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Genghis Kahn – the climate change hero!
Genghis Khan was a terrifying warrior! He brought his armies out of Mongolia and
waged war throughout Asia, the Middle East and Europe. He was a bloodthirsty Mongol tyrant, with a huge empire.
His armies were said to have killed around 40 million people.
(40,000,000).
The Mongol empire covered about 22% of the Earth’s surface.
And yet, he might have been a great eco-warrior at the same time!
“How?” you might ask. He destroyed many civilisations
during the 13th and 14th centuries. If a city refused to surrender to Genghis
Khan’s armies, then all of its people would be killed, which meant that
farmland wasn't ploughed and seeded with crops.
Well, the deaths of so many people meant that these large areas of farm land were simply left
to go back to nature. They grew thick with forests, which, of course, take
carbon from the atmosphere.
US ecologists think that around 700 million tons of carbon,
(700,000,000), were taken from the air during the time of the Mongol
Empire (150 years). This is about the same as the amount of carbon we put into the
atmosphere from the use of petrol every year!
This is probably the first ever example of man-made human cooling!
We all think that people have only started to change the climate when we began burning coal
and oil in industry. Actually, we have been having an influence on the environment for
thousands of years, by changing the vegetation cover, such as forests,
to grow our crops.
Perhaps we should look more carefully at historical events and
consider how they had an effect on the natural environment at the
time?
We can also learn from this and make better land-use decisions in the
future that might help the planet to recover from the damage we do to
Look up Genghis Khan and read about his empire. Where is Mongolia? What is it like today?
Find out what you can about climate change.
© Durham Badger Group 2011
Acknowledgement: Daily Mail 26/01/11
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