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.
These people are screwed up...what will be next on the GW BS line...
(Pay particular attention to the part about the Indians.)
The real story, or so it now seems, emerged piecemeal over a century and may rightly be regarded as one of the triumphs of the science of ecology. The question was squarely framed and partly answered in a classic 1935 paper entitled “The Prairie Peninsula,” by botanist Edgar Transeau. Numerous others have made important contributions since, as summarized in a 2003 paper by weather scientists Stanley Changnon, Ken Kunkel, and Derek Winstanley. The chief factors:
Drought. Notwithstanding relatively plentiful average rainfall, the prairie peninsula suffers from severe drought 50 to 200 percent more often than the surrounding forests.
Dry season. In contrast to forest regions, which have relatively uniform precipitation throughout the year, the prairie peninsula is noticeably drier in late fall and winter.
High ratio of evaporation to precipitation. A key insight of Transeau’s, this one gets a little technical, but the main idea is that despite abundant rain, plants dry out faster in the prairie peninsula due to wind, temperature, and so on.
Flat terrain. The prairie offered few natural barriers and particularly–you see where I’m going with this–few natural firebreaks.
Lightning. After Florida and the Gulf Coast, the prairie peninsula has electrical storms more often than any other region in the U.S.
Fire. There seems little question that recurring fire promoted by periodic dry spells was the central formative feature of the prairie. How the majority of fires got started remains a matter of debate. Native Americans evidently torched the prairie frequently to create more desirable grazing land for game. Other blazes were started by lightning, which often struck the highest thing around, namely the trees. Whatever their cause, the fires were certainly dramatic, racing across the prairie at speeds of up to 15 to 20 kilometers per hour and incinerating vast tracts. Forests were slow to recover from the destruction, but prairie grasses, whose seeds and buds remained cool a few inches below the scorched surface, were back the next year. Grasses, in short, thrived because they were better adapted to the stressful prairie environment than trees, surviving everything except civilization’s appetite for arable land.
Cecil Adams
https://www.straightdope.com/columns/read/2604/why-dont-trees-grow-on-the-great-plains/
Those indigenous Americans were wiped out long before 1610. The Spaniards brought small pox to the Americas and wiped out millions in short order.
Why do you think we could march across this open country with relative ease?
The VAST majority of deaths were caused by disease nobody at the time understood very well nor had any kind of cure or immunization for.
“I guess science no longer has any credibility.”
Fake news, fake history, fake science...Orwell was an optimist.
There are more forests now than in colonial America, scientists please tell me why we are having climate change? Should we cut down the trees?
Me too... I laughed out loud...
Antarctic ice cores show clearly that increases in CO2 *follow* warming. This shows that CO2 does not cause warming. Proved conclusively. Nothing for greentards to do but lie about it.
Also, water vapor is the most significant greenhouse gas.
Looks like everything you know about this is wrong.
Here’s a hint: the Earth’s climate undergoes changes. The notion that humans could have any effect on this is so stupid as to be functionally indistinguishable from schizophrenia.
Knowing that a controlled burn on a pasture promotes better growth almost immediately makes your article quite believable.
At the same time overgrazing has a similar effect, assuming the millions of buffalo actually existed as some accounts state.
A fantasy I have is being able to time travel after death. Like I said, it’s a fantasy and I know it won’t happen. But to be able to travel back into time I’d love to see what America was like when the Indians owned. Observing the wild life, how the Indians survived, fought their battles with fellow tribes and critters such as bear and lion not to mention extremely harsh winters.
It would be interesting to see what the truth is as compared to todays “scientists” that seeming jump to some of the wildest conclusions without any real honest factual evidence.
Another stated reason the Indians burned down the forests was to see their enemies. It was not all kumbayah among the new world Indians. They were constantly warring, taking slaves, and butchering their enemies to the last man, woman and child.
The number of individuals killed in armed confrontations or even straight up massacres such as Camp Grant or Spirit Lake were infinitesimal to those who were victims of disease.
The whole point is leftists are now using epidemiology to demonize white Europeans. Incidentally there are never any mention of the transmittal of syphilis from the Americas to Europe by these people.
The whole point is leftists are now using epidemiology to demonize white Europeans.
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Yes.
Where did the Black Plague originate, and then be carried on trading vessels to Europe?
Its origin has been found to be in China 2000 years ago, but spread westward from the Crimea in the 14th Century, killing 75 to 200 million Europeans.
Are we to claim that the traders from the Crimea are responsible for killing millions of Europeans? Or are we to blame the Chinese for its origin?
The Socialist Left is always twisting the narrative to demonize our nation and its institutions.
What about the measles outbreaks, outbreaks of other diseases, that have been the result of illegal aliens not being screened at our borders?
Antarctic ice cores show clearly that increases in CO2 *follow* warming.
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Strange, we’ve been warming since the last ice age. Did the ice cause global warming? Or was it the sun? Seems to me it has always been the sun.
“Did the ice cause global warming?”
I’m talking about ice cores that record temperature and CO2 for the past 300,000 years.
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