Scientists: On Second Thought, Humans Started Causing Global Warming 3,500 Years Ago…
Just a minor adjustment.
Via Scientific American:
Humans may have been causing climate change for much longer than we’ve been burning fossil fuels. In fact, the agrarian revolution may have started human-induced climate changes long before the industrial revolution began to sully the skies. How? Through theclearing of forests, which still remains the second-largest source of greenhouse gas emissions from human activity.
Sediment cores from the mouth of the Congo River — the deepest river in the world — suggest that humans may have played a significant role in changing the landscapes of Central Africa. That river curves through the world’s second-biggest lingeringtropical forest, but it and its tributaries also flow through the savannas so prized by modern-day safaris.
Scientists had previously thought that a climate shift from warm and humid to seasonally cooler and drier had helped create those savannas, which covered even more of Central Africa in the past. But the 40,000-year-old record preserved in the sediment cores tells a different story. Roughly 3,500 years ago the Congo River suddenly began dumping a lot more muck without any appreciable increase in rainfall to explain such weathering. One plausible explanation is the simultaneous arrival of the so-called Bantu people, who brought farming into the region.
They cultivated oil palm, pearl millet and yams, crops that need plenty of sunlight, which, of course, necessitated clearing forests. They also cut down trees for charcoal and as fuel for the fires of iron-smelting, which enabled them to make tools and weapons. Coupled with climate change, the result was savannas — and mutually reinforcing climate change.
Posted by ZIP on Sunday, February 12, 2012, at 9:41 pm | 
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leftist human haters… plain and simple
For centuries there was a scientific consensus which said that fire ..
was explained by the release of an invisible element called phlogiston…
That theory is universally ridiculed today. Global warming is the new phlogiston.
“So it remains unclear whether changing climate conditions created the savannas that made Bantu-style farming possible or if Bantu-style farming created the conditions for savannas and changed the climate. What is clear is that “the environmental impact of human population in the central African rainforest was already significant about 2,500 years ago,” as the researchers write in the paper presenting their findings published online in Science on February 9.”
If it is unclear how is it a fact that “it is clear” that humans had an impact on the environment? This is bullshit, pure and utter bullshit.
@Rob
By now the only real way to stop “global warming” according to the left is wiping out mankind.
Why is a picture of Occupy Oakland attached to this article?
@ZIP
and whats terrifying… is that they console themselves with that thought
At this point, it’s less phlogiston and more Piltdown Man.
Damn you, Xavier! You beat me to it by 4 minutes!!!
I cancelled my SciAm subscription after a lifetime of enjoyment when they started presenting environmentalism trussed up as science back in the late 90′s. Don’t believe a word they say.
Bacteria discharging oxygen as a waste product were the original climate disruptor and are still at it – it’s no exaggeration to say they’re completely responsible for the mess the earth is in today. Kill them all!
“…Coupled with climate change, the result was savannas—and mutually reinforcing climate change…”
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Weren’t deserts formed after the continents drifted apart..?
Occupy… Pangaea…?
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A Splitting Super Continent
http://www.dinosaur-facts.com/timelines/jurassic-period/
Although the super continent had started to show signs of splitting in the latter part of the Triassic it didn’t actually split until the middle of the Jurassic period around 180 million years ago. The initial split left 2 continents a northern part called Laurasia (mainly North America and Europe) and a southern part called Gondwana (mainly South America, Africa, Australia).
Throughout the Jurassic and the rest of the Mesozoic era these continents continued to drift apart causing the formation of new oceans and the flooding of many parts of these once arid and super dry central regions.
All this extra water meant that deserts and previously uninhabitable regions were slowly turning into swamps and tropical forests which would change the face of the Earth forever.
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Hot air cuased by AL GORE and GREENPEACE wackos openinnng their mouths
cluebat to scientists… humans didn’t exist 200-300 million years ago..
your little theory…. blown right out of the water…
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1. Triassic: aridity and heat in Pangea
http://web.me.com/uriarte/Earths_Climate/3._Secondary_Era_(Mesozoic).html
During the Triassic, the first period of the Mesozoic, lasting from 245 to 208 million years ago, the existence of a single, compact supercontinent, Pangea, surrounded by a single ocean, Panthalasa, meant that vast inland regions were subject to a dry, arid climate. Located far from the sea, these regions were extremely dry and parched, and suffered from drastic seasonal temperature oscillations.
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It sounds like an old Monty Python skit.
The humans started global warming 1000 years before they existed. They’ve continually heated up the world and will do so until all humans and animals are extinct. Then they will do it all over again with while holding on to their guns and Bibles!!!
