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posted by mrpg on Tuesday June 19 2018, @03:10AM   Printer-friendly
from the always-blame-the-last-guy dept.

Agricultural activity by humans more than 2,000 years ago had a more significant and lasting impact on the environment than previously thought. The finding -- discovered by a team of international researchers led by the University of British Columbia -- is reported in a new study published today in the journal Science Advances.

The researchers found that an increase in deforestation and agricultural activity during the Bronze Age in Ireland reached a tipping point that affected Earth's nitrogen cycle -- the process that keeps nitrogen, a critical element necessary for life, circulating between the atmosphere, land and oceans.

"Scientists are increasingly recognizing that humans have always impacted their ecosystems, but finding early evidence of significant and lasting changes is rare," said Eric Guiry, the study's lead author and a postdoctoral research fellow in UBC's department of anthropology. "By looking at when and how ancient societies began to change soil nutrients at a molecular level, we now have a deeper understanding of the turning point at which humans first began to cause environmental change."


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  • (Score: 2) by bzipitidoo on Tuesday June 19 2018, @04:29AM (2 children)

    by bzipitidoo (4388) on Tuesday June 19 2018, @04:29AM (#694838) Journal

    Yes, it does make sense. But there are a lot of people who cling to the convenient notion that the world is so much bigger than a person that not even a large group of people can leave a lasting mark. If that thinking was correct, it wouldn't matter what everyone did to the environment, and not heeding it is one less thing to worry about in a world full of all kinds of scary things to worry about, such as enemy tribes and nations, large ferocious carnivores, poisonous snakes, locust swarms, droughts, storms, floods, volcanoes, blizzards, contagious diseases, and if all those natural things weren't enough, there's also evil spirits, angry gods, terra incognita, and, well, unknown unknowns.

    It may have been true long ago, maybe in Stone Age times, that there weren't enough people with enough power to matter. It sure isn't true today. We cannot ever again have ourselves a total war, no holds barred. Not with nuclear bombs in the arsenal.

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  • (Score: 5, Funny) by c0lo on Tuesday June 19 2018, @04:56AM (1 child)

    by c0lo (156) Subscriber Badge on Tuesday June 19 2018, @04:56AM (#694845) Journal

    We cannot ever again have ourselves a total war, no holds barred. Not with nuclear bombs in the arsenal.

    But of course we can! Once!

    (large grin)

    --
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
    • (Score: 2) by Freeman on Tuesday June 19 2018, @05:50PM

      by Freeman (732) on Tuesday June 19 2018, @05:50PM (#695160) Journal

      "Jeff Dunham: Can you stop a speeding bullet? Melvin: [pauses] Once. [audience laughs] Shut up! It hurts like hell!" https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Jeff_Dunham [wikiquote.org]

      --
      Joshua 1:9 "Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee"