Ancient Greeks, Romans Drove SUV's, New Evidence Suggests
The Los Angeles Times reports that scientists have discovered much higher levels of methane gas than they expected in core samples of ice dating from the time of the ancient Romans. Yet this evidence hasn't led them to the conclusions about global warming that you might think it would:
Centuries before the Industrial Revolution or the recognition of global warming, the ancient Roman and Chinese empires were already producing powerful greenhouse gases through their daily toil, according to a new study.
The burning of plant matter to cook food, clear cropland and process metals released millions of tons of methane gas into the atmosphere each year during several periods of pre-industrial history, according to the study, published Thursday in the journal Nature.
Although the quantity of methane produced back then pales in comparison with the emissions released today —the total amount is roughly 70 times greater now — the findings suggest that man's footprint on the climate is larger than previously realized. Until now, it was assumed by scientists that human activity began increasing greenhouse gas levels only after the year 1750.
"The quantities are much smaller, because there were fewer people on Earth," said study leader Celia Sapart, an atmospheric chemist at Utrecht University in the Netherlands. "But the amount of methane emitted per person was significant."
Wait a minute. Environmentalists have been telling us for years that industrial progress is the cause of global warming. Wouldn't the fact that so much methane was in the atmosphere two millennia ago suggest that there may have been natural causes for much of it? Volcanic eruptions, forest fires caused by lightening, etc.?
When I read this story, my reaction was: Hmm, maybe naturally-occurring methane levels are higher than we thought. But the LA Times's reaction seems to be: Hmm, people have been destroying the earth for much longer than we thought. The fact that this study undercuts the traditional environmentalist narrative about the link between the industrial revolution and global warming seems not to have occurred to them at all.
The global population was only about 200 million in the year 1 A.D., as opposed to 7 billion today. What kind of massive, "plant burning" SUV's were they driving back then to do so much damage?
It's truer than true: Julius Caesar drove a Cadillac Escalade, blinged out with spinning rims of strip-mined gold, and powered by the deforested ceders of Lebanon.
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Re: Ancient Greeks, Romans Drove SUV's, New Evidence Suggests
Wait a minute: If methane emissions are 70 times greater now but the population is 35 times larger, then per capita greenhouse gas emissions have only doubled--in all of human history.
Just another inconvenient fact astride the catastrophic anthropogenic global warming hypothesis hollering STOP!
Jul '11
Re: Ancient Greeks, Romans Drove SUV's, New Evidence Suggests
Then there's that inconvenient near-ice age that started around the fall of Rome and lasted through the Middle Ages ...
Jul '11
Re: Ancient Greeks, Romans Drove SUV's, New Evidence Suggests
I just consulted Prof. von Gore. He said the effects of the methane release were stunted, because it hadn't gotten acclimated to altitude, yet.
Dec '10
Re: Ancient Greeks, Romans Drove SUV's, New Evidence Suggests
Nathan,
Now you are getting at the really really big lies we must combat.
1) Man made global warming.
Your post speaks for itself. Millions of jobs and Trillions of dollars of GNP destroyed by a tale told by an idiot.
2) Strict Darwinism
The fossil record in 1860 and today does not correspond to Darwin's Theory as stated. However, it does undermine morality to the point of genocide.
3) Freud & Jung seperate sexuality from morality.
The disaster of the secular version of sex is all to clear to anyone who is objective. It is the slow form of genocide.
Regards,
Jim
Edited on October 5, 2012 at 4:47amJan '11
Re: Ancient Greeks, Romans Drove SUV's, New Evidence Suggests
Self promotion/attention-seeking is my goal in linking to this.
Jul '12
Re: Ancient Greeks, Romans Drove SUV's, New Evidence Suggests
Can I vomit now?
Dec '10
Re: Ancient Greeks, Romans Drove SUV's, New Evidence Suggests
5 bucks a gallon and $20,000 economy cars that cost $40,000 because they are eco-vundebar. Joe, please more self promotion/attention-seeking if you would.
Apr '12
Re: Ancient Greeks, Romans Drove SUV's, New Evidence Suggests
That's exactly why there was the Little Ice Age, because the Roman Empire fell. There is a delay of some years, maybe even of a few centuries, donchano? They stopped producing so much methane. You see, it would have never warmed up from the last real ice age if not for humans. When the Empire fell, and methane levels along with it, temperatures started reverting to normal. That is until the industrial revolution brought pollution levels back up and the warming returned.
