Land use and population change in the early post-contact Americas
A recent article published in Quaternary Science Reviews offers an updated view on the effect of indigenous depopulation in the Americas on the global climate. Reviewing 119 regional studies, it points a decline in atmospheric carbon of 3.5 ppm due to the regrowth of secondary forests in areas previously used for agriculture that were abandoned after indigenous populations shrank. The authors point to this event as one of the earliest anthropogenic climate interventions. Read the full text here.