In 1206 AD Genghis Khan began the Mongol invasion: a horse-crazed bow-wielding military force that swept through much of modern-day Asia into the Middle East and Eastern Europe. But aside from creating the world's largest empire, the Mongol invasion had another global impact that has remained hidden in history according to new research by Julia Pongratz of the Carnegie Institution's Department of Global Ecology. Genghis Khan and his empire, which lasted nearly two centuries, actually cooled the Earth.
"It's a common misconception that the human impact on climate began with the large-scale burning of coal and oil in the industrial era," says Pongratz, lead author of the study in a press release. "Actually, humans started to influence the environment thousands of years ago by changing the vegetation cover of the Earth‘s landscapes when we cleared forests for agriculture."
The answer to how this happened can be told in one word: reforestation. When the Mongol hordes invaded Asia, the Middle East, and Europe they left behind a massive body count, depopulating many regions. With less people, large swathes of cultivated fields eventually returned to forests, absorbing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere
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Well I guess eliminating half the population across much of Eurasia as Ghengis Khan did was "good for the planet" but it most surely wasn't very good for those people who were the non survivors, indeed it wasn't very good for most of the survivors.
And that is the problem, isn't it? If human activity really does impact on the climate and it does to some extent, how much it does is up for debate, then the only real solution is less people and taken to its logical extreme no people whatsoever.
Is this why we are decimating our population with abortion?
It's disturbing how many "thinkers" want to kill large numbers of people. It's almost as if the lessons of the last century haven't been learned .. or have they just whetted the bloodlust?
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