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It's worth noting there is also evidence that the Australian aborigines changed the climate, making Australia drier, with their hunting practice of burning fore

It's worth noting there is also evidence that the Australian aborigines changed the climate, making Australia drier, with their hunting practice of burning forest: https://theconversation.com/how-aboriginal-burning-changed-australias-climate-4454 https://theconversation.com/how-aboriginal-burning-changed-a...

defrost 2y ago
Strictly speaking there's no evidence just suggestion and opinion. Associate Professor Karl-Heinz Wyrwoll has littered his article with qualifiers: * During the last few decades, human-induced climate change has been a pervasive theme in the scientific literature. * Ruddiman’s research, while not without its critics, suggests that these resultant climatic changes ... * This is the idea that early agriculturalists caused an anomalous reversal ... * He showed that vegetation clearing, overgrazing and burning may have had an impact ... * Tom Lyons’ “bunny fence” experiments have drawn attention to likely climate impacts and feedbacks ... etc. I'm neither agreeing nor disagreeing with the notions put forward, just highlighting that the article is not as you paraphrased it.
- chownie 2y ago
  No, that is what constitutes the word evidence, I think you've mistaken the meaning of proof for the meaning of evidence. There is evidence that aborigines affected the climate, but there is not proof.
lmpdev 2y ago
I’m not aware of it changing our climate but it’s an essential process even today We back burn areas most likely to cause uncontrollable bushfires in the future Most of the continent requires fire, with the notable exception of Tassie and some rainforests scattered throughout the mainland
- Jedd 2y ago
  I think the suggestion is that the flora ~80,000 ya did not need fire so much as it does today, and that the change in fire requirement was a result of broad-scale, regular, frequent, intentionally lit fires. Adaptation and species selection has resulted in what we have now -- as distinct from finding ourselves in a land that happens to need regular burning. Contrast us with comparable latitudes (15-35 from the equator) on other landmasses.
  - noelwelsh 2y ago
    Agreed. That is also my understanding as well. In Brazil, transpiration from the Amazon rainforest produces more water vapour than the amount of water transported by the Amazon river. This is known as an atmospheric river (e.g. [1]) and is now seen as critical to the Brazilian climate. I think the theory is that wide spread burning in Australia destroyed the atmospheric river there, which led to a much drier continent than existed before humans arrived. [1]: https://www.noaa.gov/stories/what-are-atmospheric-rivers https://www.noaa.gov/stories/what-are-atmospheric-rivers
  - helpfulContrib 2y ago
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defrost 2y ago

Strictly speaking there's no evidence just suggestion and opinion. Associate Professor Karl-Heinz Wyrwoll has littered his article with qualifiers: * During the last few decades, human-induced climate change has been a pervasive theme in the scientific literature. * Ruddiman’s research, while not without its critics, suggests that these resultant climatic changes ... * This is the idea that early agriculturalists caused an anomalous reversal ... * He showed that vegetation clearing, overgrazing and burning may have had an impact ... * Tom Lyons’ “bunny fence” experiments have drawn attention to likely climate impacts and feedbacks ... etc. I'm neither agreeing nor disagreeing with the notions put forward, just highlighting that the article is not as you paraphrased it.

chownie 2y ago
No, that is what constitutes the word evidence, I think you've mistaken the meaning of proof for the meaning of evidence. There is evidence that aborigines affected the climate, but there is not proof.

lmpdev 2y ago

I’m not aware of it changing our climate but it’s an essential process even today We back burn areas most likely to cause uncontrollable bushfires in the future Most of the continent requires fire, with the notable exception of Tassie and some rainforests scattered throughout the mainland

Jedd 2y ago
I think the suggestion is that the flora ~80,000 ya did not need fire so much as it does today, and that the change in fire requirement was a result of broad-scale, regular, frequent, intentionally lit fires. Adaptation and species selection has resulted in what we have now -- as distinct from finding ourselves in a land that happens to need regular burning. Contrast us with comparable latitudes (15-35 from the equator) on other landmasses.
- noelwelsh 2y ago
  Agreed. That is also my understanding as well. In Brazil, transpiration from the Amazon rainforest produces more water vapour than the amount of water transported by the Amazon river. This is known as an atmospheric river (e.g. [1]) and is now seen as critical to the Brazilian climate. I think the theory is that wide spread burning in Australia destroyed the atmospheric river there, which led to a much drier continent than existed before humans arrived. [1]: https://www.noaa.gov/stories/what-are-atmospheric-rivers https://www.noaa.gov/stories/what-are-atmospheric-rivers
- helpfulContrib 2y ago
  [dead]