Genocide imprinted on polar ice
The extermination of the American Indians due to the colonization of the Americas by Europeans in the 15th century had an impact even on the composition of atmospheric air. Yes, that's what you've just read. This was the conclusion reached by a team of researchers studying the composition of the gas trapped in the Arctic and Antarctic ice sheets.
As it snows in the higher latitudes of the northern and southern hemispheres, the layers of snow already deposited are compacted and transformed into ice, and elements present in the atmosphere are captured in air bubbles inside. Thus, chemical analysis of the gas bubbles trapped in the ice allows scientists to determine variations in the content of carbon dioxide, lead, copper and sulphate in the Earth's atmosphere over the last 800,000 years. These variations make it possible to infer the degree to which the atmosphere has been polluted by mining, volcanic activity and the industrial activities of the modern era.
In order to understand these variations, scientists have analyzed ice cores that include samples from the last few centuries. In these testimonies, they observed a notable reduction in carbon dioxide in the atmosphere of the Americas during the 16th century. This variation has been attributed to the extinction of approximately 56 million indigenous people as a result of the occupation of the Americas by European colonizers. The genocide is not exclusively due to the battles between the indigenous people and the colonizers, but mainly to the transmission of infectious diseases such as smallpox and measles to Indians with no natural defenses against these diseases.
The decimation of the indigenous people would have led to an abrupt reduction in the degree of cultivation of the lands they inhabited, which would then be re-occupied by forests, increasing the consumption of free carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.
Interesting, isn't it? But what about the pandemic? Would the reduction in CO2 emissions from industrial activity and vehicles due to the pandemic also be recorded in the ice sheets at the poles? Scientists say no, because this reduction has been relatively small compared to the large production of carbon dioxide by human activity. What a shame!
To find out more about this subject, please see:
https://www.bas.ac.uk/data/our-data/publication/reconciling-ice-core-co2-and-land-use-change-following-new/
Translated with DeepL.com (free version)
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