Colonisation of the Americas at the end of the 15th Century killed so many people, it disturbed Earth's climate.
That's the conclusion of scientists from University College London, UK.
The team says the disruption that followed European settlement led to a huge swathe of abandoned agricultural land being reclaimed by fast-growing trees and other vegetation.
This pulled down enough carbon dioxide (CO₂) from the atmosphere to eventually chill the planet.
https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-47063973
NOT ENOUGH TREES!
https://timeline.com/american-settlers- ... 7b68bd9064The first American settlers cut down millions of trees to deliberately engineer climate change
After Columbus, Europeans and their descendants also modified forests for their benefit, but with major differences. Paramount was the near-universal perspective that forests were either a threat that hid enemies, an obstacle to settlement, a resource to be converted to profit or all the above. In 1807, Irish author Isaac Weld wrote that Americans had an “unconquerable aversion to trees.” This attitude was backed up by steel axes, saws and plows that greatly increased the efficiency of converting forests to pastureland and crop fields. Selling fuel wood, bark for tanning and other wood products helped cover the cost of clearing the forest or provided extra income for established farmers. Initially, the pace of clearance was relatively slow, but the impacts accelerated with the ever-expanding population, which, by the 1800s, was doubling every 20 to 30 years. By 1850, the lowland forests of the Atlantic seaboard, New England and much of the Midwest had largely been cleared.
https://www.americanforests.org/magazin ... ge-of-man/
