Posted on 02/01/2019 7:42:24 PM PST by EdnaMode
European colonizers who arrived in the Americas caused death and disease to the point that it sparked what some have called the first major human-induced change in the Earth’s climate, a new study has found.
The study, conducted by researchers at the University College London (UCL), found that the arrival of European settlers killed nearly 56 million indigenous people over the course of roughly 100 years, causing large areas of farmland to go abandoned and reforested.
The study said the new swath of vegetated land, which CNN reported was roughly the size of France at the time, caused a massive decrease in carbon dioxide (CO2) in the atmosphere.
Levels of carbon in the atmosphere had changed so much that it caused the planet to experience a global chill in 1610 that is now known as the Little Ice Age, researchers said.
"CO2 and climate had been relatively stable until this point," UCL geography professor Mark Maslin, one of the co-authors behind the study, told CNN on Friday. "So, this is the first major change we see in the Earth's greenhouse gases."
Maslin told CNN that he and the team of researchers conducted the study by examining archaeological evidence and historical data and analyzing Antarctic ice, which can trap atmospheric gas and reportedly reveal the quantity of carbon dioxide that was in the atmosphere long ago. He said a combination of all of the above showed researchers how the reforestation that was brought on by the mass slaughter of indigenous people in the Americas led to the global chill.
"The ice cores showed that there was a larger dip in CO2 [than usual] in 1610, which was caused by the land and not the oceans," Alexander Koch, the lead author of the study, told CNN.
"For once, we've been able to balance all the boxes and realize that the only way the Little Ice Age was so intense is ... because of the genocide of millions of people," Maslin added.
Maybe then.
However, presently, whatever the effects may be or not be, it IS true that human activity, overall, does exceed volcanos in the amount of CO2 released to the atmosphere. This can be proven by looking up what the volcanologists say volcanos are releasing, globally, and then look up typical human sources (say, an average car driven, say, 5,000 miles a year) and the calculation of how much CO2 is created by the burning of a gallon of gasoline or (10%) gasohol. Apply some high school math and estimates of the # of autos in the world. Do the same procedure for other sources.
Alternately, if you want to skip the research and math, the EIA estimated energy related US CO2 production @ 5,140 million metric tons in 2017. (This does not include biofuels (considered carbon neutral), biological and agricultural releases, etc. Ie., things like you and me breathing.) That's just for the US - worldwide, the figure for energy related CO2 production is estimated at 24 billion tons a year. Volcanos come in at, according to the USGS, 0.2 billion tons per year. Other sources (mid ocean ridges, etc.) run that number up to 600-700 million tons of CO2 per year (it depends a bit on which reference you read), but, clearly, humans' huge population puts us well in the lead.
By far the most abundant gas released by volcanoes is water vapor. However, there is little evidence that even in "busy" volcanic years, this water vapor has a significant global warming effect -- probably because the particulates are a bigger factor in the direction of cooling.
I state this because we FREEPERS and Conservatives need to be as accurate as possible with our facts. Stating "facts" that are easily disproven tends to blow up anything else we say...
Okay all you farmers out there. Don’t
let your fields go fallow, or we’re
all gonna die. It’s up to you to keep
climate change in check. It’s good that
Trump negotiated a great deal with China
where were gonna be growing a lot of
say beans.
Oh sure all those prairie fires that no longer burn across several states every couple of years for many thousands of years didn’t cause any warming at all either....
RIIIIGHTTT...
Wow! White people. Is there nothing we can’t do? Now it’s climate change.
Virtually all the worlds filthy diseases and plagues come from climates at or below the Equator.
This is revisionist history based on revisionist science. Most of the North and South American populations were killed by plagues before European colonization began.
Just plain lunacy. This bunch of commie whackos know no limits.
Next the indigenous peoples of North America will be suing the European countries for reparations. And some lunatic like AOC will pick this up and carry it for them. She can create a Red New Deal to be along side her Green New Deal.
As in Asia and Africa, medical and technological advancements by whites permitted those populations to grow much larger than nature had permitted. The idea that North America was teeming with a billion Indians before Honky McCracker arrived is just absurd; their primitive societies prevented the land from sustaining dense masses of people. Central America sustained larger populations (with actual cities) because it is much more fertile. While we have some stonework in the southwest from Indians, there is a reason there are no large former settlements throughout most of the US.
Some archeologists suspect the Plains Indians didn’t even exist when first whites arrived on the east coast, and they are descended from those pushed westward. They maintain there is no archeological record to support the contention that the Plains Indians existed yet in the seventeenth century. That lifestyle (following buffalo herds) sustained minimal populations in comparison to the Aztec or Incas.
It is not lunacy.
It is one more step in the propaganda and manipulation to get the results they want. the full marginalization of an entire race in preparation for genocide.
Cow pie. Now, can The Hill publish a story about how the American Indians affected the climate when they burned down the forests in the Great Plains?
You would think that someone might have noticed the 150 million acres of farmland that were destroyed, and written something about them before this.
I trust your comment was intended sarcasm.
The great plains could not grow forests for the bison would graze off the saplings that did spring up. There is no new tree growth in natural wooded areas cleared for cattle grazing.
Okay..all non-white people..
Here is the deal..
We keep our privilege or we lay your earth to waste.
We have always had the power to destroy earth.
Muhahahaha.
My point is still valid. I have distant cousin ancestors that were massacred by indians.
‘Pod.
Severe mental illness has been normalized in the west. This is positively creepy. If this doesn’t frighten you you’re not paying attention.
LOL...,.....................LOL.................LOL......LOL..............LOL.....LOL..............LOL........LOL......LOL............LOL.....,.............LOL ....................LOL.................LOL.........
...
......LOL........LOL
How about the deaths of tens of Millions, perhaps as many as a hundred million by two men? If we’re going to play let’s compare the genocide that is. I mean, in what ways did the deaths of so many millions in Europe and Russia, including military-aged men, affect the demographics Culture, and success of that part of the world? Joseph Stalin and Adolf Hitler. Of course the results of genocide are horrific to most people,however,the handiwork of bloodthirsty despots/ communists is particularly breathtaking;though the global warming angle leaves one speechless.
This has got to be one of the more ridiculous utterances I have ever heard from these so-called scientists about humans causing the climate to change. Laughable is the word that comes to mind.
I'd like to know who pays for the grant(s) for this research study by the University College London. Follow the money.
Because without these wild claims to support the human-caused climate change theories, that are ridiculous on their face, it will result in them losing their grants.
And without grants, university researchers would lose their jobs.
So here's my "theory". Without all of these "98% of all scientists" blowing hot air in our faces about humans causing global warming, we could eliminate global warming by doing away with all of their CO2 spewing into the atmosphere. And I didn't get any money to come up with it idea.
Now that's about as laughable as their theory, but who's to know who's right? Me or them? You decide....
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.