Global Warming is Obviously Real...

[Aubs]

Originally Posted by deserth3

Here's some info I found written by early White Settlers in the US. The link is;
http://www.lib.duke.edu/forest/Resea.../AmIndian.html

The Nature of American Forests at Contact

Early explorers commonly wrote of the large areas of open, park-like forests and grasslands both east and west of the Appalachians, and of the frequency of Native American burning.

In 1528, Alvar Nunez Cabenza de Vaca noted that in the area that is now Texas:

"The Indians of the interior...go with brands in the hand firing the plains and forests within their reach, that the mosquitos my fly away, and at the same time to drive out lizards and other things from the earth for them to eat. In this way do they appease their hunger, two ot three times in the year..."

In 1630, Francis Higginson wrote about the country around Salem, Massachussetts, that:

"there is much ground cleared by the Indians, and especially about (their agricultural fields); and I am told that about three miles from us a man may stand on a little hilly place and see thousands of acres of ground as good as need be, and not a Tree on the same."

In 1637, Thomas Morton wrote that the Indians:

"are accustomed to set fire of the Country in all places where they come, and to burne it twize, in the year, vis: as the Spring and fall of the leafe....so that hee that will looke to find large trees and good tymber...(will not) finde them on upland ground; but must seeke for them...in the lower grounds, where the grounds are wett."

Roger Williams wrote that:

"this burning of the Wood to them they count a Benefit, both for destroying of vermin, and keeping downe the Weeds and thickets."

In surveying the boundary between the states of North Carolina and Georgia in 1811, Andrew Ellicott wrote that:

"the greatest inconvenience we experienced arose from the smoke occasioned by the annual custom of the Indians in burning the woods. Those fires scattered over a vast extent of country made a beautiful and brilliant appearance at night; particularly when ascending the sides of the mountains."

John Smith commented that in the forests around Jamestown in Virginia:

"a man may gallop a horse amongst these woods any waie, but where the creekes and Rivers shall hinder."

Andrew White, on an expedition along the Potomac in 1633, observed that the forest was:

"not choked with an undergrowth of brambles and bushes, but as if laid out in by hand in a manner so open, that you might freely drive a four horse chariot in the midst of the trees."

There is much more tree cover today in New England today then there was during the late 1700's-early 1800's. Actually this helps increase temperatures... Snow sits less evenly in the winter, and albedo is not increased as much as snow falling on flat ground. I think Mass. is now 75% forested, up from something like 35% 100 years ago.

If you are insinuating that CO2 has always been released, this is true. The difference is today CO2 is released from deposits that are not naturally returned to where they were deposited 70MYA. Whereas burning vegetation, when it grows back, the CO2 is recaptured.

For the record, I am not a believer that we are to blame to the apparent rise in global temperature. We may be exacerbating things, but I doubt we're doing this all alone.