Green | December 29, 2008 | 5 comments

‘Little Ice Age’ hastened fall of Aztecs, Incas

source: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/28353083/

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The vast empires of the Incas and Aztecs were highly advanced. They kept detailed tax records, built elaborate temples, and at their height, Central and South America boasted a thriving population of as many as 60 million souls.

But their grand civilizations bore another trapping of modernity, scientists have found, one that until recently was thought unique to our industrialized world: human-induced climate change.

In the 16th century, the diseases Europeans brought to the New World decimated native peoples. With no natural defense against smallpox, yellow fever, and a host of exotic new pathogens, 90 percent of the population was dead by 1600.

We're talking about wiping out about 9 percent of the world's population at one time.

The killing left a lasting impact on the global climate. Suddenly as much as 500,000 square kilometers (193,051 square miles) of cleared farmland was no longer being tended, an area slightly larger than California. And as the rainforest crept back in, it vacuumed carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere in the process.

In all, the authors estimate that reforestation of South and Central America could have removed up to 10 billion tons of carbon from the atmosphere.

Around the same time, climate records show from that global temperatures cooled about 0.1 degrees centigrade (about 0.2 degrees Fahrenheit) from 1500 until 1750. But in northern Europe the dip was far more dramatic, and came to be known as the Little Ice Age.
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5 comments // ‘Little Ice Age’ hastened fall of Aztecs, Incas

  • 24French
    • 0
      24French  

    • I kinda stopped after "they kept detailed tax records" as the first thing after "the vast empires of the Incas and Aztecs were highly advanced." Maybe my brain will stop its induced spirograph, but not yet...

      They did other things too, right? Ok, not yet.

    • 3 years ago
  • trut
  • Adumbration
  • retran
    • 0
      retran  

    • If I am understanding the hypothesis put forward in the article, then the title/headline needs to be reversed. Something like "Fall of the Aztecs, Incas hasted ‘Little Ice Age’", or "Fall of the Aztecs, Incas INDUCED 'Little Ice Age'" would be more accurate.

      The article argues that the Little Ice Age is a product of the sudden reforestation of vast amounts of land due to the downfall of the two civs. The headline implies the Little Ice Age came first and then caused the downfall, which is NOT the idea the article discusses.

      NBC: Do the people creating headlines not read and understand the articles? Is the wiki web2.0 culture of editorial sloppiness spreading to professional news orgs?

      How about you Pjacobs? Did you notice the discrepancy?

    • 3 years ago
  • nazbags
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