scientific professions have been infected with viral streams of unscientific insanity, manufactured in academia in the training of scientists as social and political activists first, and at the expense of true science.
Well that’s their solution to AGW......kill off 90% of the population......or higher taxes.....what a concept...
It’s the UCL group’s estimate that 60 million people were living across the Americas at the end of the 15th Century (1400-1499)
Wikipedia:
In 1492 the native population of North America north of the Rio Grande was seven million to ten million.
Hmmmmmmmmmmmm...Quite a difference there...
The BBC is blaming The America’s for climate change?
Is there no low too low or insane for these radicalized leftist loons?
Apparently not.
So this UCL group must be including Caribbean Islands, Central America, South America, and Mexico...
I have read that two World Wars eliminated a lot of people also and left a huge carbon footprint!
*ping*
Imagine the ozone we saved by almost totally wiping out buffalo flatulence.
And if course they have zero data to back their guesstimates
Doesn’t explain Britain freezing at same time
And tell us what illness killed all those natives??? Most did not interact with each other except for war
The UCL team argues that a Great Dying in the Americas could be a useful tool in addressing Global Warming.
If you are not for it, you are anti-science and a racist.
I am of the opinion that the ground that was reclaimed by nature of which the “scientists” speak, was being used for agriculture. This was subsistence living, you don’t clear a forest to plant crops when there is a meadow or prairie near by.
My limited understanding is that agricultural plants also suck up carbon dioxide? To my untrained mind it would be that you are just trading one CO2 scrubber for another. One might be more efficient, but is the change in CO2 consumption between natural land and crop land be great enough to affect climate?
The article raises more questions than it answers.
This bleepin’ Brit may want to look at his own country’s past and “contributions”.
https://www.geog.ucl.ac.uk/people/academic-staff/chris-brierley
Don’t know; I’m neither a historian nor an archeologist.
However, as an example, “Squanto” was kidnapped from now-New-England in 1614, returned in 1619, and in his absence nearly the entire population of southern New England was wiped-out by an unknown disease, perhaps caught from the French explorers.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Squanto
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Squanto#The_great_epidemic_and_Squanto’s_return_to_New_England
Unknown disease....unknown numbers
That really supports the death of sixty million. There should be bones all over the place
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