The Little Ice Age caused by the wiping out of native Americans.

[bjn]

A paper claims that the Little Ice age was caused by the 90% collapse of native American populations from disease and murder after European contact. This saw 55 million hectares to fall out of cultivation, which then acted as carbon sinks, cooling the Earth which then triggered various feedbacks cooling it further.

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/a ... 9118307261

[Fishnut]

I thought I'd heard that hypothesis before and it's probably from the publicity around that paper, given it's from 2019.

[bjn]

It was a new one for me.

[Fishnut]

It's a fascinating theory

[Woodchopper]

I thought I'd heard that hypothesis before and it's probably from the publicity around that paper, given it's from 2019.

I think the paper was mentioned in a recent In Our Time episode on The Colombian Exchange, which maybe why people are talking about it now.

[bjn]

I saw in on Mastodon.