May '10
Re: Ancient Greeks, Romans Drove SUV's, New Evidence Suggests
We MUST get the history right!
May '12
Re: Ancient Greeks, Romans Drove SUV's, New Evidence Suggests
LOL
Sep '12
Re: Ancient Greeks, Romans Drove SUV's, New Evidence Suggests
EJHill
We MUSTget the history right! · 1 minute ago
Thanks EJ! My sides hurt now!
Sep '12
Re: Ancient Greeks, Romans Drove SUV's, New Evidence Suggests
The noxious gasses produced by hyperventilating academia nuts ought to have destroyed the planet by now.
May '11
Re: Ancient Greeks, Romans Drove SUV's, New Evidence Suggests
I'm no good at comedy, but this sounds like a Monty Python sketch, or some kind of old gag. Or does it remind me of some South Park episode?
I mean seriously, they're saying that "Global Warming" is caused by man's industrial society, but when presented evidence prior to industrialization, they do a double take and exclaim that man was evil even before the invention of the internal combustion engine.
Someone better than me has to remember a comedy routine that this parodies.
Apr '11
Re: Ancient Greeks, Romans Drove SUV's, New Evidence Suggests
Don't you anti-science mouth breathers know that Egypt was a frozen tundra before the alien pharaohs showed up with their gas guzzling UFOs and started building pyramids?
Mar '11
Re: Ancient Greeks, Romans Drove SUV's, New Evidence Suggests
Gou'ald motherships DO use a lot of fuel. We also keep blowing them up, which can't be good for the environment.
Sep '11
Re: Ancient Greeks, Romans Drove SUV's, New Evidence Suggests
May I interject a word here?
Methane is principally found in two places: underground coal mines (which is why you bring a canary with you), and manure. When coal-fired locomotives replaced drays pulled by oxen society was trading one kind of methane emission for another.
But what has dramatically increased methane emissions (and probably accounts for increased methane emissions during the glory days of Rome) is and was increased food production. When northern Europe's economy consisted of chasing down deer and pillaging James Delingpole's 'hood, you didn't have a lot of methane production. When northern Europe was farming with oxen (and using deep-shaft coal to produce iron tools) methane emissions went up. As food production went up, population went up.
Methane emissions aren't just related to population: they're also directly related to average income. As people become more prosperous, their diets tend toward higher levels of protein--they eat more meat. So now you have oxen pulling plows, but you also have heifers being bred for meat, and cows being milked. And protein-fed humans who are substantially larger, and thus emit more manure.
Induce mass starvation, reduce greenhouse gases.
Anybody remember ZPG?
Jun '12
Re: Ancient Greeks, Romans Drove SUV's, New Evidence Suggests
John Murdoch: Methane emissions aren't just related to population: they're also directly related to average income. As people become more prosperous, their diets tend toward higher levels of protein--they eat more meat. So now you have oxen pulling plows, but you also have heifers being bred for meat, and cows being milked. And protein-fed humans who are substantially larger, and thus emit more manure.
Induce mass starvation, reduce greenhouse gases.
Anybody remember ZPG? · 4 minutes ago
And remember, it's always the lefties who want to limit growth in urban areas.
They don't like that there are all these people around who aren't under their direct control.
Oct '10
Re: Ancient Greeks, Romans Drove SUV's, New Evidence Suggests
We're getting to the real point, I think. Unless they go to zero, per capita greenhouse emissions are meaningless to the Church of Mother Earth, because there are just too many people. You don't hear all that much about it, out in the open, but I know some young hipsters who insist depopulation is the answer to all the world's problems.
They don't realize the problems will only go away completely when the population goes away completely.
Jun '12
Re: Ancient Greeks, Romans Drove SUV's, New Evidence Suggests
jhimmi: We're getting to the real point, I think. Unless they go to zero, per capita greenhouse emissions are meaningless to the Church of Mother Earth, because there are just too many people. You don't hear all that much about it, out in the open, but I know some young hipsters who insist depopulation is the answer to all the world's problems.
They don't realize the problems will only go away completely when the population goes away completely. · 21 minutes ago
By the way, if you want to read a sci-fi book about a fictional depopulation scheme, check out Tag.
No, I am not the author, nor do I know him... I just like the book. :)
Aug '12
Re: Ancient Greeks, Romans Drove SUV's, New Evidence Suggests
Well, surely salting Carthage and Gaul involved more than your typical amount of pillaging and burning (very important that order).