SUBSCRIBE TO OUR FREE NEWSLETTER
Daily news & progressive opinion—funded by the people, not the corporations—delivered straight to your inbox.
5
#000000
#FFFFFF
5
#000000
#FFFFFF
Native people encounter Spanish explorer Hernando de Soto in the 19th century. (Photo: Wikimedia)
European Colonizers' Genocide of 56 Million Native Americans So Devastating "It Literally Cooled the Planet"
"Beyond horrifying."
Jan 31, 2019
The mass genocide of the Native American people by European colonizers during the 15th and 16th centuries--in which an estimated 56 million indigenous people, or 90 percent of the population, were wiped out by violence and disease--was so complete and devastating, new research shows, that it triggered a planetary cooling.
According to scientists at the University College London,the Europeans' mass killing of natives in the Caribbean and the Americas led to the populations' agricultural systems to go untended, leading to an overgrowth of vegetation all over the region. So many new trees and plants grew over a total area of about 55 million hectares, that the vegetation absorbed significant amounts of carbon from the atmosphere and caused the planet to cool down.
This period was marked by a drop in global temperatures by .15 degrees Celsius (or .27 degrees Fahrenheit), disrupting agriculture around the world and leading to several famines in Europe.
The genocide was so complete, the study says it led to what historians call the Little Ice Age in the late 16th and early 17th centuries.
Author and 350.org co-founder Bill McKibben pronounced the findings "beyond horrifying."
The report, published in Quarternary Science Reviews, "demonstrates that human activities affected the climate well before the industrial revolution began," Reading University climate science professor Ed Hawkins, who was not involved in the study, told the BBC.
The study also shows, researchers said, how much work is needed to reverse the current trajectory of deforestation and fossil fuel extraction--both of which cause carbon dioxide to build up in the atmosphere.
The genocide "resulted in an area the size of France being reforested and that gave us only a few parts per million" of carbon dioxide which was absorbed us from atmosphere, researcher Chris Brierley told the BBC.
That "shows us what reforestation can do," he added. "But at the same, that kind of reduction is worth perhaps just two years of fossil fuel emissions at the present rate."
An Urgent Message From Our Co-Founder
Dear Common Dreams reader, It’s been nearly 30 years since I co-founded Common Dreams with my late wife, Lina Newhouser. We had the radical notion that journalism should serve the public good, not corporate profits. It was clear to us from the outset what it would take to build such a project. No paid advertisements. No corporate sponsors. No millionaire publisher telling us what to think or do. Many people said we wouldn't last a year, but we proved those doubters wrong. Together with a tremendous team of journalists and dedicated staff, we built an independent media outlet free from the constraints of profits and corporate control. Our mission has always been simple: To inform. To inspire. To ignite change for the common good. Building Common Dreams was not easy. Our survival was never guaranteed. When you take on the most powerful forces—Wall Street greed, fossil fuel industry destruction, Big Tech lobbyists, and uber-rich oligarchs who have spent billions upon billions rigging the economy and democracy in their favor—the only bulwark you have is supporters who believe in your work. But here’s the urgent message from me today. It's never been this bad out there. And it's never been this hard to keep us going. At the very moment Common Dreams is most needed, the threats we face are intensifying. We need your support now more than ever. We don't accept corporate advertising and never will. We don't have a paywall because we don't think people should be blocked from critical news based on their ability to pay. Everything we do is funded by the donations of readers like you. When everyone does the little they can afford, we are strong. But if that support retreats or dries up, so do we. Will you donate now to make sure Common Dreams not only survives but thrives? —Craig Brown, Co-founder |
Our work is licensed under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0). Feel free to republish and share widely.
The mass genocide of the Native American people by European colonizers during the 15th and 16th centuries--in which an estimated 56 million indigenous people, or 90 percent of the population, were wiped out by violence and disease--was so complete and devastating, new research shows, that it triggered a planetary cooling.
According to scientists at the University College London,the Europeans' mass killing of natives in the Caribbean and the Americas led to the populations' agricultural systems to go untended, leading to an overgrowth of vegetation all over the region. So many new trees and plants grew over a total area of about 55 million hectares, that the vegetation absorbed significant amounts of carbon from the atmosphere and caused the planet to cool down.
This period was marked by a drop in global temperatures by .15 degrees Celsius (or .27 degrees Fahrenheit), disrupting agriculture around the world and leading to several famines in Europe.
The genocide was so complete, the study says it led to what historians call the Little Ice Age in the late 16th and early 17th centuries.
Author and 350.org co-founder Bill McKibben pronounced the findings "beyond horrifying."
The report, published in Quarternary Science Reviews, "demonstrates that human activities affected the climate well before the industrial revolution began," Reading University climate science professor Ed Hawkins, who was not involved in the study, told the BBC.
The study also shows, researchers said, how much work is needed to reverse the current trajectory of deforestation and fossil fuel extraction--both of which cause carbon dioxide to build up in the atmosphere.
The genocide "resulted in an area the size of France being reforested and that gave us only a few parts per million" of carbon dioxide which was absorbed us from atmosphere, researcher Chris Brierley told the BBC.
That "shows us what reforestation can do," he added. "But at the same, that kind of reduction is worth perhaps just two years of fossil fuel emissions at the present rate."
The mass genocide of the Native American people by European colonizers during the 15th and 16th centuries--in which an estimated 56 million indigenous people, or 90 percent of the population, were wiped out by violence and disease--was so complete and devastating, new research shows, that it triggered a planetary cooling.
According to scientists at the University College London,the Europeans' mass killing of natives in the Caribbean and the Americas led to the populations' agricultural systems to go untended, leading to an overgrowth of vegetation all over the region. So many new trees and plants grew over a total area of about 55 million hectares, that the vegetation absorbed significant amounts of carbon from the atmosphere and caused the planet to cool down.
This period was marked by a drop in global temperatures by .15 degrees Celsius (or .27 degrees Fahrenheit), disrupting agriculture around the world and leading to several famines in Europe.
The genocide was so complete, the study says it led to what historians call the Little Ice Age in the late 16th and early 17th centuries.
Author and 350.org co-founder Bill McKibben pronounced the findings "beyond horrifying."
The report, published in Quarternary Science Reviews, "demonstrates that human activities affected the climate well before the industrial revolution began," Reading University climate science professor Ed Hawkins, who was not involved in the study, told the BBC.
The study also shows, researchers said, how much work is needed to reverse the current trajectory of deforestation and fossil fuel extraction--both of which cause carbon dioxide to build up in the atmosphere.
The genocide "resulted in an area the size of France being reforested and that gave us only a few parts per million" of carbon dioxide which was absorbed us from atmosphere, researcher Chris Brierley told the BBC.
That "shows us what reforestation can do," he added. "But at the same, that kind of reduction is worth perhaps just two years of fossil fuel emissions at the present rate."
We've had enough. The 1% own and operate the corporate media. They are doing everything they can to defend the status quo, squash dissent and protect the wealthy and the powerful. The Common Dreams media model is different. We cover the news that matters to the 99%. Our mission? To inform. To inspire. To ignite change for the common good. How? Nonprofit. Independent. Reader-supported. Free to read. Free to republish. Free to share. With no advertising. No paywalls. No selling of your data. Thousands of small donations fund our newsroom and allow us to continue publishing. Can you chip in? We can't do it without you. Thank you.