Posted on 10/17/2011 6:43:48 AM PDT by Red Badger
A team comprised of geological and environmental science researchers from Stanford University has been studying the impact that early European exploration had on the New World and have found evidence that they say suggests the European cold period from 1500 to 1750, commonly known as the Little Ice Age, was due to the rapid decline in native human populations shortly after early explorers arrived.
Following up on their paper published in 2008, the team has now brought their findings before the Geological Society of America. The researchers say that the population decrease, which came about due to the introduction of previously unknown diseases, led to the rapid reforestation of the Americas. This led to a sudden increase in the amount of carbon dioxide being pulled from the air, which meant the atmosphere wasn’t able to hold as much heat, which led to colder air covering Europe.
The team, led by visiting scholar Richard Nevle, came to this conclusion after analyzing charcoal remnants in soil and lake sediments left behind by early American inhabitants as they burned forests to make room for farmland. They found that starting approximately 500 years ago, the charcoal accumulations came to a virtual standstill, coinciding with the death of native peoples.
Nevle et al then got out their calculators and crunched the numbers. They estimate that for a population of some 40 to 80 million indigenous people, the total amount of deforested land would likely have amounted to something the size of California. And since most estimates suggest that close to 90 percent of the native peoples died or were killed after the Europeans arrived, that meant most of that land returned to forest. That many trees, they say, all of a sudden appearing, almost as if out of nowhere, could have resulted in a loss of some 2 to 17 billion tons of carbon dioxide from the air.
To further bolster their argument, they say that core samples taken from the ice in Antarctica have air bubbles in them that show a reduction of carbon dioxide by 6 to 10 parts per million between 1525 and the early 1600s.
Of course this isn’t concrete proof that humans caused the Little Ice Age, as others in the field point out. Events such as volcanic eruptions, solar flares or even colder ocean currents could also be at play. But so far, the evidence is certainly intriguing, pointing out that human activities, even those that are inadvertent, could be the cause of serious global climate changes.
The good news is that this “study” should drive a stake through the heart of the story that native Americans were living in simple harmony with Mother Gaia.
Got it.
Hmmmm.
This is so PC, what's not to like?
>Gaaaaack!
So to the environmentalist left, Columbus should be a hero. Thanks to Columbus, both global warming and deforestation were halted and reversed, and the “population bomb,” as Paul Ehrlich called the menace of over-population, was defused.
“since most estimates suggest that close to 90 percent of the native peoples died or were killed after the Europeans arrived”
That figure was pulled out of a hat, of course. But even if it is true, I might ask, “90 percent of what?” And no one would be able to answer me.
What evidence do these scientists have that the Americas had been deforested before they were reforested only to be deforested again? There were civilizations in South America and varying amounts of agriculture here and there, but weren’t these by and large pastoral/hunter-gatherer people? They weren’t clear cutting to build condos, is what I’m getting at.
Maybe the cooling came from the sun and THEN the people all died.
I suspect if you had a time-lapse movie of the sun it would flicker like a candle over thousands of years time.
I burn my garbage.
Author Charles Mann makes a case for this based on the following;
Early mound builders in the continental US and their like in Central and South America had only stone tools and no draft animals, yet built massive structures in a relatively short period of time (carbon dating.)
For a good read, I’d recommend Mann’s “1491” and “1493” about the Americas before and just after the arrival of Europeans.
Sooooo, deforestation is a good thing, then?
Genghis Khan got a lot of credit recently for his marvelous work in combating global warming through horrendous massacres of conquered peoples.
Want to bet ol’ Chris Columbus gets any similar praise? ‘Cause I’ve got a little money to wager.
Johhny Appleseed caused the Little Ice Age.
I don’t, I dump it on Liberal’s front lawns so they can compost it or seperate it for recycle. Just doing my part to make sure they feel good about themselves.
I think the population estimates for what is now the US and Canada are guesses based on very little information. Definitely a lot of Indians died because of the newly-introduced diseases, but determining the previous population level is hard--and the life expectancy had been low. In Mexico there is better information, showing a dramatic decline in the population after the conquest, but the population density had been a lot higher there.
If there were fewer Indians killing deer, there would have been more deer eating young trees, so would the forests have increased so dramatically?
Did they consider the impact of reforestation in China under the Ming dynasty?
The ecology of North America would not have supported such a number of people? It would have requires dozens of settlements on the scale of Cahokia. In any case, the decimation of the indian population was probably no more than that of the Black Death in Europe.
Which sucks up more CO2 and puts out more O2?
An acre of trees or an acre of grass land.
The article claimed 90% not 10%.
Some people here seem to be having some difficulty separating issues. I agree the study is bogus, but the misconception of pre-Columbian America as a couple of hunter-gatherer Indians roaming through the forest is false. There were massive civilizations in Central America, South America and some southeastern parts of North America (Mississipi). They didn’t grow maize in a forest.
They used ‘slash and burn’ methods, same as the South American native do to this day........when the land wore out, they moved to a new area and repeated the process. The old areas became meadows as they regenerated the land and eventually forests.............
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