European colonizers killed so many Native Americans that it changed the global climate, researchers

[applegrove]

By Lauren Kent, CNN

https://www-m.cnn.com/2019/02/01/world/european-colonization-climate-change-trnd/index.html?r=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.cnn.com%2F

"SNIP.....

(CNN) — When Europeans arrived in the Americas, they caused so much death and disease that it changed the global climate, a new study finds.

European settlers killed 56 million indigenous peopleover about 100 years in South, Central and North America, causing large swaths of farmland to be abandoned and reforested, researchers at University College London, or UCL, estimate. The increase in trees and vegetation across an area the size of France resulted in a massive decrease in carbon dioxide (CO2) in the atmosphere, according to the study.

Carbon levels changed enough to cool the Earth by 1610, researchers found. Columbus arrived in 1492,

"CO2 and climate had been relatively stable until this point," said UCL Geography Professor Mark Maslin, one of the study's co-authors. "So, this is the first major change we see in the Earth's greenhouse gases."

.....SNIP"

[applegrove]

1. It was war but mostly disease that killed so many I think.

[jberryhill]

2. Vast areas were depopulated by infectious disease before settlers showed up

[applegrove]

3. Yes. The conquistadors would show up and a week later all the locals starting

throwing up as a history professor of mine put it.

[Igel]

4. Worse than that.

The conquistadores would show up and the locals would get sick.

But some would continue with their usual trade routes, so when the conquistadores would show up *there* 6 months later there'd have been a huge plague that had gone through, making the pesky job of conquering all the easier.

It would have happened regardless of the Europeans' intent, conquest or mere trade. In fact, it's surprising it didn't happen--and actually may have--when the Vikings or perhaps also the Basque interacted with the local populations in the NE.

I would also add that one suggestion for a lot of the disease, though, wasn't direct human-to-human transmission. The Spaniards were really into their pork products and tended to introduce pigs, which carry disease. In the North American south there was limited interaction between the Native Americans and the Spaniards, and still the local populations (for hundreds of miles north) were sharply reduced, presumably by disease. Pigs, however, escaped and stayed behind when the Spanish left the area, not to return for years.

[applegrove]

5. Yes. Just a few weeks ago people who wanted to mix it up with some uncontacted Amazon tribes

were told they could be charged with genocide if they did. I hope that stopped them.

https://www.survivalinternational.org/tribes/uncontacted-brazil