re: CNN: White People caused climate change by killing Native Americans

OP, you read it wrong. They're saying genocide of Native Americans caused cooling due to lower CO2 levels as a result of reforestation.

The study is nothing new. We know that the decline of indigenous populations led to more forests (and thus less C02 in the atmosphere). It also led to population booms in animals like bison and carrier pigeons due to lack of predatory competition. The decline of indigenous civilization happened rapidly long before large numbers of Europeans arrived. The introduction of communicable diseases obviously being the largest factor.

The story is sad no doubt. Indigenous civilizations were far bigger and more sophisticated than we realized. They modified the natural environment and once most had died off, the land was overtaken by forests. The article and fails to mention the agro-forestry practiced that also contributed to heavy forestation (it wasn't all due to the white man killing them off...)

The lesson from the article that does hold true is how C02 levels impact the climate. I know we've got a lot of deniers here but the science supporting C02 levels impacting warming/cooling is very real. A hack article about Indian genocide isn't the way to deliver this message though.