The World in 2030

112 The World in 2030
Petroleum’ 222 he presents evidence from fossil records and
ice/soil core samples that unnatural global warming began
12,000 years ago when Man first started growing crops and
husbanding animals – the agricultural revolution.
Trees felled to make way for agriculture could no longer
absorb CO 2
from the atmosphere and as landscapes were
burned to create crop growing areas, more carbon dioxide
was released. Then, as soil was turned over for planting and
rice paddies were flooded, methane gas – a powerful climatic
warming gas – was also released into the atmosphere. Growing
herds of husbanded animals bred for food and clothing also
contributed by releasing methane gas produced by their
own diets.
Of course, 12,000 years ago the number of humans on
the planet was still very small – a few million at most –
and the unnatural warming effect of their activities on the
atmosphere was very slight indeed. But Professor Ruddiman
and his colleagues were able to measure those subtle changes,
changes that contradicted the expected cyclical change to
which our planet’s atmosphere is subject. So sensitive is
our climate – and so accurate are the fossil records – that
Ruddiman’s team was also able to specifically plot the
reduction in the output of man-made CO 2
and methane
during the periods when plagues swept through Europe and
Asia reducing human activity by as much as 50 per cent for
a period of years. VII
VII
William Ruddiman pointedly states in the introduction to his book that he has received no funding
from any individual, body or organisation which has an interest in proving the case about climate
change either way.