Genghis Khan - Global Climate Changer

There is little doubt that modern man is currently causing global climate change. This is being done by the increasing use of carbon-based fuels like oil and coal. The burning of these fuels adds a significant carbon dioxide content to the atmosphere, creating a greenhouse effect that is causing an overall warming of the Earth's climate. Some have said that this is the first time in Earth history that mankind has had an effect on the overall global climate.

But that last statement may not be true. While it is undeniable that man is affecting the global climate, this may not be the first time the global climate has been affected by mankind. The Carnegie Institution's Department of Global Ecology has been studying some past historical occurrences, and they believe there is at least one that significantly changed the global climate (by cooling it a few degrees).

That global climate change was due to one man's vision of conquering the world. That man was Genghis Khan. In the early 13th century, Genghis Khan became leader of the Mongol people and conquered much of Eurasia. His heirs extended this empire in both land and time.

But how did Genghis Khan affect the global climate? He did it by killing about 40 million people. This was a huge proportion of the world's population at that time, and it resulted in much land that was being farmed resorting back to forest land. These renewed forests sucked as much as 700 million tons of carbon out of the air, and that resulted in a global cooling of a few degrees. And that, not today, was very probably the first time mankind had a real effect on the global climate.

So it turns out that Genghis Khan was an ecological warrior, although he didn't know it and never intended it. And that's a pretty brutal way to do it -- killing 40 million people. And before some fringe right-wingers get any ideas, killing 40 million people in today's world would have virtually no effect. That's just a tiny proportion of the current world population, and wouldn't result in any reforestation. If we want to have any effect on the global climate today, we'll have to do it by cutting down on the use of carbon-based fuels.

I just thought that was an interesting and quirky bit of history.