Rob those were natural changes within the normal cycles of the earth. That doesn’t happen anymore. /
If you follow the links, the paper used as a basis for this article consists of just four sentences in the journal Science.
Scientific American: when the facts just aren’t enough.
With their first fart.
Didn’t read the article Xavier…
but your right when “facts” are limited… they just make them up
but every time some “scientist” goes off on a tangent about AGW
I see red
btw, I like your avatar…
some of the regulars are getting them now… and they are quite creative…
Global warming caused the extinction of the Monty Python dead parrot. True story.
in typical liberal progressive commie rat bastard fashion if you get caught lying just tell another cause everyone knows the useful idiots are just dying to believe their great leaders
These people are a new manifestation of sociopath. They hate their own kind, and will find a way to blame every problem imaginary and real on humanity no matter what it takes.
Earth First, Earth Liberation Front and those types want to eradicate 5/6 of humanity. Of course, they will remain because they have to be in charge of the remaining 1/6 of the population to lead them into Utopia.
It’s all about power and control in the name of saving the earth.
If they cant predict the weather 2 weeks in the future, what makes liberals think they can control the weather?
There’s a human throwing off
all kinds of CO2 over here!
wait..
I’m home alone right now..
nevermind
I gotta platypus tho
he does get gassy when watches Mooch dance
i’m svng enrgy n th plant by ony typg whts neccssry
jus doon m prt
we just climbed down from the trees,
and already ruined the most pristine
and exquisite ~6 bil yo planet in the
known universe
remarkable
it’s a delusion
how much is Islam burning up good ol’ terra firma?
So, when did it become the Congo, instead of the Belgian Congo?
.
Amazing. And just last year these same ‘scientists’ determined that dead leaves of the floor of rainforests were also causing Global Warming. So trees bad but trees good. Liberals are demented.
mebbe if we all bit the bullet and turned on our swamps, air conditioners, opened the fridge and freezer doors, keep our doors and windows open, we could cool the planet commensurate with this infernal warming that the voting bloc of scientists keep harping about..
whose with me? can we get a voice vote over here, or should I just quick gavel it?
‘course I dunno.. it’s only 23 degrees on the porch.. ~10″ snow on the yard..
might need to brainstorm this one.
I got it! FANS! monster fans.
We build ‘em all greenly of course,
thousands, maybe millions of ginormous
FANS!
Mounted on planes, buses, trains
handheld fans.. for citizens to carry
I mean, admittedly, it’s embryonic,
but work with me here..
can we get this idea off the ground?
If humans have been causing global warming for thousands of years, why start worrying about it now?
Idjits.
@Danl:
If scientists can make mice grow human ears on their backs, then I think we all just need transplanted wings to cool everything off. Also, all those wind turbines could stir with the air.
?
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I’m outta here. For real this time.
Any thinking person can see that daylight saving time is causing the earth to heat up. When we switch to DST in the summer, the days are longer and more sun = more heat. You’d think these scientists could figure that out. Duh.
I saw this earlier at Yahoo and thought it was funny, here it is even funnier.
So am I missing something here, or did liberals just blame global warming on black people?
I’ve reduced the font size on emails to save electricity. DON’T call me a hero! I’m just doing my part.
Global warming killed off Piltdown man who caused global warming. It’s a vicious cycle, I tell ya’. We’re all dooooomed.
Bummer.
JWM
Xavier and Tommygun….LMAO!
@Gastorgrab….many umpteen years ago General Hospital had an evil man that was building a weather machine so he could control the world. At times it was an interesting story line. I wouldn’t put it past Georsoro to try to build one.
@Tommygun
Increase font size to save Gaia. More black = fewer lit pixels = less electricity. Combine black letters with black background for maximum savings.
“Pseudo scientific undistinguished as from an American” – the Goracle
2Tim3:7… forever inquiring & getting information, but are never able to arrive at a recognition & knowledge of the Truth
Well there ya go.Farming ,evolution and,humans in Africa are to blame for our greenhouse gas-climate change death sentence.
So Africa must cease all farming and become cannibals.And muslims can save the world by suicide bombing Africa and themselves into oblivion.
It has nothing to do with us unless you believe we crawled out of Africa black,ran into snow, turned white and rapidly evolved.Common sense tells us the out of Africa theory is another failed scientific idea.
Wow this liberal logic is fun.We need a new ,cool green slogan!
It’s Geico’s fault.
Laying the blame for Global warming on the tree cavemen the one who invented FIRE the one who invented THE WHEEL and the one who invented the BOAT as usial these liberals are being their usial selves
Love that accompanying pic….3500 years ago Egypt was already 1500 years post-pyramid building. Cavemen were passé over 15,000 years ago.
