If global warming is due to human activity, then Earth’s mushrooming population must have played a part. Climatologists have often wondered what caused the ‘Little Ice Age’ from the 16th to the 19th centuries. Now, scientists at University London believe America’s Great Dying period caused this. This event was the result of a stampede to colonize North and South America. The invasion killed vast numbers of indigenous people.
How Forest Reclaimed Abandoned Agricultural Land
Americas Great Dying did not only snuff out 90% of the super-continent’s cooking fires. Vast forests overtook the abandoned agricultural land as time passed. Eventually, there were enough tall, fast-growing trees to absorb sufficient atmospheric CO2 to chill the planet.
The global cooling that followed was hence the result of a radical shrinkage of population. Sixty million people lived across the Americas prior to the great colonization. By the time smallpox, measles, warfare, slavery and societal collapse had taken their toll, there were just 10% left. It would take the First Industrial Revolution to reverse the process. Unfortunately it did more than that.
The Great Havoc the Little Ice Age Caused
Glaciers destroyed farms and villages in the Swiss Alps, while canals and rivers in Holland became ice skating rinks. Settlers in North America reported exceptionally cold winters. New York Harbor froze solid in 1780 allowing people to walk from Manhattan to Staten Iceland.
Those events are more than mere historical curiosities. They are sobering warnings how easily Earth’s climate could flip either way. The flip is going to the hot side at present and humanity may be losing control as we write this post. We can see how CO2 levels fell in records of the Greenland ice cores. We can watch America’s Great Dying period unroll before our eyes.
Co-author of the research report Dr Chris Brierley says “we can see from The Great Dying that we need to plant many new forests” to reverse global warming. However it takes fifty years for big trees to grow to their full size.
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Preview Image: Abandoned Machu Picchu, Peru
