Agricultural Methods Of Early Civilizations May Have Altered Global Climate

[Liffrea]

Massive burning of forests for agriculture thousands of years ago may have increased atmospheric carbon dioxide enough to alter global climate and usher in a warming trend that continues today, according to a new study that appears online Aug. 17 in the journal Quaternary Science Reviews.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/08/090817073502.htm

[Lulletje Rozewater]

Massive burning of forests for agriculture thousands of years ago may have increased atmospheric carbon dioxide enough to alter global climate and usher in a warming trend that continues today, according to a new study that appears online Aug. 17 in the journal Quaternary Science Reviews.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/08/090817073502.htm

Interesting but a bit far fetched.
In Africa rural people only use so much land as they can control.They burn the same patch year after year(compost ash)
In the early days there were not many people around and agriculture is by groups of people of the same tribe(or house hold)
There is more chance in an increase of carbon dioxide by forest fires and the like than by a bunch of bush hopping ancestors who by chance let a fire go out of control.
Further more these ancestors were hunters too and they had enough brains not to frighten the prey into a mass immigration.

[SwordoftheVistula]

Massive burning of forests for agriculture thousands of years ago may have increased atmospheric carbon dioxide enough to alter global climate and usher in a warming trend that continues today, according to a new study that appears online Aug. 17 in the journal Quaternary Science Reviews.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2009/08/090817073502.htm

Then why has the temperature fluctuated in such large amounts, including the 'Little Ice Age', since agriculture was developed?

[Liffrea]

I think temperature variation is just part of the natural cycle of the earth, it has occurred long before man first farmed and doubtless long before man even existed, I’m not suggesting that man hasn’t contributed to global warming, but I’m yet to be convinced that the current phase of global warming is predominantly a man made phenomenon.

[Cato]

Yawn.

I've heard similar claims made about the Romans.