Here’s my theory…that ball of fire, we call it the sun, warms the planet. Add some water, some active volcanos, and some cosmic dust, and BOOM…a variable climate. Surprisingly, I like my climate to change….and I like warming.
@Axel – FWIW, it’s the other way around. The pixels block the backlight, so black is actually more energy-consuming than white, by a considerable margin.
It was actually Wooly Mammoth farts that caused Global Warming. As soon as man killed them off, it started cooling and produced the Ice Age.
See? Any Eff’n moron can make shit up. Post that enough times and the retarded left will believe it.
Fine. Tax them Bantus, then. Make the bastards pay.
Hey…! thats Alan Grayson ( D- Done Fla.) and his brothers…….
Interesting- humans purportedly have caused global warming beginning 3500 years ago. And yet there is something in the historical record called the “Little Ice Age”.
As the historical record was created by humans, how does this “theory” explain said Little Ice Age?
Things are really getting sad for manbearpig and the other agw grifters.
How dare we farm! Bad human race, BAD!
Looks like a pic from ‘Quest for Fire’, one of my all-time fav movies. Maybe it could be re-made into ‘Quest for Warming’. Quoting a line of dialogue from the movie, “te-ah donda!”, which I think means “Holy Crap!, can somebody get some heat up in here?.”
“They also cut down trees for charcoal and as fuel for the fires of iron-smelting, which enabled them to make tools and weapons.”
Wow, well we all know what a hot bed of industry Africa became – and those Bantu’s building all those factories and steel mills and co-generation plants – crap! This makes no sense at all – and they expect people to believe this? Yikes.
“They also cut down trees for charcoal and as fuel for the fires of iron-smelting, which enabled them to make tools and weapons.”
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doesn’t charcoal… come from coal…?
No, you can make charcoal from wood.
It is so upsetting to see how Science has become a propaganda wing of the left.
The progs have groomed students in nonsense for decades and now pay their salary to lie and deceive as ‘experts’ in their fields of study.
How long until modern Medicine is infiltrated with voodoo and black magic?
We are going backwards in everything. The left makes money off our fall into darkness.
God help us throw out these predators.
Elephants clear forests too. Why aren’t they responsible?
that’s what I thought ThomNJ
the lies the leftists use to advance their agenda are simply amazing…
It had to begin somewhere. The question is where has it wound up. For thousand of years, the didn’t know what they were doing to the environment. If they did, they might have done things differently.
I’m thinking GOD must be doing a big face palm when this business comes up.
I mean. he gave us the earth to procreate and the progs are too busy blaming humans for well. existing.
sick.
@Axe
“it’s geico’s fault”
SUPER FUNNY
:D:D:D
DAMN that weed species humanoids!!
if I could Just! wrap my mind around progressivism, I wouldn’t be blamed anymore
since I would then be a ‘more highly evolved’ life form
better luck next life : )
@tadcf
now THAT is hilarious!
Tis a tale knee deep in bullshit
Ancient humans with stone axes clear cutting vast areas of forest
Without crop rotation those fields those fields become infertile, and
were abandoned the forest returns,. also there wasn’t enough people 3500 hundred years ago to clear a forest, North America Indians practiced agriculture
Corn, beans, squash there was no “clear cut” wasteland when CC came in 1492.
Now it’s waist deep
Sediment cores from the mouth of the Congo River — the deepest river in the world — suggest
Not that bullshit, they may suggest that more sediment was being deposited
which means more rain, you clear cut forests you get less rain not more
Up to it’s neck
Scientists, what kind of “Scientists” geologists? I don’t think so, sounds more
like humanities idiots interpeting geologists findings
And it’s over it’s head
Coupled with climate change, the result was savannas — and mutually reinforcing climate change
Climate change was happening before the clear cut
Scientific American was overrun by socialist community organizers some
twenty years ago, there were a lot on resignations and what was a fine
journal is now just worthy of outhouse material if your out of TP.
Back to the neolithic! Yeepee!
25 years life expectancy, starving as a way of life, filth, cold, death everywhere around, yeepee!
Uh-huh, 3500 years ago is just about where these luddites want us to be, with their elitist cadre exempted of course.
Soon the eco-wackos will be having us sacrificing kids and virgins to the big green dragon
Global warming, so easy a caveman can do it!!
@bobdog, I like your thinking. The left has just ‘settled’ it, it’s Africa’s fault. It’s time we get some money from Africa in the name of ‘social justice’.
Some more to add to the pile:
http://www.cuttingedge.org/News/n1694.cfm