Was Little Ice Age caused by mass extermination of Native Americans?

Perhaps the little ice age was caused by reading this thread?

My problem with the claim is it was not a global phenomenon ... or that is my understanding. Asia had large, literate populations that did not record the same. It appears to be a regional claim.

Bob Wilson

 

Both Little Ice Age and previous medieval warm period (or climate anomaly) had some features at global scale. However they were poorly synchronized and sometimes with contrasting T patterns across regions. For me they stand as examples of weird extremes that are possible when [CO2] is sufficiently low.

Crank that [CO2] up a bit, and climate armies march in much more unified ways. Except of course the polar jet stream, which does whatever it wants.

 

End of Ming Dynasty

 

India.

Bob Wilson

 

Before LIA there was Late Antique little ice age, 536-660 AD. Similar sort of deal; Not enough [CO2] some volcanoes, geopolitical oopsies.

PAGES2K did a nice article on that for Nature Geoscience that just now I cannot find an easy way to loot.
(another edit) Well, Büntgen et al. 2016 just fell off the truck They do make a case that LALIA was a pretty good whack. PAGES2k are an impressive gang.

But see:

1,500-Year-Old “Little Ice Age” May Have Altered the Course of History - HISTORY

 

India eh? Just how many Great Empires' interactions with climate do you think I can fit in my small head?

 

Perhaps more religious observation?

"Ohm" - 'Om (listen (help·info), IAST: Oṃ, Devanagari: ॐ, Tamil: ௐ, Kannada: ಓಂ), also written as 'Aum', is the most sacred syllable, symbol, or mantra in Hinduism,[1] that signifies the essence of the ultimate reality, consciousness or Atman.[2][3][4] The Om sound is the primordial sound, and is called the Shabda-Brahman (Brahman as sound).[5] It is a syllable that is chanted either independently or before a mantra.[6][7] It is also found in Jainism, Buddhism, and Sikhism.' (Source: Om - Wikipedia)​

<grins>

Bob Wilson

 

Has it ever stuck you as odd that the essence of consciousness is identified with (electrical) resistance?

I got a million of 'em.

 

It is what separates us from a gang of lethargic bacteria. Although I have questions about some bacteria tribes.

Bob Wilson

 

Bacteria may only get around by having spinning propellers on their heads, but they can do biochemical reactions that humans can only dream about. Plus, they swap DNA in much more creative ways I'd not call them lethargic.

As ancestors though, pretty darn freaky.

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If humans ever figure out how to scoot around stars >10,000 times faster than with modern fireworks, I imagine they will find things like bacteria, but freakier still. They'll have opportunity to perceive that biology as wild as it has developed on one planet is just a small slice of the freaky pie. That would be a thing.

Rarely, they may encounter something like a clam. Ought to be on our planetary flag! Multi-cellular organisms dedicated to converting others' poops into self. Ultimate upcyclers. Shell Oil choose the right icon, for all the wrong reasons.

Very rarely, they may encounter a civilization. And then those future humans will become zoo attractions. Not snuffed out as we've done here on earth to others, following our 'wiring' that says what we can take exceeds what we can learn. That wiring looks backwards. My optimism proclaims that at least some civilizations instead learn to look forward.

This is why I wonder if consciousness is resistance. Resisting being only a more efficient predator.

 

Since I read the report in 2002, I no longer can give you the specific reference that measured the 31% O2 levels in ancient Amber. The sample was supposedly buried at the same level of fossilized dinosaur remains.

 

Give me a moment to see if Landis' articles are accessible...

 

I have not found immediate access to Landis' amber [O2] research. but I may have something to report later. It would be 'unsettling' to consensus in late-dino times, which makes it interesting. We cannot ignore this because RA Berner (paleoatmosphere guru) is on author list.

 

I have been able read so far one of Landis' articles on very high Cretaceous [O2]. As often, it stands against 'consensus' derived in other ways. It might (but does not) describe how that high [O2] came quickly down to lower.

We are sure that dinos were dominant before 65 mya and after, they were absent. We are nearly sure than an impact event did them in. All that could happen without an [O2] excursion that Landis' team may have found, and has not popped up in other evidence, and that Landis (so far as I have yet read) has not linked to other biochemical proxies.

We know that dinos 'took the exit' and that they had several strong reasons for doing so. I cannot report at present that a large [O2] excursion contributed to their exit.

 

Of course it was the Catholic church that stopped the slaughter in Mexico, in the 1500's after what was either the Corn Goddess or the Virgin Mary (Opinions vary) showed up at Tepeyac and said "Yo, go pray with these new guys". (Loose translation)

 

Development of organized agriculture, ~10kya ago in several places, was obviously a key human-expanding event. It was not without some related 'drags'. Several human diseases blossomed from increased human population density. Stored grain -> rodents -> disease vectors also.

Human fertility rates (with enough food available) surpassed those drags, which we should all appreciate! Otherwise human dominance here might have been seriously in doubt.

Later, marine transportation was much improved and previously isolated human populations faced geopolitical realities by way of microbes. There were also guns, but we lack a good accounting of what did how much where.

In general, humans have worked as well as they might, on behalf of microbes. Food supplies increased; human fertility rates were always potentially high (and now unleashed), and various microbial diseases became global.

This planet sharing persisted through industrial revolution, the next great human-pop increaser. When medicine later used microscopes and got sciency in other ways, humans first attempted to make this planet theirs (ours) and demote human-feeding microbes to museum exhibits.

There have been great successes. Next batch of successes await humans deciding to spend more to vaccinate poorest humans. Await humans deciding to spend more to develop more vaccines.

Oddly enough, a few successes await a few humans deciding to embrace vaccinations. A dystopian science fiction view might hold that there are humans who don't wish humans to be free of microbial diseases. That those drags on human pop growth may provide some benefits that medicine doesn't know. Or medicine Inc.. is a conspiracy.

Well, maybe. In any case, given facebook and given some microbes being good at shape changing, some microbial drag on the human enterprise continues.

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In utopian science fiction, earth humans will make much faster ships and populate more planets. It is for others to decide whether this should be done with or without microbial drags.