The article on the pages of the Denton Record Chronicle. https://goo.gl/3Ahcew
Further thoughts on the subject.
It continues to astound me that so many people claim to know something when in reality they “sense” something is one way or the other in what amount to a “feel” for things—thus procuring solid rights to an opinion on the subject. In reference to climate change, for instance, many who haven’t a clue, have a lot to say and many who know enough to know it’s complicated and that silence is golden, still feel honor driven to sing like a canary—even though it turns out to be random warble. Then there are those few who know a lot but when asked, say they are confused by what is actually a complex, “noisy” system: they prefer to keep quiet. Nonetheless, silence is a form of statement, and so I listen. I just read of a new study making the claim that so many people were killed during the colonization of America—from 60 million to 6 million in less than 100 years, due to disease, warfare, slavery and social collapse—that the land once cleared for agriculture, now abandoned (about the size of France), produced so much new vegetation, shrubs, trees, grasslands, etc., that the amount of CO2 sequestered into plant matter created a global shift in weather and a mini ice age occurred. This is what is called a genocide-generated drop in carbon dioxide. Heavens to Betsy! Yes, there’s a lesson here, but it also corroborates what I’ve always suspected: people can make a difference. These days, however, the number of people in the planet is never mentioned in relation to climate change, yet everything else is. Note: in the year 1492, the world population stood at 450 million (est) as opposed to 7 billion plus today. A 15th fold increase.
So far, this is the only serious study I have read that makes a direct correlation between human activity and climate change. And not so much what they did, as the fact they were there in the first place. Ironic it may be, but this was a case of a lack of activity, as opposed to hyperactivity, with the resulting consequences.
mt