There’s actually a really interesting story here. Rice production, in addition to deforestation, has been linked to starting global warming about 5000 years ago. While the climate should have been naturally cooling due to decreased insolation, the methane released from the start of intensive rice agriculture and the CO2 from deforestation prevented this. Here’s a summary.
Humanity’s collective influence on global ecology has been detectable for thousands of years, but so have most species. I think there’s a big difference between “We can tell that this species was here because it left an ecological marker” and “This species caused a major global die-off”. It’s the difference between an ecofascist “fuck humanity” and a communist “fuck capitalism”. Not to imply you don’t already consider that, just sayin for those reading who didn’t.
On an inverse note, there’s a fairly accepted theory that Europe’s “Little Ice Age” was caused by the disease pandemics that wiped out 90% North America’s population after first contact. In the centuries subsequent Columbus, an estimated 10% of the world’s population succumbed to disease apocalypse and left previously-managed areas the combined size of France untended to regrow, lowering global CO2 enough to cause a several-hundred year cold snap and geopolitical knock-on effects across the world.
an estimated 10% of the world’s population succumbed to disease apocalypse and left previously-managed areas the combined size of France untended to regrow, lowering global CO2 enough to cause a several-hundred year cold snap and geopolitical knock-on effects across the world.
See, it’s not “fuck humanity”, it’s only like 10% of humanity that needs to get fucked. And if we target the worst of the worst capitalists first, we can have our cake and solve the climate crisis too!
I kind of think we should first address the things that have changed the climate in the couple centuries since they were invented, and then tackle the stuff that took 5000 years.
For sure. The early anthropocene basically just delayed the onset of the next ice age. The modern anthropocene is ending the entire ice age paradigm and sending us back to the hothouse earth that we had 50 million years ago.
Yes like agriculture uses resources, resources need to be responsibly managed, not responsibly managing said resources either because we were 5,000 years ago and didn’t know better or if it’s now and we do know better we just aren’t willing to pay for it is what causes climate change not things just existing
There’s actually a really interesting story here. Rice production, in addition to deforestation, has been linked to starting global warming about 5000 years ago. While the climate should have been naturally cooling due to decreased insolation, the methane released from the start of intensive rice agriculture and the CO2 from deforestation prevented this. Here’s a summary.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Early_anthropocene
P.S. fuck capitalists
Humanity’s collective influence on global ecology has been detectable for thousands of years, but so have most species. I think there’s a big difference between “We can tell that this species was here because it left an ecological marker” and “This species caused a major global die-off”. It’s the difference between an ecofascist “fuck humanity” and a communist “fuck capitalism”. Not to imply you don’t already consider that, just sayin for those reading who didn’t.
On an inverse note, there’s a fairly accepted theory that Europe’s “Little Ice Age” was caused by the disease pandemics that wiped out 90% North America’s population after first contact. In the centuries subsequent Columbus, an estimated 10% of the world’s population succumbed to disease apocalypse and left previously-managed areas the combined size of France untended to regrow, lowering global CO2 enough to cause a several-hundred year cold snap and geopolitical knock-on effects across the world.
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0921818125003479
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Little_Ice_Age
https://allthatsinteresting.com/what-caused-the-little-ice-age
See, it’s not “fuck humanity”, it’s only like 10% of humanity that needs to get fucked. And if we target the worst of the worst capitalists first, we can have our cake and solve the climate crisis too!
I kind of think we should first address the things that have changed the climate in the couple centuries since they were invented, and then tackle the stuff that took 5000 years.
For sure. The early anthropocene basically just delayed the onset of the next ice age. The modern anthropocene is ending the entire ice age paradigm and sending us back to the hothouse earth that we had 50 million years ago.
The article just says that it was due to the rise of agriculture, not rice in particular.
Edit: and fuck capitalists
Apologies, here is the original article by Ruddiman. Methane production is linked to rice farming since it involves creating artificial wetlands.
https://stephenschneider.stanford.edu/Publications/PDF_Papers/Ruddiman2003.pdf
Thanks for sharing.
Yes like agriculture uses resources, resources need to be responsibly managed, not responsibly managing said resources either because we were 5,000 years ago and didn’t know better or if it’s now and we do know better we just aren’t willing to pay for it is what causes climate change not things just existing